RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

#RGSmidterm @RGSmidterm2016

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Edited by

Wilbert den Hoed

Special thanks to

Matthew Scott Maddy Thompson Anoop Nayak Isabel Williams

Sponsored by

Department of Geography, Newcastle University HaSS – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Alumni Association Student Initiative Fund (NCL+) PG Fund Geography

Research Groups CURDS – Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/curds/) CLACS – Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/clacs/) GoSC – Geographies of Social Change PSP – Power, Space, Politics New Economic Geographies

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

List of Contents Welcome and Organising Committee

p.4

How to find us?

p.7

Conference Dinner

p.12

Programme Schedule

p.13

Keynote Speakers

p.15

Workshops

p.17

Session Blocks and Abstracts

p.19

Block I

p.20

Poster Session

p.36

Block II

p.41

Block III

p.56

Block IV

p.71

Block V

p.83

Block VI

p.95

Delegate Details

p.108

Notes

p.112

Get involved with the Postgraduate Forum...

p.114

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Welcome The organising committee of the RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-term Conference 2016 kindly welcomes you to Newcastle and to our conference. We think this event is a great opportunity for PhD students to present their research and to discuss ideas with their fellow postgraduates in a friendly and relaxed environment. This conference is also a social event and provides an excellent opportunity to network with postgraduate geographers from all corners of the discipline. We would like to thank Newcastle University’s Geography Department for their support, as well as our sponsors mentioned above. Within the Department, we would specifically like to thank Anoop Nayak and Peter Hopkins for their continued help in the organization and not the least for the keynotes they will give. Another special welcome for our third keynote speaker Erin McClymont and workshop organisers Robin Humphrey, Nina Laurie and Cheryl McEwan. Most of all we would like to thank you for your efforts to attend this conference. The number and quality of your abstracts pleasantly surprised us. They cover a wide range of geographical topics, and we are sure they result in great presentations and stimulating discussions. When it’s time to give the brain a little rest, we hope to meet you on our social events as well. Have a great conference!

Wilbert, Sonja, Graham, Matthew, and Maddy

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Organising Committee WILBERT DEN HOED [email protected] @wilbert_dh

Wilbert is a second year PhD student in Newcastle University’s Geography department, and is funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. His PhD is attached to the MyPlace-project, a three-year EPSRC funded interdisciplinary research project at Open Lab, Newcastle, that works around the Newcastle age-friendly city initiative. As a geographer, he adds a spatial reference to this project by studying everyday cycling mobility among different ages in Newcastle and Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He has a broader research interest in mobility studies, urban (tourism) geography and mobile technologies. In his free time, Wilbert enjoys sports and travelling.

SONJA FELDER [email protected]

Sonja is a PhD student and the Physical Geography part of the conference organising team at Newcastle University. Before coming to Newcastle, Sonja studied for an MSc in Geosciences at the University of Bremen (Germany). After completing her academic studies, Sonja moved to the UK and spent a couple of years working in a number of jobs, including geotechnical, environmental and petroleum consultancies. Now Sonja has just commenced the second year of her PhD, studying the climate of the past using marine sediments.

GRAHAM GAUNT [email protected] Graham is currently working on his PhD at Newcastle University, which is funded by the ESRC. His research interests include apprenticeships, youth transitions, ‘post-industrial’ communities and masculinities, as well as gender and culture. In addition to his own research, Graham works as a research assistant on a large national project that explores community participation, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council at the University of Leicester.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 MATTHEW SCOTT [email protected] @necroevolution

Matthew is a PhD student in the Geography Department at Newcastle University sponsored by the ESRC. He is a political and historical geographer with broad interests in the historical geographies and geopolitics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His research is focusing on the techno-geopolitics of transcontinental railways, focusing on the German/Ottoman Berlin-Baghdad Railway and the British Cape-Cairo Railway scheme and examining how understandings of what these railways were and what they could do shaped, and were shaped by, geopolitical visions of space, empire, and technology. Matthew is also a member of the Historical Geography Research Group and passes spare time by baking cookies and reading science fiction novels.

MADDY THOMPSON [email protected] @MaddyCThompson

Maddy is a PhD student in the Geography Department at Newcastle University. Her research is funded by the ESRC and uncovers the geographical imaginations of Filipino nursing students and graduates. This project explores how geographical imaginations can be understood as a determinant of migratory aspirations, and she is interviewing both aspiring migrants and aspiring stayers. Maddy also has a concern with the gender discourses surrounding Filipino nurses and Filipino nurse migrants. More broadly, she is interested in postcolonial and feminist geographies, social and cultural geography, and interdisciplinary migration research. Her interests include travel, music and rugby league.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

How to find us? Are you already at the conference while you read this? Well done! If not, we provided some travel information below. The conference is based in the Research Beehive at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne (NE1 7RU). You can reach the University campus in the following ways. Maps are provided on the following pages. By rail From Newcastle Central station you can take the Metro to Haymarket Metro station, which is adjacent to the University campus. Metro is a light rail system that connects passengers to Newcastle city centre, railway stations and Newcastle Airport (and Sunderland). By bus The city’s coach and bus stations, including the Newcastle Coach Station, are within short reach from the University. If you travel via Newcastle Coach Station, we advise to take the Metro from the nearby Central Station up to Haymarket Metro station. Alternatively, you can take a taxi to the Newcastle University campus. By car The University is based right in the city centre. As parking around the University is limited, we advise you not to come by private car. If you still drive from the north or south, follow the A1 towards Newcastle. Leave the A1 (Newcastle Western Bypass) at the junction with the A167/A696 and follow the signs for the ‘City Centre’. From the A167 take the exit marked ‘Universities, RVI and Eldon Square’, which brings you on to Claremont Road. If you drive from the west, follow the A69 to the junction with the A1, and then take the A1 northbound. Leave the A1 at the next junction, signposted ‘City (West), Westerhope B6324’. Follow signs for the ‘City Centre A167’. Leave at the exit marked ‘Universities, RVI and Eldon Square’, which brings you on to Claremont Road. Parking The public car parks on Claremont Road (NE2 4AA) and Queen Victoria Road (NE1 4LP) are the closest to the campus. As the city centre is a busy place to park, one option is to park at a nearby Metro station and travel to the University by Metro.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

RGS-IBG PGF Mid-Term Conference 2016 Location Map

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Conference dinner: March 17th, 20:oo (Drinks reception starting 19:15) Venue The conference dinner will be held at the Copthorne Hotel, The Close, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3RT. Map location is found on page 8. How to find? The Copthorne Hotel is located on Newcastle’s Quayside and is within 25 minutes of walking of the university campus. Alternatively, metros run from Haymarket to Central Station, from where only a 12minute walk remains. Also taxi drivers know to locate the Copthorne Hotel – the nearest taxi rank is next to Haymarket Metro and the ride shouldn't cost more than £7. Uber also operates in Newcastle. Our 3-course menu Tomato and basil soup *** Grilled goat’s cheese, roquette salad *** Venison terrine, spiced tomato chutney

