Staff Profile

Dr Christopher Harker

Contact Dr Christopher Harker (email at christopher.harker@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, Durham University

Ph.D. (Geography), University of British Columbia, Canada

M.A. (Geography), University of British Columbia, Canada

B.Sc. (Hons.) in Geography, University of Bristol

Current Research and Interests

My research spans cultural, political and urban geography, cultural politics and social theory, and at various points has engaged children’s geographies, the art of Jayce Salloum, everyday performances of place in Birzeit, Palestine and the spatiality of family practices.

My current research explores the urban growth of Ramallah, Palestine through various political economies of apartment construction, practices of intimacy and association, and emerging forms of urban politics. I have received funding from The Leverhulme Trust for a project entitled 'Families and Cities: An Everyday Geography of Ramallah'.

If you would like to find out more about this project, please check out my research blog.

This research builds on a pilot project I conducted in Ramallah in summer 2010. This project, funded by the CBRL, was entitled "Moving on up: new geographies of apartment dwelling in Ramallah, Palestine". It sought to understand the socio-cultural effects of post-Oslo apartment growth on the geographies of everyday life in the Ramallah-al Beirah conurbation, through a focus on changing family/neighbour spaces and mobilities.

I am also interested in comparative research that explores urban politics in the contemporary Middle East, something I was able to learn more about while holding a Senior Visiting Research Fellowship at the British Institute, Amman, from January-April 2012.

Research Groups

• Culture-Economy-Life (CEL)
• International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU)
• Politics - State - Space (PSS)
• Social / Spatial Theory (SST)
• Urban Worlds

Selected Publications

Journal papers: academic

• Harker, C. The only way is up? Ordinary topologies of Ramallah. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2013.
• Harker, C. & Martin, L. Guest Editorial. Familial relations: spaces, subjects, and politics. Environment and Planning A. 2012;44:768 – 775.
• Harker, C. Precariousness, precarity and family: notes from Palestine. Environment and Planning A. 2012;44:849-865.
• Harker, C. Geopolitics and family in Palestine. Geoforum. 2011;42:306-315.
• Harker, C. New Geographies of Palestine/Palestinians. The Arab World Geographer. 2010;13:199-216.
• Harker, C. On (not) forgetting families: family spaces and spacings in Birzeit, Palestine. Environment and Planning A. 2010;42:2624–2639.
• Harker, C. Spacing Palestine through the home. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 2009;34:320-332.
• Harker, C. Student Im/mobility in Birzeit, Palestine. Mobilities. 2009;4:11-35.
• Harker, C. A Close and Unbreachable distance: Witnessing Everything and Nothing. ACME - An International E-Journal for Critical Geographers. 2007;6:51-72.
• Harker, C. Playing and Affective Time-Spaces. Children's Geographies. 2005;3:47-62.

Edited essays

• Harker, C Book Review Symposium - Geraldine Pratt’s ‘Families Apart: Migrant Mothers and the Conflicts of Labor and Love’. AntipodeFoundation.org: 2013.

Edited works: journals

• Harker, C. & Martin, L. Theme issue: Familial relations: spaces, subjects, and politics. Environment and Planning A, 44 (4): Pion; 2012.

Other publications: research

• Harker, C. How useful is neoliberalism for understanding cities in the Middle East?. Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant. 2012;7:80-82.
• Harker, C. Moving on Up: New Geographies of Apartment Dwelling in Ramallah, Palestine (in: The Origins, Development and Practice of Economic and Social Strategies in the Middle East from Earliest Times to the Modern Day). Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant. 2011;6:50-51.

Show all publications

Grants Awarded

• 2012: The City and the Family: An everyday Geography of Ramallah (£86720.00 from The Leverhulme Trust)
• 2012: Urban life beyond neoliberalism in Amman (£3000.00 from CBRL)
• 2010: Moving on up: new geographies of apartment (£4900.00 from CBRL)

Supervises

• Miss Semra Akay