Committee
Gail Davies (Chair)
Gail has research interests in the spatial, institutional and embodied aspects of knowledge practices, particularly the relationship between scientific, policy and popular knowledges. Much of this work has focused on animals, as a way of linking diverse empirical contexts, from natural history filmmaking to genetically modified animals, to broader questions about the changing relations between nature, space, ethics and expertise. For more, see Gail’s website at University College London.
Russell Hitchings (Secretary)
Russell uses qualitative methods to examine how different social groups relate to the natural environment within cities. His doctorate explored the benefits derived from domestic gardens in London. He subsequently studied how indoor city office workers relate to the outdoors within their working lives. Most recently, he has examined how groups of older people, with various degrees of wealth, pass through the UK winter as part of a developing interest in the seasonality of human experience. For more, see Russell’s website at University College London.
Louise Holt (Treasurer)
Louise’s research interests focus upon socio-spatial processes of exclusion, inclusion, embodiment, and social capital, with an empirical emphasis on children, young people and families, disability, and gentrification and urban change. For more see Louise’s website at the University of Reading.
Ben Anderson
Ben’s research interests include spaces of hope and boredom, utopianism and theories of matter and materiality. He is currently working on the politics of affect, particularly in relation to the affects of war and security, and the use of anticipatory logics and techniques to govern futures. For more please see his website at the Department of Geography, Durham University.
Chris Bear (Membership Secretary)
Chris specialises in animal geographies, particularly in relation to recreational angling and commercial fisheries. He will begin a new ESRC-funded project in 2010, working with Lewis Holloway (Hull University), which looks at the human-animal-technology relationships of robotic milking. For more, see Chris’s website at Aberystwyth University.
Kate Boyer
Kate’s interests centre on the relationships between place, power and identity, with a particular focus on issues relating to gender, work and the body. Her current research focuses on issues related to breastfeeding as social practice, especially breastmilk donation and bio-mobilities, public breastfeeding and urban subjectivity and integrating lactation with wage work. For more please see her website at the School of Geography, University of Southampton.
David Crouch
David’s research and writing crosses a number of fields of cultural geography, connected through an attention to life and space, and includes landscape, everyday life and its tourism, community involvement and the work of artists. This work includes an interest in gentle politics, cultural identity and human expression. David is also an exhibiting artist. For more, see David’s personal website.
Harriet Hawkins
Shannon Hensley
Shannon’s research interests include social theories of embodiment, performance, identity and inequality. Her PhD research examined the performance and embodiment of identity and inequality through rumba music in Cuba. This work used dance research as a productive entry point for investigating discourses and lived experiences of race, gender and inequality in contemporary Cuba. For more see Shannon’s webpage at the University of Exeter.
Jo Norcup (Education co-ordinator)
Jo is interested in a wide range of educational practices and histories. As well as teaching and consulting, she is currently researching dissenting and DIY geography education initiatives in the journal series Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education (1983 – 1991). This research investigates the geographies of inclusion and exclusion in the making and performing of formal geographical education, and considers how such initiatives may prove insightful in current debates concerning contemporary issues in geography and education. For more information, see Jo’s website at the University of Glasgow.
Emma Roe (Dissertation Prize co-ordinator)
Emma is interested in embodied practices, theories of matter and materiality and human – non-human relationships. She has a long-standing empirical interest in agro-food studies, most recently in the area of farm animal welfare in Europe and China. Currently, she is developing empirical interests in the cultural geographies of health. For more, see Emma’s website at the University of Southampton.
Amanda Rogers
Amanda is currently conducting research on ‘Geographies of Transnational Theatrical Creativity.’ She is a social and cultural geographer whose interests lie in critical theory on identity, race, and difference, particularly regarding East Asian identities; transnational, diasporic, and creative communities; and interdisciplinary perspectives on the theory and practice of performance. For more, see Amanda’s website at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Alex Tan (Postgraduate Representative)
Alex’s current research is with young British Chinese people in Newcastle. He is investigating the experiences of being young and growing up informed by various cultural positions. Previous research interests have included disability, the home and the experiences of international students at university. He is interested in social and cultural theories, ideas around the postmodern, post colonialism and practices of being. For more information, see Alex’s project website or email him at the University of Newcastle.
