Staff

Mr Ronan O'Donnell

(email at r.p.o'donnell@durham.ac.uk)

Research Topic

Landscape, memory and enclosure: transformations in the rural landscape of north-east England.

Abstract

My research takes a non-representational (specifically actor-network) approach to the reordering of the social, legal and material landscape associated with Parliamentary Enclosure in Northumberland.  The project primarily utilises estate, tithe, enclosure and early edition Ordnance survey maps to follow trajectories of landscape change across this period.  Alongside these I use pictorial sources and contemporary accounts to identify the proponents of enclosure and their motives, and to explore how ‘improvement’ was assembled and implemented across a range of domains and negotiated by local populations.

Is supervised by

• Dr Sarah Semple
• Professor Chris Gerrard