Research Clusters / Groups / Centres
Dr Divya P. Tolia-Kelly, PhD, London (2001), BA, Nottingham (1997)
Contact (email at divya.tolia-kelly@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
•University of Durham, Geography 2004-
•Lecturer,Geography 2003/4 (Lancaster)
•Lecturer,Geography 2002/3 (UCL)
•ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellow 2001/2 (UCL)
Divya Tolia-Kelly is the convenor of the 'Lived and Material Cultures' research cluster within the Department of Geography. Dr. Tolia-Kelly is also a member of Durham University College's SCR.
My research has focused on visual cultures, material cultures, landscape and race-memory. In collaborations with artists Melanie Carvalho and Graham Lowe and through ethnographic investigation I have mapped and recovered postcolonial relationships with landscape, nature and citizenship. I have also investigated the role of memory in citizenship narratives and race histories.
An emergent set of research themes are outlined in the section below:
(i) Theorising race-memory: I have explored the value and nature of memory-history; re-memory; and testimony for racialised groups.
(ii) Visual and material cultures beyond representation: In my collaborations with artists I have sought to produce visual archives that contribute to national cultures of Englishness.
(iii) Exploring inclusive environmental histories of Britain: This approach positions 'Englishness' as being rooted in a multinational flows of values, cultures and natures, thus challengeing racial taxonomies and categorisations of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ within ecological and political discourse.
CURRENT RESEARCH
(A) Tales of the Frontier: political representations and practices inspired by Hadrian’s Wall (AHRC Landscape Programme, £244 244)
(B) Nurturing Ecologies/ Maps of the Known World (Lancaster University, £7 600)
The artist Graham Lowe and myself aimed to consider the environmental value and therapeutic role of the Lake District National Park, for migrant communities living in Lancashire and the North-West of England. A set of 40 paintings was produced by Graham to reflect the groups’ environmental values of the region. This touring exhibition is entitled Maps of the Known World.
(C) Transcultural Ecologies of Home (DU Vice Chancellor's fund, £2 500; DU Institute of Advanced Study, £1 500; DU Research Development Fund, £966; The British Academy, £800).
This research commenced on my visits to Alice Springs in 2006, the IGU meeting at Brisbane and subsequent research at the University of Otago, New Zealand in 2007. The focus of this research is to consider the ways in which relations with ecology, nature, landscape and 'home', are experienced in the antipodean context, where the migrant group is the colonial settler; the reverse of my research on the environmental values of post-colonial migrants in the UK landscape.
(D) Liquid Theory/ Transcultural taxonomies of art. In my research I attempt to engage with universal theories of art and material culture and move towards incorporating transcultural vocabularies, grammars and ways of seeing, being and becoming in contemporary theories of art history and museology.
Research Groups
- Centre for the Study of Cities & Regions
- Lived & Material Cultures (LMC)
- Politics - State - Space (PSS)
- Politics - State - Space (PSS)
- Social / Spatial Theory (SST)
Research Projects
Research Interests
- Cultural Geographies of Landscape
- Cultural Geographies of Memory
- Cultural Geographies of Race
- Material Geographies
- Participatory Art
- Postcolonial geographies
- Sensory / Emotional Geographies
- Social and Cultural Archaeologies of Ancient Monuments
- Visual Culture
- Visual Methodologies
Selected Publications
Books: sections
- Cook I. & Tolia-Kelly D.P. 2009. Material Geographies. In Oxford Handbook of Material Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2008. Diasporic Cosmopolitanism. In Race and Racisms. Dwyer, C. and & Bressey, C. London: Ashgate. (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly, Divya P. 2008. Social & Cultural Geography: Hybridity. In The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Rob Kitchin & Nigel Thrift Oxford: Elsevier.
- Tolia-Kelly, Divya P. 2008. Social and Cultural geography: Material Culture. In International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Rob Kitchin & Nigel Thrift Oxford: Elsevier.
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2007. Participatory Art: Capturing Spatial Vocabularies in a Collaborative Visual Methodology with Melanie Carvalho and South Asian Women in London, UK. In Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place. Sara Kindon, Rachel Pain & Mike Kesby New York, London: Routledge.
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2006. A Journey through the Material Geographies of Diaspora Cultures: Four modes of environmental memory. In Histories and Memories: Migrants and their History in Britain. Burrell, K. & Panayi, P.