Butter roasted chicken breast with pancetta and tomato jus *** Spinach and wild mushroom fulitatage *** Gray mullet fillet, fennel and herb risotto

Apple and cinnamon crumble tart *** Tia Maria and chocolate mousse *** Seasonal melon and champagne sorbet

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Conference programme: Thursday 17th March 9:00-10:00 10:00-11:00

Registration and Coffee (Beehive Breakout Areas)

Venue

Welcome: The Newcastle Organising Committee (Beehive Lecture Theatre) Keynote: Anoop Nayak ‘Purging the Nation: Race, place and geographies encounter in the lives of British Bangladeshi Muslim young women’ Beehive Lecture Theatre Percy Building 1.19 Pybus Room (OLB) Percy Building G.13 Percy Building 2.24

11:00-12:40

1. Migration I:

2. Climate and

3. Regional Economic

4. Methods

5. Historical Geographies I

– BLOCK I

Involuntary Mobilities

Environmental Change

Development (CURDS I)

Chair: Anoop Nayak

Chair: Matthew Scott

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Chair: Ian Stevens

Chair: Graham Thrower

12:40- 1:40

Lunch (Beehive Breakout Areas) Poster Session (Research Beehive 2.20)

1:40- 2:40

I. Cross Cultural and

II. Impact in Research

III. Meet the Editor

IV. Careers and CVs for

WORKSHOPS

Interdisciplinarity

Cheryl McEwan

Peter Hopkins

Academic Jobs

Robin Humphrey

Nina Laurie

2:45-4:15

1. Migration II:

2. Geographies of

3. Finance and

4. Geographies of

5. Geographies of Nature

– BLOCK II

Experiences and

Sustainability (part 1)

Geography (CURDS II)

Education

and Energy

Encounters

Chair: Institute of

Chair: Laura Sariego-

Chair: Graham Gaunt

Chair: Matthew Scott

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Sustainability

Kluge

4:15-4:30

Tea and Coffee (Beehive Breakout Areas)

4:30-6:00

1. Migration III: Sites

2. Geographies of

3. Historical

4. Geographies of

5. Housing (CURDS III)

– BLOCK III

and Scales

Sustainability (part 2)

Geographies II

Transport

Chair: Fraser Bell

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Chair: Institute of

Chair: Matthew Scott

Chair: Wilbert den Hoed

Sustainability 7:15-8:00

Drinks reception at Copthorne Hotel (Atrium)

8:00-00:00

Evening Meal at Copthorne Hotel (Cuthbert Suite)

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

9-10

Keynote: Erin McClymont ‘Mud, molecules, and microscopes: perspectives from physical geography’ (Beehive Lecture Theatre)

10-10:15

Tea and Coffee Break (Beehive Breakout Areas)

Venue

Pybus Room (OLB)

Percy Building G.13

Beehive Lecture Theatre

Percy Building 1.19

10:15- 11:45

1. Making Place and Space I

2. Physical Environments

3. Governing Economies

4. Political Geographies

– BLOCK IV

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Chairs: Eleanor Starkey & Mhari

(CURDS IV)

Chair: Matthew Scott

Barnes

Chair: Liam Keenan

11:50- 1:20

1. Making Place and Space II

2. Geographies of

3. Urban Regeneration

4. Geographies of Young People

– BLOCK V

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Vulnerability

(CURDS V)

and Children

Chair: Stefan Rzedzian

Chair: Fraser Bell

Chair: Graham Gaunt

1:20-2:10

Lunch (Beehive Breakout Areas) Poster Session Voting Closes

2:10-3:10

Keynote: Peter Hopkins ‘Getting published in Geography’ (Beehive Lecture Theatre)

3:10-4:40

1. Health Geographies

2. Climate and Governance

3. Affective Geographies

4. Identities

– BLOCK VI

Chair: Maddy Thompson

Chair: Stefan Rzedzian

Chair: Matthew Scott

Chair: Anoop Nayak

4:40-5:00

Tea and Coffee Break (Beehive Breakout Areas)

5:00-5:30

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Annual General Meeting (Beehive Lecture Theatre) Closing and Poster Prizes: The Newcastle Organising Committee

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Keynote Speakers Keynote I. Purging the Nation: Race, place and geographies encounter in the lives of British Bangladeshi Muslim young women Anoop Nayak (Professor in Social and Cultural Geography, Newcastle University) [email protected]

This keynote engages with current debates on race, conviviality and the geography of encounters. I respond to recent concerns that social inequality can be underplayed in this work and that there is a need for more relational, embodied and emotional accounts of belonging. Through a series of biographical interviews undertaken with British Bangladeshi Muslim young women, I demonstrate how the idea of race is summoned to life in everyday encounters, where it is lived on the body, locality and public arena. I argue that antagonistic encounters which serve to mark them out as ‘Other’ perform a bigger role in terms of constructing national belonging. They work as a means of purging the nation, detoxifying it from encroaching multicultural intimacies in the effort to produce what Hage (1998) terms a white nation. Despite this ritual purging I demonstrate how respondents are implicated in new forms of civic belonging, laying claim to nationhood, locality and rights to the city that subvert and hollow out the fantasy of a white nation. Anoop is currently Professor of Social and Cultural Geography and Head of the Geography Department in Newcastle’s School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology. His research interests are located at the confluence of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration; Youth Studies; and Masculinities, Gender, and Culture; and he has published widely on these topics as well as writing the acclaimed Gender, Youth and Culture: Global Masculinities and Femininities, which was published in 2013. For Anoop’s full profile, see http://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/anoop.nayak.

Keynote II. Mud, molecules, and microscopes: perspectives from physical geography Erin McClymont (Reader in Department of Geography, Durham University) [email protected] In 1972 the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft produced an iconic image of Earth, the so-called ‘blue marble’, which illustrated a variety of environments and processes extending from Antarctica to the tropics. In seeking to understand how our natural environment operates, and how human activity interacts with it, the field of physical geography has seen an increasing

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 diversification of methods and approaches. We have adopted and adapted methods from chemistry, biology and physics, and combined them with numerical modelling approaches to understand processes at both the fine scale (e.g. sediment movement, plankton production) and with global impact (e.g. ocean circulation, ice sheet behaviour). My research interests focus on reconstructing past environment and climate changes, largely using marine sediment cores. In this talk I will reflect on my own pathway through our changing discipline, which has taken me both off to sea and into the laboratory. In 2014 I chaired Durham Geography’s successful application for the Gender Equality Charter Mark (GEM), awarded by the Equality Challenge Unit. In this talk I will also reflect on that process and our recommendations for ensuring that diversity and equality are supported within Geography. Erin is currently Reader in the Department of Geography at Durham University. Her research focuses on the development and application of organic geochemistry proxies to reconstruct past environmental and climate change. This work has encompassed diverse analyses of marine, lake, and peat sequences over the most recent periods of Earth history. Erin also continues to research ocean/ice-sheet and land/ocean interactions across a wide range of timescales; exploring how the low and high latitude climate systems might be connected to and responsible for climate change. For her profile, please see https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=9778.

