pathway: Human Geography Alumni

Microplastics are particles and fibres of heterogeneous size, shape and chemical composition less than 5mm in diameter found to be ubiquitous across the planet. This anthropogenic pollutant exposes the inextricable entanglements of plastic and human/more-than-human bodies which forces us think through what it would mean to respond and live well in a ‘permanently polluted world’ (Liboiron et al., 2018). My research aims to follow researchers pioneering ways of responding to microplastics to explore the extent to which the production of knowledge about microplastics and how to respond to them also reflects (or not) notions of care and responsibility.

5G technology is the next generation of wireless mobile network, and my PhD research seeks to engage with proponents of 5G technology as well as potential users to provide an insight into how people make sense of, and engage with, this developing technology. The PhD research aims to critically explore some of the major themes bound up with the development of this new technology. These three main themes include: the materiality of the 5G network regarding infrastructural requirements, challenges and concerns; geopolitical and security issues related to the development of the network; as well as the narratives that 5G will be ‘transformative’ by enabling new capabilities, and will act as a foundation for further technological development.

My research seeks to understand how sofa-surfing, other temporary living arrangements and the support available for young people affects their motivation to achieve fruitful and prosperous lives. To complete these aims, I’m using an innovative methodology that combines descriptive statistics with interviews, person-centred photography and the ‘Future Authoring programme’.

I am interested in ‘more-than-human’ research methods in human geography and unpacking the everyday through an affective politics as a form of meaning-making. I am currently studying Society and Space MSc to gain new insights into methodologies and theory before beginning my PhD research. My research shall look at dog training programmes in prisons and why they are so effectively transformative: decreasing reoffending rates dramatically. I shall investigate the genealogy of constituting both the incarcerated human and non-human. Such research will aid the interdisciplinary need to reconfigure hegemonic understandings and materialities of criminality, gender and the more-than-human affective lived experience.

My research explores the legal geographies of immigration law. Using ethnographies of tribunal hearings and interviews with their key actors, I will examine the impact of space and technology on access to justice in immigration bail hearings across sites in the UK and the USA.

My research happens at the intersection of art, philosophy and the social sciences. I explore how the cognitive, ritual and social references that art and poetry generates produce new ‘regimes’ of subjectivity. I am particularly interested in how the non-linguistic, a-signifying and affective qualities of poetry allow for the mapping of new subject capacities, and how these offer new ways of thinking and responding to the ethical and political challenges of the Anthropocene.