Reading groups and Workshops

Current reading groups include:

	Third Pole: High Mountain Asia, Culture and the Cryosphere This informal reading group will bring together researchers interested in human geography and environmental relations in the Himalaya and Tibet. The fortnightly sessions will consider readings on high-altitude culture, religion, geopolitics, and human/environmental interactions. We will also examine the challenges and opportunities that applying a ‘Third Pole’ label offers to the communities in the region – and international and nation-state actors.
	Conducting research at a distance The coronavirus pandemic has caused uncertainty and disruption to many research fieldwork plans. This group fosters discussion over the challenges of conducting fieldwork at a distance, and how we can overcome these innovatively as researchers. All in the Department of Geography are welcome to attend, including postgraduates and undergraduates. Joining details for all practical workshops and discussions are circulated during the week of the session.
	Agent-based modelling reading group This group of postgrads and academic staff meets fortnightly during term to discuss modelling of the interaction between human and other environmental systems, using agent-based techniques to represent aspects of human behaviour.
	Geographical Information Science (GISc) Forum GISc is the science that underpins the management, presentation and analysis of many types of spatial (geographical) data. The forum is open to postgraduates, research staff and academic staff and is of particular interest to those whose research involves working with quantitative spatial data and/or GIS (Geographical Information Systems). There are up to 3 sessions termly, with a brief introduction to a topic of interest, followed by open discussion. Topics could be anything from an introduction to an interesting new technique, or summary of a recent paper, to descriptions of recent research results or work planned or in progress.
	Geographies of Health Reading Group The Geographies of Health Reading Group discusses a wide variety of topics within the field of Health and Medical Geography. Starting from one or two articles, the reading group offers the opportunity for an open discussion around a subject suggested by one of the group members.
	Postcolonial governance & Decolonial agendas: Reading Group Departing from a concern with multicultural legislation and the politics of race and ethnicity that have recently had such wide-ranging and differentiated effects across the continent, this reading group hopes to convene a space for the discussion of the ways in which these issues might be analysed, conceptualised, and theorised. Our interests range across the ways that subjects and states interact and mutually constitute each other; the instrumental use of culture and racialisation in policy and practice; and the politics arising in connection with, and in the wake of, multicultural reforms; and the politics of recognition in Latin America.
	Political Ecology Group The Political Ecology Group is interested in all aspects of the symbolic and material politics of socially constructed natures. Its interests span the industrialized and developing world. Some members of the group are active in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.
	Urban Geographies reading group The aim of the group is to foster community and collaboration among graduate, postdoc and academic colleagues with an interest or research focus concerning some aspect of cities, urbanization or urban life. It is not confined to any particular subdiscipline or intellectual approach within geography and all are welcome, including those using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
	Water Reading Group This group meets fortnightly during the term, and involves academic staff and postgraduates from the Geography and Engineering Departments. It meets to discuss literature in physical hydrology, land-water interactions, ecosystem services and water management institutions relevant to current research interests; and to review draft papers, grant proposals, etc.

Previous reading groups

• Humanitarianism reading group
• Intra-departmental human geography discussion group
• Knowledge, Politics and Environmental Governance Reading Group
• Risk, Resilience and Environmental Governance reading group
• Spatial risk and resilience reading group

	The Magic Circle The Magic Circle is a long-running group at the Scott Polar Research Institute for the informal discussion of research in progress on ritual, symbolism and the anthropology of religion worldwide, and its interface with theology, psychology and related disciplines. Participants and speakers include graduate students, senior scholars, and practitioners of religion and psychology.
	Circumpolar History and Public Policy Research in the Circumpolar History and Public Policy Research Group (CHiPP) aims to address issues of contemporary relevance to the polar regions by bringing together historical analysis and public policy debate.