Keynote III. Getting published in Geography Peter Hopkins (Professor of Social Geography, Newcastle University) [email protected] This presentation discusses publishing in geography with a specific focus on getting published in peer-reviewed international journals. A number of key issues are explored including: selecting what journal to submit your work to (including considerations such as the impact factor of the journal and whether or not it is open access); pitching your article within the discipline or within a specific sub-field; complying with journal requirements about article style, length and referencing; responding to reviewers comments in order to move towards having your work accepted for publication; writing an abstract so as to maximise your readership; and selecting keywords. The politics and ethics of co-authorship are also alongside the importance of contributing to the review process as a peer reviewer. Peter is currently Professor of Social Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle’s Academic Director of the ESRC North East Doctoral Training Centre, and editor of the esteemed journal Gender, Place and Culture. His research and teaching interests centre upon the challenges and complexities of inequality and justice under the three main themes of young people place and identity; religion, faith and spirituality; and masculinities, ethnicities and place. For a full profile, take a look at: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/peter.hopkins.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Workshops: Day 1, 13:40-14:45 Workshop I. Cross-Cultural and Inter-Disciplinary Research Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3) The world is faced with many global, complex problems which require response that span disciplines and cross-cultural divides. This workshop will be led by Robin Humphrey and will draw on an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural Research Development School which Robin co-organised in Bristol (July 2013) and then Kyoto (December 2013). This School formed the inaugural event of the UK/Japanese RENKEI-collaboration in higher education, facilitated by the British Council, Japan, and it was recently shortlisted for Times Higher Education Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Early Career Researchers. Robin’s workshop will therefore discuss innovative researcher development techniques for working across cultures and disciplines and will provide students with the opportunity to discuss and learn about the challenges and opportunities associated with cross-cultural collaboration. Workshop organiser: Dr Robin Humphrey (Newcastle University)

Workshop II. The Impact Agenda Percy Building G.13 This interactive session will offer students an insight into the impact agenda with a chance to discuss what impact means for postgraduates with Cheryl McEwan. Cheryl is currently working on an ESRC Knowledge Exchange funded project to develop the impact of her current research concerning sustainable wildflower harvesting and ethical consumption in the Western Cape. Cheryl will get you to think about how your research may have impact, and also to consider ways to gather evidence and communicate impact. As impact is becoming an increasingly important tool by which to evaluate academic research, this session may be particularly useful for those planning on pursuing a career in academia. Workshop organiser: Prof Cheryl McEwan (Durham University)

Workshop III. Meet the Editor Beehive Lecture Theatre This session will offer an opportunity for delegates to hear from and pose questions to Peter Hopkins, the current editor and chief of the esteemed journal Gender, Place and Culture. Peter will give advice as to what you need to do in order to get your work published, explain the publication process, choosing the correct journal to publish your work in, and more broadly give an inside insight into publishing. This will be an interactive session based on discussion and debate and will therefore be largely student led, so please come prepared with any questions or topics you may wish to pose to Peter. This event is suitable for

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 postgraduates at all stages, however may be more beneficial to those close to completing. Workshop organiser: Prof Peter Hopkins (Newcastle University)

Workshop IV. Careers and CVs for Academic Jobs Percy Building 1.19 Abstract to be confirmed Workshop organiser: Prof Nina Laurie (University of St Andrews)

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Session Blocks & Abstracts

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Keynote 10:00-11:00, Lecture Theatre Prof Anoop Nayak

Block I: 11:00-12:40, Day 1 Session 1. Migration I: Involuntary Mobilities Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson Housing for asylum seekers in Norway: the development of a reception centre system and its influence on the residents’ everyday lives. Ragne Øwre Thorshaug Re-imagining NGO infrastructure: alternative framework in the Syrian refugee camp based on human definition in Arabic language. Aya Musmar Displacements in the context of mega-events: rights and legitimacy. Mara Nogueira Family Resilience among Arab Refugees in the UK. Hoayda Darkal

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Housing for asylum seekers in Norway: the development of a reception centre system and its influence on the residents’ everyday lives. Ragne Øwre Thorshaug, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology/ University of London, Queen Mary Over the last 6 months of 2015 the number of people living in reception centres for asylum seekers in Norway increased from 13 000 to 31 000 residents. This paper discusses the development and changes over time regarding policies towards housing in reception centres for asylum seekers in Norway and how this has been related to different political agendas and considerations. This paper draws a historical perspective on the establishing of reception centres and discusses the different considerations that have shaped the provision of housing in reception centres for asylum seekers over time. The use of decentralized ordinary housing was partially a response to the increase in asylum applications to Norway around 2009 while today this development seems to be changing again as we currently witness the establishing of more centralized centres and also larger centres than we have seen before. The paper explores how the different types of housing solutions may affect the residents’ everyday lives in reception centres, and emphasises the significance of making possible the resumption of everyday practices also in temporary situations. This paper draws on existing research along with analysis of current developments, and also builds on conclusions drawn from an interdisciplinary research project called “What buildings do – The effect of the physical environment on well-being and quality of life of asylum seekers”.

Re-imagining NGO infrastructure: alternative framework in the Syrian refugee camp based on human definition in Arabic language. Aya Musmar, University of Sheffield My PhD research aims on re-imagining the NGO infrastructure in Za'atri camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Infrastructure in Za'atri exceeds the tangible materiality, such as, colorful electrical wires, water tanks, metal splints, etc. The multi-layering of everyday legal, political and social relations inside the camp are the intangible infrastructures that rely behind what we are aware of and what I mainly aim on approaching in this research. NGO movement responds to the (so called!) "refugee crisis", and aims on working both independently and collaboratively with other NGOs and UN agencies through humanistic frameworks towards including the excluded populations. In this paper I question the ethics of that humanistic framework. "Human" in western theories refers to an exclusive frame that bounds (being human) to the white, male, European Vitruvius figure. Thus how can humanistic frameworks be used to include when they are based on a figure that cannot be inclusive? and what alternatives are offered in the context of refugee hood that gives us the chance to restructure this framework? Moreover, in this paper I argue that Arabic linguistic context may offer a new substitute of "human" definition through which we can re- construct a comprehensive infrastructure of relations for NGOs. The basic synonym that indicates a human being in Arabic is the term " ‫" _" ن ا س ن إلا‬Al-Insan". It is a noun that is derived from the basic verb " " ‫ أن س‬, "Anasa" which designates the life of a person in the sense to other lives and spaces. It is a verb that takes an object to relate to. It is always followed by “to” or “by”. So, what indicates a human in Arabic language context is not based on a specific figuration, yet on structure of relations.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Displacements in the context of mega-events: rights and legitimacy. Mara Nogueira, London School of Economics The paper looks into the geographies of displacements generated in the context of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in the Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. Two cases are analysed in detail. The first one concerns an informal settlement, displaced to give room for an urban mobility project. The second one focuses on a group of informal workers displaced for the modernization of the local stadium. From a theoretical point of view, the paper argues that it is useful to understand these processes through the lens of the “urban informality” framework. In this perspective, the duality between formal and informal sectors is replaced by the understanding of (in)formality as the outcome of negotiations and struggles performed by distinct actors unevenly empowered. The paper analyses qualitative data concerning the struggles of the groups displaced to claim the legitimacy of their rights and, therefore, receive compensation from the government. Although both the right to work and to have a home are included in the Brazilian constitution, the paper argues that claims based on those constitutional rights hold differing levels of legitimacy. In the Brazilian context, the historic struggle of the social housing movements for the right to dwell has engendered institutions that manage the displacement of informal settlements, guaranteeing minimum rights. On the other hand, work informality, although being a widespread practice, does not hold the same institutional support. The result, therefore, is that informal workers are seen as illegal and do not have any rights guaranteed.