Journal papers: academic
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. & Witcher, R. Submitted. (In Review) Archaeologies of Landscape: excavating the material geographies of Hadrian’s Wall. Journal of Material Culture (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Nesbitt, C. & Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2009. Hadrian’s Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of the Linear Monument. Journal of Social Archaeology (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2008. Motion/Emotion: Picturing Translocal Landscapes in the Nurturing Ecologies Research Project. Mobilities 3(1): 117-140. (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2007. Fear in paradise: The affective registers of the English Lake District landscape re-visited. Senses and Society 2(3): 329-351. (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2007. Organic cosmopolitanism: challenging cultures of the non-native at the Burnley Millenium Arboretum. Garden History. (Special Issue sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Landscape and Environment Programme) 35(2): 172-184. (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly D.P. 2007. SPILL:Liquid emotion and transcultural art. SPILL Exhibition Catalogue: SASA Gallery
- Tolia-Kelly, D.P. 2006. Affect - an ethnocentric encounter?: Exploring the 'universalist' imperative of emotional/affectual geographies. Area 38(2): 213-217. (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2006. Mobility/stability: British Asian cultures of 'landscape and Englishness'. Environment and Planning A 38(2): 341-358. (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Tolia-Kelly, D. & Morris, A. 2004. Disruptive Aesthetics? Revisiting the Burden of Representation in the Art of Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare. Third Text 18(2): 153-167. (Additional information)
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2004. Landscape, Race and Memory: Biographical Mapping of the Routes of British Asian Landscape Values. Landscape Research 29(3): 277-292. (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2004. Locating processes of identification: studying the precipitates of re-memory through artefacts in the British Asian home. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29(3): 314-329. (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2004. Materializing post-colonial geographies: examining the textural landscapes of migration in the South Asian home. Geoforum 35(6): 675-688. (Additional information) (View publication online)
- Anderson, B. & Tolia-Kelly, D. 2004. Matter(s) in social and cultural geography. Geoforum 35(6): 669-674.
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2001. Cultural Geographies in Practice Intimate Distance: fantasy islands and English lakes. Ecumene 8(1): 112-119.
- Tolia-Kelly, D. 2001. Iconographies of Identity: Visual Cultures of the Everyday in the South Asian Diaspora. Visual Culture in Britain 1(4): 49-67.
Other media: research equivalent
- Divya P. Tolia-Kelly & Dr. Claire Nesbitt. 2009. An Archaeology of Race. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Other publications: research
- Fazakerley, R., Golda, A. & Tolia-Kelly, D. 2007. Sasa Gallery. (Additional information)
Related Links
- 'Maps of the Known World' exhibition Durham 2007-8
- AHRC Landscape and Environment Programme
- Art Exhibition: Nurturing Ecologies/Maps of the Known World
- Art Exhibition: SPILL: SASA Gallery Adelaide, October 2007
- Art Exhibitions: 'Describe a Landscape . . .'
- Connecting People, Participation and Place: Durham, 14-15 January 2008
- Diasporas in Europe
- Geography Compass, on-line journal
- Lived and Material Cultures Research Cluster
- Tales of the Frontier: political representations and practices inspired by Hadrian's Wall
- Visuality/Materiality, Conference, London 2009
Media Contacts
Available for media contact about:
- Museums: British History, Heritage, Art and issues of racial inclusion
- Regional landscape & environment: Multicultural Issues and the English Lake District
Grants Awarded and Grant Applications
- 2008: British Council, (DelPHE) Developing Partnerships in Higher Education application for academic links with partners at Bayero University, Nigeria.
- 2007: Awarded ($2 250) Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, Visiting Scholar stipend
- 2007: Awarded ($4 400) SASA Gallery, Adelaide, Australia, Visiting Scholar in residence
- 2007: Awarded (£1 500) Durham Institute for Advanced Study 'Transcultural Home: timeless ecologies and philosophies'
- 2007: Awarded (£244 244) AHRC Application (with Archaeology) for the Landscape and Environment Programme.
- 2007: Awarded (£3 500) Vice Chancellor's fund as visiting scholar to Otago University, Aotearoa/New Zealand
- 2006: Awarded (£ 800) full travel grant to attend the IGU, Brisbane, Australia
