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Department of Geography
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Geographies of Life

The boundaries of life and non-life, and human and non-human life, are at stake across a range of contemporary scientific, social, economic and political transformations. Examples include responses to the Anthropocene and new ways of governing through nature, how to live with difference in the midst of the eruption of new racisms and gender inequalities, debates about how to foster wellbeing and reduce vulnerabilities, and transformations in medical and healthcare techniques and practices.

The Geographies of Life research cluster works across the breadth of these concerns, examining and theorising how substantive geographies of life, living and liveliness are produced and experienced in ways that create hierarchies and inequalities, harms and potentials. Research moves between the intimacies and endurances of embodied life and the abstractions of in/trans/post-human processes. The cluster explores the spatial and temporal contexts (archaeologies, geologies, histories) of life in ways that go beyond a liberal 'humanistic' account of Life as singular and universal. Here the signifier 'life' connects together expertise of current and newly-arriving academic staff, researchers and postgraduates.

We invite current research, teaching and academic staff, postgraduates, and colleagues elsewhere to propose ideas for collaboration, workshops, and symposia. Our research themes include:

  1. Production and experience of life (and death) in the Anthropocene
  2. Life and the geographies of wellbeing
  3. Life, living and the contemporary politics of difference
  4. Materialities, digitalities and life
  5. Researching, understanding and presenting the geographies and histories of life and living

Cluster Members

Name Position Research Interests
Professor Louise Amoore Professor Geopolitics; technology; geographies of machine learning;  ethico-politics; borders, biometrics and bodies; political geography; philosophy of science
Professor Ben Anderson Professor Theories of affect and emotion; affective politics; neoliberalism and populism; events; futures; non-representational theories
Professor Sarah Atkinson Professor Geographies of health; Medical humanities; Community and collective wellbeing; Everyday spaces of health; Ageing and multimorbidity
Dr Andrew Baldwin Associate Professor Geographies of race and nature, political geography, migration/displacement, climate change, Anthropocene, political economy of adaptation
Dr Sage Brice British  Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Gender and identity, multi-species landscapes, wetlands, Israel-Palestine, creative methods, art-geography, queer ecologies
Professor Gavin Bridge Professor extractive economies; energy transition; natural resources; geographies of energy; political ecologies of resource production and investment; political economy of fossil fuels; global production networks
Professor Harriet Bulkeley Professor Environmental governance; climate change; urban infrastructure; urban sustainability; nature and biodiversity; energy transitions; socio-technical systems; sustainable finance; urban political ecology; governmentality 
Dr Rachel Colls Associate Professor Geographies of 'the body', feminist geographies, theorising difference and embodiment, intimacy, materiality, fatness
Dr Paul Harrison Associate Professor Phenomenology, deconstruction, life-death, non-representational theories, passivity, negativity
Dr Elizabeth Johnson Associate Professor Science and Technology Studies; Political Ecology; More-than-human Geographies; Bioscience & Society; Bioeconomies; Oceanic Geographies; Anthropocene
Dr Meghan Kelly Assistant Professor Feminist mapping, Critical GIS, cartography, feminist digital geographies, visual storytelling, design justice
Dr Jessica Lehman Assistant Professor Science and technology studies; environmental politics; oceans; resource geographies; feminist and queer theory; postcolonial and decolonial geographies; political ecology; climate change
Dr Noam Leshem Associate Professor Political geography; war & violent conflict; displacement; creative practice; political theory; testimony and witnessing; cultural history; settler colonial & decolonial geographies;
Dr Andrés Luque-Ayala Associate Professor Urban geography; infrastructure; computational cities; digital geographies; Latin America; postcolonial and decolonial theory; digital natures; anthropocene;
Dr Lauren Martin Associate Professor Political geography, carceral geographies, political economies of borders and migration control, datafication and digitalisation of mobility controls. 
Professor Cheryl McEwan Professor Postcolonial and decolonial theory; cultural economy; sustainable consumption; political ecology; Anthropocene; South Africa; sub-Saharan Africa; art as social practice
Dr Leonie Newhouse Assistant Professor Displacement, refugees, and migration; humanitarianism and development; conflict, post-conflict and peace building; land; urban theory from the South; Sub-Saharan Africa (East Africa, the Horn, the Sahel)
Dr Marijn Nieuwenhuis Assistant Professor Elemental geographies; creative methods; Chinese geographies; poetics; arts; breathing; weathers; political geographies; phenomenologies
Dr Jeremy Schmidt Associate Professor Water; ethics; energy; resource geographies; Earth system; governance; Anthropocene; settler colonialism;  extractivism; history of ideas
Professor Anna Secor Professor Difference; space; (geo)politics; psychotopologies; Iraqi refugee resettlement to the US; Turkey
Professor Philip Steinberg Professor Political geography; materialities; mobilities; political cultures, visualisations, and imaginaries; sovereignties; extra-state governance; law; borders; oceans; Arctic
Dr Helen F. Wilson Associate Professor Encounter; encounterable life; difference; cities; urban politics; multiculture; avian geographies; conflict management; postcolonial theory; environmental humanities