Family Resilience among Arab Refugees in the UK. Hoayda Darkal, Plymouth University The research attempts to provide a deep analysis of the resilience of Arab families in the UK. The study aims to investigate how resilient refugee Arab family is as a unit, and what factors stimulate that resilience. The research starts with the hypothesis that: displacement empowers interfamily relationships, and both interfamily elements along with support from the new community can empower family resilience. To achieve the basic aim will be: 1. Discussing religion, cultural and economic capitals as indicators for the assessment of family resilience. 2. Examining the interfamily relationships and the networks with other family members in the UK, in the homeland and across the globe. 3. Investigating the effect of UK’s communities and formal services on the resilience of Arab immigrant families. 4. To draw implications for refugee and migration policy and support system in the UK based on the findings of the research. A case study approach will be employed in attempt to achieve the aim of the study. Questionnaire survey will be used first to provide the initial contact with potential participants. Semi structured indepth interviews will then be used with participants who give their consent via the questionnaire. Results are expected to vary between families from different Arab countries. In addition, families who came to the UK in different periods, whether they have the whole members of the family living in the same place or not, have various religious and spiritual beliefs, and experienced different level of interaction with the hosting community, are thought to show varied resilience.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Block I: 11:00-12:40, Day 1 Session 2. Climate and Environmental Change: Percy Building G.13, Chair: Ian Stevens Evaluating land sharing and land sparing strategies using agent-based modeling. Anca Serban Connections and networks in catchment-scale water resource management: Exploring influences on practices of decisionmaking. Sophie Tindale Biosecurity challenges for finfish aquaculture. Jamie McCauley The smelting of metals in the Romanian Carpathians throughout the Holocene. Jack Longman

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Evaluating land sharing and land sparing strategies using agent-based modeling. Anca Serban, University of Cambridge Land sparing proposes a landscape where the land for nature and agriculture are segregated, land sharing supports the integration of the two. Together land sharing and land sparing have been proposed as a framework to explore trade-offs between agricultural productivity and biodiversity conservation. Assessments of their comparative merits have largely failed to assess the broader social and environmental impacts of their implementation. Current debates are predominantly ideological in nature and I argue they lack the empirical evidence on efficiency or socially desirability necessary to inform land use decision-making. The Western Ghats Mountains exhibit landscapes where farming communities have been living alongside areas of high biodiversity tropical forest for centuries. Growing human populations and associated increasing food demands threaten the sustainability of the landscape. In this paper I present a socio-ecological agent-based model describing the uptake of land sparing and sharing systems by such local farming communities. The model explores the drivers of land use change, its impacts on food security and income distribution along with changes in natural habitat extent. To date this is the first attempt of using an agent-based model to challenge the land sparing and land sharing framework and one of only a few studies to relate land sparing and land sharing empirically to food security, livelihoods and habitat alteration.

Connections and networks in catchment-scale water resource management: Exploring influences on practices of decision-making. Sophie Tindale, Durham University Making decisions about how to manage natural environments can be difficult in the face increasing social and environmental change, particularly when there are multiple stakeholders with competing interests involved. When managing river catchments, conflicts around water quality, biodiversity, habitats, land use, water abstraction, and amenity value are common. Recent efforts in catchmentscale water resource management practice have focused on encouraging decision-making that balances competing interests through methods of inclusion and collaboration. The facilitation of catchment partnerships and project-scale collaborative groups, where equal input from varied actors is valued, has aimed to encourage and enable more equitable, sustainable and adaptive environmental action. But how do these new practices of decision-making actually work? What are the roles of different groups of stakeholders? What drives their behaviours? And how is decision-making linked to environmental change? This research presentation explores the above questions through the preliminary findings of a PhD study focusing on understanding and explaining the practices of multiple stakeholder groups involved in managing the River Wear, NE England. The presentation draws on analysis of interview data from the field as well as insights from a process of social modelling (agent-based modelling). Themes explored in the presentation include the influence of connections, both social and environmental, to the process of decision-making; the presence and pattern of stakeholder networks; and the role and influence of different groups in effecting environmental change. The presentation ultimately reflects on the contribution that the preliminary and continuing findings could make to enacting more effective environmental decision-making in the future.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Biosecurity challenges for finfish aquaculture. Jamie McCauley, University of Exeter Biosecurity within the UK finfish (inland) aquaculture industry has until now been the less interesting cousin of the poultry and pig industries. In the past decade, biosecurity concerns relating to zoonotic diseases within these latter sectors has seen increased public and academic interest. Biosecurity within the finfish industry has seen less academic and public focus. Yet aquaculture poses unique challenges regarding potential biosecurity pathways, which include the human, fishfeed, air, stock and water. The complexity of these pathways is exemplified by water and its role within the industry: it is the very medium in which fish live, feed and reproduce but it is also the principal pathway for disease and death. The complexity of these networks and interchanges constantly challenges the efficiency of the production system. The risk of disease is never going to be completely eliminated but poses an on-going management challenge for producers through biosecurity practice (Peeler, 2005). My research aims to develop academic knowledge of a previously neglected aspect of farming and biosecurity through a social science investigation of producer attitudes and approaches, along with an understanding of the drivers and underlying conditions of biosecurity in finfish aquaculture. For the finfish industry, disease prevention is vital as an outbreak could potentially devastate a population stock of thousands. Producers may suffer irreparable financial damage and suffer stock losses similar to the cull of terrestrial farm animals the Foot and Mouth outbreak (2001), thus reaffirming the importance of this research.

The smelting of metals in the Romanian Carpathians throughout the Holocene Jack Longman, V. Ersek & U. Salzmann, Northumbria University D. Veres, Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca In Europe the characteristics, distribution and effects of recent pollution are well known, with monitoring observations existing at a continental scale. However, estimates of long-term pollution are restricted to central-western Europe, the British Isles and Scandinavia. In Eastern Europe in particular, the lack of such estimates has led to incomplete understanding of regional differences. When coupled to the insufficient knowledge of past emission sources and isotopic signatures of various ores, it is clear there are gaps in our knowledge of the history of pollution in this area. As a result, the causal relationship between humans and the environment are insufficiently explored, particularly within the Carpathian region- one with mineral wealth and a long history of human presence. Peat bogs have long been used as an archive for environmental and climatic imprints, with research using climate indicators from bogs burgeoning in recent decades, and a range of proxies for past hydrological change have been developed. The potential for utilising the geochemistry of archives such as peat bogs to resolve the input of metals from the atmosphere has long been known, and has been used to distinguish the background levels from the anthropogenic imprint. Here we present initial results from a multi-proxy study into the geochemical history of a collection of ombrotrophic peat bogs located in the Romanian section of the study region. These data display the first such study in the region and attempt to disentangle signatures related to natural cycling of elements over millennia, as well as anthropogenically-derived contributions through resource exploitation (land, forestry, ores), combustion, mining, and smelting activities.

