Historical & Cultural Geography research cluster

Research projects

Read about our many Research projects.

Aims and objectives

In this research cluster our main interests lie in culture and in demography. Culture is important to geographers because, in studying diversity and connections, issues of meaning, communication and interpretation are paramount. Demography is important to geographers because population is the material substance of society. Our focus is on:

questions of power, knowledge and identity with an emphasis on diversity and connections in relation to the inequalities and spatial reach of imperialism,
the power relations involved in networks of knowledge,
the geographical imaginations at the heart of national identities
the spatial patterning of sickness and mortality
the ideological settings of health and population policies
the social, legal and cultural embeddedness of family systems.

Culture and demography, meaning and materiality, complement each other since imperialism and colonialism are both issues about power and form the drivers behind global migrations of peoples, diseases, family systems and ideologies that have shaped societies across the globe.

The cluster includes the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.

Academic staff

Research students

The cluster also includes an active group of PhD students.

Research staff

Dr David Beckingham
Dr Chris Briggs
Ms Ros Davies
Dr Nancy Duncan
Dr Amy Erickson
Dr Eilidh Garrett
Peter Kitson
Markus Küpker
Janine Maegraith
Gill Newton
Dr Alice Reid
Dr Max Satchell
Roger Schofield (Honorary Senior Research Associate)
Dr Leigh Shaw-Taylor
Dr Mikolaj Szoltysek
Tony Wrigley (Honorary Senior Research Associate)

Research projects

The cluster also undertakes a variety of collaborative research projects with persons and groups both inside and outside Cambridge. Information on these projects will be online shortly.