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Geographies of Knowledge

Research in this group studies how knowledge about the world is made, contested, authorized and used with particular regard to situated historical, cultural and political processes. The group seeks to understand and explain the spatially differentiated ways in which different knowledge claims emerge, become institutionalised and travel; and how they are then transformed, vernacularized and disputed by diverse actors and challenged by other ontologies. We are particularly interested in how different knowledges – for example lay, scientific, western, non-western – gain ascendancy and enter into policy processes, especially in relation to topics such as (currently) poverty alleviation, reducing climatic risks, resource allocation and sustainability or balancing national budgets.

We undertake this work at a variety of multiscale sites across the global North and South, embracing plural ontologies and diverse epistemic practices such as narrative, observation, modelling, elicitation and deliberation. Research in the group draws on approaches from science and technology studies, geographies of science, poststructuralism (esp. postcolonial/decolonial traditions), historical geography and critical political economy and we have expertise particularly in fields of development, climate change, polar politics, scientific advice and the politics of expertise.

Our work aims to contribute to more inclusive knowledge production, democratic decision-making and active citizenship and it engages with contemporary debates about the changing roles of expertise in the public sphere and in pedagogy.

Themes

Environmental knowledges

Environmental knowledges

Our work in this sub-theme examines the politics of environmental knowledges, with particular thematic foci on climate change, biodiversity and volcanic risks. We study how diverse expertise – for example, lay, scientific, western, non-western – is mobilised in global environmental assessments, environmental controversies, risk management protocols and advisory processes. This sub-theme lies at the interface between the human and physical geographies of environmental risk.

Arctic knowledges

Polar knowledges

Research in this sub-theme is concerned with knowledge construction in and of the polar regions, with regards to ethnographies of science, histories of geographical thought, indigenous cosmologies and ontologies, polar geopolitics, cryopolitics, and regional governance. A key interest is to problematize what is understood, framed and articulated as “the Arctic” and “the Antarctic” in public, political, and scientific discourses. Many projects in this sub-theme are associated with the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Knowledges for development

Knowledges for development

Group members in this sub-theme are interested in understanding the political, cultural, institutional and post/de-colonial geographies of (international) development knowledges and practices. This research recognises the pluralising landscape of global development politics and how different knowledges – for example, lay, scientific, western, non-western – gain authority in this landscape. Main areas of research include the (re-)emergence of South-South cooperation, transition of the so-called ‘traditional’ donors, financialisation and private sector-led development, and the role of civil society.

Group members

Professor Michael Bravo Indigenous ontologies, geographies of mobility, cultures of navigation; Narratives of the Arctic
Dr Alexander Cullen Research description to follow.
Professor Amy Donovan Cultures of risk; science, knowledges and politics in hazardous environments; dynamics of transborder risk
Dr Evelina Gambino Research description to follow.
Professor Sarah Hall Public economic geographer whose work focuses on the uneven impacts of profound economic change including Brexit, the changing economic position of China internationally and the rise of finance led capitalism.
Professor Mike Hulme Cultures of climate — knowledges, representations and politics
Dr Cynthia Kamwengo Research description to follow.
Dr Ilona Kater Research description to follow.
Professor Emma Mawdsley Global development politics; South-South Cooperation; India
Professor Clive Oppenheimer Volcanic risk management and the human ecology of volcanic regions.
Professor Susan Owens Environmental governance: policy processes; knowledge and policy learning; environmental planning
Professor Richard Powell Cultural and political geographies of science and knowledges; Circumpolar Arctic
Dr Liam Saddington Research description to follow.
Dr Ayesha Siddiqi Hazard-based disasters and their intersection with politics, security and development in the Global South.
Professor Tom Spencer Hydrodynamics, sediment dynamics, ecological processes and human interactions in coastal ecosystems

Graduate students

The following graduate students are also associated with the group:

Emiliano Cabrera Rocha Genomic Utopia in the Jungle: Indigenous Knowledge, Instruments, and Infrastructure in the Remaking of the Amazon
Emilie Canova The Arctic and EUrope: two overlapping geopolitical regions 
Bronte Evans Rayward Animal Atmospheres and Scientific Practice on Bird Island
Madeleine Hahne Building Zion in the Anthropocene The Complex Ways Religion and Geography Inform Climate Belief
Friederike Hartz Making the future possible? The IPCC, its philosophy and responsibilities in climate science and policy
Ellen Kujawa
Co-convenor
Identifying data gaps and understanding policy in transboundary natural hazard management
Stephen Lezak The new ‘Last Frontier’: Extraction and Adaptation in Rural Alaska
Matipa Mukondiwa The Pursuit of Knowledge: coloniality and decoloniality in Zimbabwean Secondary Schools
Alice Oates Instruments of scientific governance? Historical geographies of Halley Bay, 1956-present
Graham Sadler Remote monitoring of Arctic pollution from oil spills
Carolyn Smith Volcanic Imaginaries: Between Indigeneity and Risk Across the Chile-Argentina Border
Benjamin Thurlow From ‘zero-tolerance’ to ‘living with the virus’: Geographies of containment in the elite political discourse of COVID-19 in New Zealand
Naï Zakharia Gender and histories of Arctic field science, 1900-1950

Publications

Recent publications by group members are listed.

Seminars

There are no seminars scheduled at present, but you can view the archive of previous seminars.