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Block I: 11:00-12:40, Day 1 Session 3. Regional Economic Development (CURDS I) Beehive Lecture Theatre, Chair: Graham Thrower Sponsored by CURDS Equitable or Elitist? The economic impact of the 2014 Tour de France Grand Depart. Matthew Whittle Urban ‘anchor institutions’ in low carbon transitions: more than a metaphor? Julian Dobson Changing Formations of Class, Community and Place in the Nottinghamshire Coalfield, c. 1960s to present. Jay Emery Beyond place branding? The emergence of place reputation: a comparative study of NewcastleGateshead, Hull and Bristol. Fraser Bell

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Equitable or Elitist? The economic impact of the 2014 Tour de France Grand Depart. Matthew Whittle, University of Leeds The Tour de France Grand Depart came to the UK in July 2014. Despite being heralded as an enormous success, drawing in an estimated 3.5 million visitors and generating over £140 million for the local economy, there has been little research on detailed work on assessing the geodemographics of who attends these events. Using previously unpublished data, this research examines the demography of the crowd attending different sections of the Grand Depart and explores whether the event was equitable: accessible to all sections of the population and elitist: was there a demographic bias in who attended. It was found that at certain locations, particularly those at 'King of the Mountains' climbs, white middle-aged men dominated the audience. Over the whole event there was an imbalance of age when compared to the national average, with younger people (16–24) under represented and middle aged people (35-55) over represented. A similar trend was seen regarding ethnicity with non-whites heavily under represented. We conclude that hosting the Tour de France Gran Depart has had a positive equitable legacy, however the crowd that it attracted was elitist and more should be done to make similar events more inclusive in the future.

Urban ‘anchor institutions’ in low carbon transitions: more than a metaphor? Julian Dobson, Sheffield Hallam University The phrase ‘anchor institutions’ has crept into the policy and academic lexicon since the turn of the millennium, mainly in the United States. It describes the place-based role of public or quasi-public organisations - notably universities and healthcare institutions - in terms of their social and economic regenerative effects within their host cities. Its genealogy lies within both the urban competitiveness theories of Michael Porter and historic notions of the ‘civic university’. Drawing on an analysis of literature and initial fieldwork from a study of three organisations in the UK, this paper will explore the contested values that underpin different expressions of the ‘anchor’ concept. It will particularly examine the potential role for ‘anchors’ in advancing transitions towards a low carbon society. The paper will ask whether there is evidence that institutions such as universities, hospitals and housing organisations do in fact play an ‘anchoring’ role as envisaged in the policy literature; how such a role might link with transition theories; and whether the concept’s main merits might lie in its function as a normative device, enabling policymakers and practitioners to frame alternative narratives of possible futures.

Changing Formations of Class, Community and Place in the Nottinghamshire Coalfield, c. 1960s to present. Jay Emery, University of Leicester Class inequalities are firmly back on the policy agenda with post-industrial spaces being among the most disadvantaged for indicators such as social cohesion and belonging (Savage et al. 2015; Mah, 2012; Dorling, 2014; Foden et al. 2014). At the same time social scientists are emphasising the importance of place histories and geographical contexts to our understanding of these concepts in deindustrialised areas (Bennett, 2014; Walkerdine & Jimenez, 2012; Rogaly & Taylor, 2009; Nayak, 2003; Taylor, 2012). These convergences present potentialities for cultural and historical geographers to situate their work within current policy and academic debates. Engaging with the literature surrounding the ‘spatial turn’, this paper develops from previous and ongoing research concerning notions of community and place in the Nottinghamshire coalfield. This

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 work, as will be discussed, is grounded in the established theoretical approaches conceived by, among others, Lefebvre and Bourdieu. Whilst extensive work has been conducted into understanding ‘mining communities’, due in part to its role in the 1984/5 Miners’ Strike, Nottinghamshire has received little treatment (Waddington, 2001; Bennett, Beynon & Hudson, 2000; Warwick & Littlejohn, 1992). With particular attention to the Miners’ Strike, this paper explores the place-specific histories of migration, work, leisure, consumption, gender politics and colliery closure within the coalfield and theorises how these have affected social relations, collective identities and place-attachment over time and space. Concluding discussions will explore how this work fits within the emerging research on deindustrialisation and post-industrial communities and considers the effectiveness of various methodologies in conducting such future research.

Beyond place branding? The emergence of place reputation: a comparative study of NewcastleGateshead, Hull and Bristol. Fraser Bell, Newcastle University While place branding has become widespread internationally, the concept has reached an impasse as several weaknesses have been uncovered: i) places are too complicated to be branded; ii) place brands lack breadth; iii) place brands are homogenous and indistinctive and ; iv) the outcomes and impacts are difficult to measure. This project suggests that place branding can be repositioned as part of the more comprehensive place reputation. Adapting the idea of corporate reputation, an alternative is proposed asserting that places can improve their standing by harnessing reputational capital with various audiences. The study’s aims are i) to engage critically with the place branding literature and develop a new conceptual and theoretical basis for the emergent idea of place reputation; ii) to map and explain the different stakeholders involved and how they shape place reputation; and iii) to compare the differing processes developed in case-study cities used to transform their reputations. The empirical work is set in the English second-tier cities of NewcastleGateshead, Hull and Bristol. First, place reputation is a relational concept and the reputations of places need to be understood in relation to particular audiences (internal, external), sector (public, private, civic) and/or domain (economy, culture). Second, place reputation is a complex amalgam of the multiple economic, social, political and cultural facets of cities and regions. Third, reputational attributes are manifest across different dimensions of a place’s reputation (e.g. culture-led regeneration, governance, inward investment) that can produce uneven, contested reputations at various geographical scales.

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Block I: 11:00-12:40, Day 1 Session 4. Historical Geographies I Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Matthew Scott An historical perspective on the production of the Waterberg’s waterscape, South Africa. Michela Marcatelli Cuban identity and history – Granma. Armandina Maldonado Deller Festering in filth: Reinterpreting the nineteenth century redevelopment of Newcastle. Bertie Dockerill Geostatistical analysis to investigate the presence weathering legacies in recovered historical building stones. Brian Johnston

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An historical perspective on the production of the Waterberg’s waterscape, South Africa. Michela Marcatelli, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam The Waterberg plateau in South Africa is a piece of formerly ‘white’ countryside, where access to natural resources remains fundamentally unequal. Water access in particular is largely dependent upon land ownership, meaning that whereas private farms have usually enough water to meet their domestic and productive needs, township residents ˗ clustered in the small town of Vaalwater ˗ experience severe water shortages. The aim of this paper is to present the Waterberg’s waterscape not as something uncontested and ‘natural’, but rather as a product of social relations developed within a specific historicogeographical context shaped by colonialism and apartheid. Indeed, following white colonization, water resources were firstly appropriated by white landowners to accommodate their farming needs and secondly reallocated by the state to sustain a mineral-energy complex, whereas the removal of black people from the landscape meant that their water needs could be largely disregarded. As in the past fifteen years a major relocation of black people has taken place on the Waterberg plateau without being met by any redistribution of water resources, structural conditions of inequality have been reproduced and perpetuated. By adopting a historical perspective to the study of the Waterberg’s waterscape, this paper intends to nuance a mainstream argument according to which water-related issues in the post-apartheid era are merely the result of local government inefficiency and cannot be put in relation with the place’s past.

