Geography, Geology and the Environment

I joined Keele in April 2012 as a Lecturer in Human Geography. My academic background is a little yoyo like. Prior to my current post I was a Lecturer in Human Geography at Plymouth University (2010-2012), and prior to that I was Lecturer in Human Geography (again) at Keele University (2009-2010).

I was also previously based at the University of Bristol where I completed an MSc in Society and Space (with Distinction) (2005-2006) and a PhD in Human Geography (2006-2009), all funded by the ESRC.

My thesis was titled 'Ecologies of Street Performance: Bodies, Affects, Politics'. Finally, it all started at the University of Glasgow where I completed my first degree, an MA in Geography (1st Class) (2001-2005).

My broad research interests relate to the study of the social and cultural geographies of artistic, everyday, and mobile practices and the use of urban public spaces. I am particularly interested in developing understandings of the experiential aspects of this and how the use of space intersects with its planning and design. In doing so, I draw on experimental ethnographic and visual methods and develop insights from post-structural and (post)phenomenological philosophy (particularly through an engagement with the works of Jean-Luc Nancy, Henri Lefebvre, Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl) to engage with debates in geography around affect, materiality, sociality, subjectivity, temporality, relationality, and public space.

Regular updates about my research activities can be found here.

Recently, I have been pursuing these interesting across three projects:

1) 'The Perception of the Cycling Environment: Infrastructures, Atmospheres, and the Experience of Sustainable Cycling' (2011-2012, funded by the RGS-IBG Small Grant at £2889):

Taking Plymouth as a case study, and drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in cycling planning and advocacy, the analysis of recent cycling policy and provision, and video-interviews with cyclists, this research seeks to develop understandings of cycling behaviour in two key ways. Firstly, much of the study of cycling, and particularly that related to the evaluation of policy provision, has been quantitative in nature. As such, this research takes a qualitative approach in studying cycling and the provisions made for it by examining the interrelation of cyclists and the planned environments they move through at an experiential level. Secondly, drawing on recent work related to non-representational theory and discussions of embodied practices, this research expands upon the small amount of existing research which has begun to examine the more general experience of cycling by focusing on the affective elements of this interrelation. As such, the research draws attention to the significance of the various atmospheres (both meteorological and felt) experienced by cyclists in their moving through the planned urban environment to the uptake of this practice.

2) ‘Sensory Enigmas of Contemporary Urban Mobilities’ (2010-2014, funded by L’Agence nationale de la recherché/French National Research Agency at €210,000):

This research seeks to examine the ambiences and atmospheres produced in and through practices of travel in the context of key mobile sites.Taking St Pancras and Gare du Nord as case studies, the project will examine the interrelation of security practices and surveillance, social interactions and embodied performances, and the general spatio-temporal patterning of these sites, and how in combination they produce a specific experience of travel. The project is international and interdisciplinary in scope, bringing together academics from geography, urban studies, architecture and sociology based in the UK, France, Brazil and Venezuela. Further, in addition to traditional academic outputs, the material produced through the project fieldwork will be developed into an artistic exhibition.

3) Spatialities of the subject

Emerging out of aspects of my PhD research, I am working on the development of understandings of the spatial logics inherent in many recent critical discussions of the subject/subjectivity. In addition to a range of paper publications, I plan to develop a book proposal that will entail an engagement with a range of phenomenological work that addresses this topic.This is provisionally titled 'Spacing the Subject: Ambience, Appearance, and the Spatiality of Co-existence' and will discuss the spatial logics inherent in the conceptions of subjectivity presented in the writings of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Marion, and Michel Henry.

I teach on the following modules at Keele:

• GEG-10013: Human Geographies
• ESC-10035: Geographical Skills
• ESC-20049/50: Dynamic Geographies
• GEG-20009: Geographical Research Training
• GEG-20015: Space and Society (Module leader)
• GEG-20018: Concepts and Debates in Geography
• GEG-30006/8: Geography dissertation
• GEG-30014: Inspirational Landscapes
• GEG-30018 Cultural Geographies of the Everyday (Module leader)