pathway: Human Geography Alumni

This project explores temporary interventions in urban spaces with a focus on ephemeral bodily and sensory intensities, as understood through an affective and non-representational approach. I have three case studies to explore over the next couple of years. They are: an institutional endeavour to intervene with playful technological experiments (Bristol’s Playable City), my own participatory interventions (chalk art drawing events), and a more short-lived, ineffable experiment which will emphasise sensory encounters. This research will contribute to the growing field of literature on temporary interventions, geographical work on the body, sensuous geographies, and discussions about the use of creative methods in geography

I am a poststructuralist geographer interested in how subject experiences and responses can resonate through different practices and performances. My research has involved undertaking qualitative data collection (narrative interviews and participant observation) in Christchurch, New Zealand where the region has experienced multiple earthquakes. I am focusing particularly on how those of older generation make sense of, cope and persist in the face of continuing adversity. I am interested in the types of practices which emerge and how this contributes to understandings of subjects and places as continuously becoming.

I am currently on the first year of an ESRC 1+3 pathway, so at the present I am studying for an MSc in Society & Space before moving onto PhD research next year. My research interests centre around theorizing music (and sound more generally) as flowing matter; as a vibrational force that unhinges potential reactions, actions and movements in the ephemerality of the moment of its encounter. Through the deployment of contemporary theories of affect and materiality, I hope to examine music as a force that moulds bodies and spaces, providing singular experiences for the listening body that are forever beyond the limits of representation, which in turn has profound resonances for how we think of subjectivity.

UK food poverty has reached unprecedented levels, and faith groups are playing a crucial role in responding to it.  How are people motivated by their faith to respond to food poverty, and how do they persist in volunteering?  This is important to understand if projects relying upon volunteers are to be sustainable.  I explore volunteers’ motivations and persistence in action through affective geographies within non-representational theories.  From Spinoza, an affect operates between bodies and is about the power of a body to act, whilst an affection is about the state of a body and the impact of an affect upon a body.  This research’s focus on faith-based social action contributes to two key themes in the geography of religion: understanding faith as performed in people’s lives, and questioning the role of faith in society.  Using action research and participatory methodologies, over twenty months I established and ran a MakeLunch project in a church.  MakeLunch is a national Christian charity whose projects respond to children’s holiday hunger by providing free lunches.  It is through my own and volunteers’ narratives that I explore how faith motivates action, and how we persisted in volunteering.

I conclude that volunteers’ faith was significant in motivating volunteering, but motivations must be continually re-ignited to avoid in-action.  Three contributions follow.  First, through affect theory, research can go beyond understanding faith as a social construct by highlighting how by virtue of their faith, volunteering can hold more meaning than what is represented in action.  Secondly, from the conceptual emphasis on affection, nuances of reflecting can be discerned and the role of will challenged because volunteers are changed by affections, which in turn affects their future actions.  Thirdly, the combination of affect and affection portrays how there is a continual cycle of motivation, action and reflection in volunteers’ persistence.

My research examines the extent to which the concept of class can provide a theoretical framework to interpret how the individual backgrounds of asylum seekers, such as their education or occupation in their country of origin, may account for discrepancies in procedural outcomes. It is well documented that in the UK some asylum seekers get much quicker and more accurate initial decisions than others, for reasons that go beyond whether they are making a genuine claim. I am interested in exploring how class identity is constructed through perceptions of social value, and how these values may influence the decision-making process.

My PhD is exploring forms of estrangement and structural violence in immigration detention centres. I am especially interested in the ways in which different forms of power interact within spaces of detention and how visual approaches to research allow abstract and theoretical ideas to be communicated. It is funded through the ESRC.