Cuban identity and history – Granma. Armandina Maldonado Deller, University of Notthingham My research proposes telling the story of rural Cuba and the changes in its regional identity in relation to nationalism, using maps and historiography. Cuba, a post-colonial island of slavery and sugar that has seen war, occupation, revolution, and isolation, has a history adorned with romanticism that is intertwined with government regulations and agendas. These policies and ideals have been used repeatedly in Cuba to grow a nation by instilling a sense of nationalism uniting peoples of different classes, ethnicities, nationalities, and politics and presenting a Cuban identity. However, determining how much history was created, grown or masked is necessary in learning its impact on its national, regional and individual identity. Focusing on the rural region of Granma 'the cradle of the nation' this project aims to chart the transformation through time and provide visual support of the findings. This paper will detail the exploratory visit to Granma, centred around three cities: Bayamo, the province capital known for sparking the first revolt against Spain and slavery, and one of the first Spanish settlements; Manzanillo a coastal town in decline with a rivalry with Bayamo; and Bartolome Maso a new town born from the insurrection. This paper will explore various possibilities of attaining the necessary information from archives (i.e. historical maps) museums, and meeting with locals in order to map the findings.

Festering in filth: Reinterpreting the nineteenth century redevelopment of Newcastle. Bertie Dockerill, University of Liverpool This paper questions the traditional interpretation of the redevelopment of Newcastle as one that led to the creation of a ‘city of palaces’. Charting municipal progression from 1835 to 1865, it

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 suggests that the glories of the redesigned Grey Street and central shopping area masked a worsening of conditions for the town’s working-class population. Indeed, developers such as Richard Grainger noted that the concerns of such segments of the population were ‘not theirs’. Increased spatial fragmentation led to sanitary conditions in areas such as Sandgate being ignored for many more years than in other comparable urban centres, such as Liverpool. This paper further suggests that the failure of the Liberal council to address sanitary concerns was a consequence of cronyism and a dominant political culture that placed personal aggrandisement above the needs of the general public. Faced with the town’s worst ever cholera epidemic in 1853 and the destruction of swathes of the Quayside as a consequence of a manufactory explosion in Gateshead, the Corporation remained slow to react, making only piecemeal inroads into the rehabilitation of notorious chares and alleyways which were homes not only to a largely transient population but also a largely unchecked trade in prostitution and vice. The paper concludes by reflecting on the locality-specific failings in the town’s governance that allowed such conditions to continue unabated whilst elsewhere in England, the construction of local authority social housing was imminent - advances that Newcastle would not enact until the early years of the twentieth century.

Geostatistical analysis to investigate the presence of weathering legacies in recovered historical building stones. Brian Johnston, Queen’s University Belfast Due to its versatility and aesthetic qualities, stone has been used in multiple historic and modern symbolic buildings. This wide spread use as part of the built environment makes understanding how masonry will react over time and within its new settings essential to attempts at maintaining it. The spatial variability of stone characteristics, such as mineralogy, permeability and porosity, result in irregular patterns of weathering, as they provide complex pathways through the stone, facilitating moisture, and therefore salt penetration. The internal characteristics of stone are highly influential on weathering, however, past studies have also shown that the weathering process itself can have an impact upon the stone characteristics, resulting in the creation of a legacy of changes from past weathering events. Recent innovative studies have applied geostatistical techniques to the issue of stone weathering, and this work intends to follow in kind, investigating the presence of such structural and mineralogical legacies in previously weathered stones when compared to an unweathered “fresh” example. Permeability measurements were collected, using an unsteady-state Portable Probe Permeameter, from recovered historic Scrabo sandstone blocks, commonly found in buildings around Belfast. Ion chromatography was applied to identify the quantities of salts found in the samples. Geostatistical techniques were employed to model the block in an attempt to understand the variation in internal properties and extrinsic factors impacting upon the stone’s durability. Initial analysis of the permeability values revealed that as the block undergoes weathering the range of permeability values varies, changing the capacity for future salt ingress.

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Block I: 11:00-12:40, Day 1 Session 5. Methods Percy Building 2.24, Chair: Anoop Nayak Theorizing visualisations – an inter-disciplinary approach. Adam Jenson Measuring the individual: strengths and weakness of qualitative methods on mobility studies. Cristhian Figueroa Martínez Social research methods and cultural context: Problems conducting urban geography fieldwork in Amman, Jordan. Deyala Altarawneh Mindful ethnography (or how I overcame crippling selfcriticism in the field). Lisa Hardie Protest Event Ethnographies: From ‘Mapping Moments’ to Spatial Typologies. Sam Hind

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Theorizing visualisations – an inter-disciplinary approach. Adam Jenson, Northumbria University In academia and beyond the popularity of visualisations continues to increase. However, in the public realm its development has privileged practical understanding rather than developing theoretical knowledge. A recent example of this is the intervention from Viégas and Wattenberg (2015) who call for rules for critique by redesign, and fail to acknowledge underlining philosophical perspectives influence the production and consumption of information visualisations. Within academia, disciplinary silos have limited the extent to which theoretical discussion can happen. The first aim of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which theorizing visualisations has been neglected and begin to explore the reasons why an inter-disciplinary approach may be best placed to advance theoretical understandings of information visualisation. I use examples of existing literature from cartography, GIS, graphic design, semiotics and the emerging literature on data to outline how they could be combined to better understood visualisations. The second aim is to outline a practical methodology to mobilise this interdisciplinary approach. This will be done in reference to the ways in which local authorities in England are adopting visualisation techniques to understand the contexts in which they work, and to communicate their policy decisions to a range of audiences.

Measuring the individual: strengths and weakness of qualitative methods on mobility studies. Cristhian Figueroa Martínez, University of Leeds Spatial mobility, or the ability to move from one point to another in the cities, relies on the opportunities of connection provided by the built environment (land use, street layout and public space); the transport systems and the infrastructures that are available. It also depends of our own abilities; the subjective value assigned to time; age; gender; social constructions; the role in our families, among others. Therefore, the capacity to move is an “individual” attribute, recognised by the literature as hard to measure. Despite it, mobility studies are the basis of several public policies related to transport, planning and social care. Traditionally, the origin of the majority of those public policies lies in aggregated models, derived from quantitative approach. However, the lack of understanding of the individual aspects of mobility lead into policies with incomplete (or bad) implementations and/or relevant collateral effects in major groups of the society (usually the most vulnerable). In this context, the present proposal has as main objective to identify and analyse the weakness and strengths of qualitative methods, usually pointed as emerging field that can capture the individual aspects of mobility. To address it, the paper presents a biographical review of the qualitative approach applied in mobility studies over the last five years. In preliminary results, this approach seems to be more reliable in catching the individual aspects to mobility, its problems and possible solutions, but it suffers several difficulties in the translation of those findings into public policies.

Social research methods and cultural context: Problems conducting urban geography fieldwork in Amman, Jordan. Deyala Altarawneh, University of Birmingham Social research involves the interaction between ideas and evidence to validate its theories using different methods to uncover the patterns that shape socio-cultural and political life. Certain social

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 and political contexts significantly shape and potentially limit our capability to undertake research. In a study investigating failures of controversial urban developments in Amman, Jordan, an array of methods were employed including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, workshops and visual methods. However, in attempting to conduct sound ethical research for this study, a number of problems were encountered in recruiting participants including favoritism and researcher positionality, in addition to problems of securing and ground-truthing data from both informal and official sources. Supported by my own reflective field observations, this paper aims to highlight some the methodological limitations and the implications for the study’s findings arising from the social, cultural and political context of working in Amman. In addition, the paper raises questions about the (im)possibilities of improving the quality of data gathered when investigating sensitive issues of both local community and governance in difficult social, political and cultural contexts to promoting better research practice.

Mindful ethnography (or how I overcame crippling self-criticism in the field). Lisa Hardie, University of Brighton As a PhD student about to undertake my first ‘proper’ fieldwork, I was repeatedly asking myself: what kind of ethnographer should I be? Should I be an observer? A participant-observer? An observing participant? How overt should I be? And then once in the field: am I good enough? Am I engaged enough? Would someone else be better than me? Have I missed something crucial? In this presentation, I give an overview of a methodological approach that I have labelled a ‘mindful ethnography’. Placing myself in my research – both physically and emotionally, I consider how mindfulness can be applied within an ethnographic approach, and how this allowed me to free myself of feelings of self-criticism, self-doubt, and to fully be ‘in the moment’. I suggest that such an approach is particularly helpful in mitigating many of the stressors and self-doubts we place upon ourselves when undertaking fieldwork. Sympathetic of reflexive approaches in general, and analytic autoethnography in particular, a mindful ethnography acknowledges one’s position as the central point of observation, but balances this with an open awareness and appreciation of the here and now. A mindful ethnography does away with carefully crafted scripts in favour of an ad-hoc approach that is led by the research setting.

Protest Event Ethnographies: From ‘Mapping Moments’ to Spatial Typologies. Sam Hind, University of Warwick New digital, mobile technologies have enabled researchers to capture myriad types of data in the field. Handheld video cameras, GPS devices, smartphones, SLRs, fitness trackers and smartwatches all permit varying kinds of sensing on-the-go – alongside a more familiar toolkit of notebooks, pens and dictation machines. Some of these digital technologies require active and repeated engagement, a clear field-of-vision, or a mobile data connection, whilst others quietly work in the background capturing data continuously and passively. Yet despite these innovations, in which we are told that generating field data has never been so simple, making sense of it is no less challenging. In fact, with a ceaseless supply of these innovative data generators in the era of ‘big data’, grappling with it in any meaningful way may seem entirely overwhelming – even to more experienced researchers. This paper attempts to provide one – yet by no means universal – approach to dealing with the live data produced by digital technologies. Firstly it emphasizes the importance of building tacit knowledge of the field in order to ‘smooth’ the inevitable technological and practical hiccups. Then it details the deployment of a methodological ‘mapping moments’ (Dodge et al. 2009) framework to comprehend

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 unpredictable and contingent events such as urban protests. Then finally it explores how the personal tracking of movements can help researchers in devising ‘spatial typologies’ for future use in the field through the provision of a recoverable spatio-temporal activity record. In essence, to make sense of live data and the events through which they are generated.

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Lunch + Poster Session: 12:40-13:40, Day 1 Research Beehive 2.20, Poster abstracts:

Rewilding in the Anthropocene: the socio-political dimensions of rewilding conservation in Europe. Cara Clancy, Plymouth University Rewilding, the mass restoration of ecosystems to their ‘natural’ state (often through the reintroduction of ‘missing’ keystone species), is a concept and practice gaining increasing momentum within the popular media and the UK conservation movement. Over the last 5 years a number of rewilding initiatives have been developed in Europe but so far the evaluations have been primarily quantitative and environmentally-focused in nature, with socio-political understandings largely absent from both the academic and policy evaluations. Rewilding conservation has the potential to bring multiple social, economic and cultural benefits to associated communities but the quality of these benefits needs to be assessed in a more (than) human way, and not merely framed in terms of ‘ecosystem services’ or ‘natural capital’. This doctoral research will take an intra-disciplinary approach to explore the development and impact of rewilding conservation in Europe. It will critically examine the context within which rewilding is emerging as a dominant conservation paradigm and expose the political challenges associated with large-scale, landscape-driven initiatives – issues such as land-use and land ownership, community rights and local access, food sovereignty and farming systems. Taking three case study locations as sites of exploration, this research will conduct a qualitative assessment of the human benefits of rewilding initiatives (defined as they are, in their own terms). Such ‘benefits’ may be marginal and discreet (not lending themselves to statistical measures), so it will be important to work along new lines of study and attend to the value of economic democracy and community ownership, participation and inclusion, health and wellbeing – particularly how these are experienced and defined by the people themselves.

Rural restructuring in the context of economic globalization: the differentiated countryside in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Felipe da Silva Machado, Plymouth University Early discussions and theoretical positions concerning rural change were developed by researchers from countries with post-production economies in order to explain the kind of rural transformations. When discussing economic change in rural space over the last decades, Marsden et al. (1993) present a new perspective for understanding rural restructuring that includes new subjects, such as capital mobility, flexible production regimes, complexity in the relationship between technology and environment, economic deregulation and new political processes. According to these authors, in order to understand such processes, it is necessary to research the effects of globalization at local scale of action. In recent years researchers have displayed an interest in understanding the dynamics of the rural spaces in other regions of the world which are also being affected by global processes in different pathways. The focus of this study is to reveal the rural diversity in Rio de Janeiro state (Brazil). As the economy globalized and industry decentralized away from metropolitan areas profound

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 changes occurred in Brazilian rural spaces, which was particularly marked in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Galvão (2009 [1987]) identified the need to overcome this kind of prejudice in Brazilian rural studies which only considers these spaces to be essentially inert and subject to interferences or external actions. Against this simplistic view, the rural should be seen to possess its own dynamics which can involve the leadership of local actors who create new forms of spatial ordering and therefore adapt to new scenarios of regional change.

Increasing vulnerability to floods in coastal cities during development: an evidence from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Phan Duy, University of Birmingham Flood is a hazard to many cities that are at risk often have flooding protection systems which are designed to protect citizens for a given level of flood event. The devastations to some coastal such in New Orleans, Manila, Bangkok, have proven the failure of protection systems; meanwhile the lessons raise the crucial role of urban planning and management in mitigating flooding impacts. Alongside to this, emerging cities have been facing floods to development process in South East Asia. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), which is one of largest cities in Vietnam, is considered a “hot spot” (WB, 2010). It has been facing flooding problems to both central and urban fringe areas despite many projects dealing with floods. More than 50% of urban areas have been affected by regular floods (ADB, 2010). For the projection in 2050 by ADB (2010), 71% of HCMC’s territory will be inundated by 2050 in the case of extreme events (ADB, 2010). The impacts on urban activities have been urgent. For example, in 15th September 2015, a flood which had the highest magnitude over 80 cm in year made the urban road network disrupted by traffic jam at several places because of the occurrence at peak-time lasting nearly four hours. Significant evidence from this city will indicate the impacts on transportation network leading to unexpected disruption to urban activities. This has claimed a need of integrating a resilient transport system into spatial development in order to enhance urban resilience to floods.

How are bodies and identities produced and influenced in spaces of prayer and worship? Elizabeth Reavley, Durham University The body is at the centre of geography (Bell, et al., 2001), we all have bodies (Nast and Pile, 2005), and we are obsessed with our bodies (Simonsen, 2000). Literatures of the body, identity and religion clearly speak to each other, yet have not been brought together convincingly thus far. Faith is a very personal set of beliefs (Finlayson, 2012) which may vary from moment to moment. It is also, simultaneously, a set of regular rituals and actions which are publically visible. All of these involve a corporeal body and an embodied understanding of the actions being executed (Empereur, 1999) which inscribe the body (Grosz, 1990). The spaces in which faith is enacted are also crucial to consider, as bodies interact within and with spaces (McCormack, 2008; MacDonald, 2002). These spaces stretch beyond the church or chapel into daily encounters and private homes (Brace, et al., 2006). The case study of Cranmer Hall, Durham (a theological training college) allows for the examination of all of these spaces and interactions, furthermore the use of participant diaries, interviews, focus groups and auto-ethnography provide insight into the ways prayer and worship produce bodies and identities. I argue that our corporeal actions, our bodies, and our identities are intrinsically caught up in each other and can influence each other in ways that we are often not consciously aware of. Also that the spaces we encounter can impact upon these phenomena.

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Inauspicious option: Migration towards more vulnerability. Rezwan Siddiqui, King’s College London Coastal Islands of Bay of Bengal face vulnerabilities from riverbank erosion, cyclone, flood, salinity and sea level rise. People adapt themselves differently and migrations is one of the options they have. People took different pathways of migration to avoid these vulnerabilities, sometimes they migrate seasonally or in circular and sometimes permanently. For long rural to urban migration has been at the heart of urban centred research and policy, and was thought to be the prominent one. But many families choose to migrate permanently to newly formed islands further deep into the sea or towards low-lying freshly deposited lands. These families are unable to migrate to better place (e.g. nearby towns or cities, or mainland) because of insufficient resources. Lower land price, social bonding, and better access to forest and sea resources work as pull factors for these destinations. But here they become even more vulnerable economically, socially and environmentally than before. Insufficient social services like schools, markets, roads and transport, governance and security, cyclone and flood shelter is noticeable in these destinations. Increased exposure to cyclones, storm and tidal surges and salinity exacerbate their hardships. Thus families and peoples become more vulnerable than they were before. This paper aims to portray factors of these migration, and resulted vulnerabilities from the experience of three very remote coastal islands of Hatiya, Manpura and Char Nizam Kalkini of Bay of Bengal.

Atmospheres of safety: ‘Safe spaces’ as experienced by trans youth. James Todd, Durham University This presentation will explore how trans youth experience ‘safe space(s)’ in their everyday lives. To begin, I will outline the marginalisation of trans youth in geographical research, and overview some of the challenges that young trans people may face in their everyday lives which may lead to them seeking spaces, places and times of ‘safety’ and ‘refuge’, both physical and virtual, often allowing for freedom of expression within a supportive environment. Building upon the re-conceptualisation of ‘safe space’ undertaken by The Roestone Collective (2014), I will also overview alternative modes of understanding ‘safe space(s)’. This will be developed by considering my empirical work through the lens of a ‘more-than-representational’, affective geography, aligning with the work of Colls (2012) and others who have argued for a greater integration of non-representational geographies into feminist and queer work in the discipline. This will enable insights into the affective qualities, felt, forceful and embodied attributes, atmospheric composition and bodily transferability of ‘safe space(s)’, to be offered, alongside grounding previous work which has emphasised their porous, paradoxical, imagined, fleeting or even simultaneously ‘unsafe’ nature, constituted along intersecting spatiotemporal planes. It will also discuss the everyday, taken-for-granted nature of ‘safety’, and will outline the possibilities for further academic research in this area. Finally, it will call for more geographical work to engage with the everyday, lived experience-based perspectives of trans youth in order to counter their marginalisation in social science work and, crucially, increase the level of voice they are afforded in such an environment.

The use of Twitter to support public health activities surrounding adolescent smoking in Wales. Cornelia van Diepen, University of Portsmouth

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 In Wales, there is a smoking prevalence of 25% and 5,500 deaths are caused each year by smoking. The average age to initiate smoking is 12 and 9 out of 10 adult smokers started as teenagers. So, adolescent should be targeted to reduce the amount of adult smokers and subsequent morbidity and mortality. A youth-dedicated smoking-cessation campaign called the Filter Wales uses social media to contact young people. The campaign is there to support adolescents in giving up smoking and preventing non-smokers from initiating. The overall aim of this research is to evaluate the Twitter profile of The Filter Wales and to discover specific demographics of the young people they are in contact with. All the individual Twitter users that have been in contact with the Filter are selected (n=2130). From these selected usernames, the archive of tweets (2 million in total) is produced, the online profiles gathered and geolocation (where available) mapped. All these data will be combined for analysis. Using Twitter as a way of reaching hard to engage young people in Wales can be cost-effective as it is not related to physical space. The results from this study can be directly used by the Filter and other youth-dedicated health organisations to be more successful in engaging with their young target groups through Twitter.

Will catchment scale afforestation for mitigating flooding significantly reduce water resource availability and productive farmland? Mhari Barnes, Newcastle University After the 2013-14 floods in the UK there were calls to ‘forest the uplands’ as a solution to reducing flood risk across the nation. At present, 1 in 6 homes in Britain are at risk of flooding and current EU legislation demands a sustainable, green-engineering solution. However, the role of forests as a natural flood management technique remains highly controversial, due to a distinct lack of robust evidence into its effectiveness in reducing flood risk during extreme events. Furthermore, there is a need to analyse the extent to which land management practices, and the installation of runoff attenuation features (RAFs), such as woody debris dams, in headwater catchments can attenuate flood-wave movement, and potentially reduce downstream flood risk. This project aims to improve understanding of the impacts of upland afforestation on both water resources and flood risk at the national and local catchment scales. This will be achieved through an integrated fieldwork and modelling approach, with the use of a series of process based hydrological and hydrodynamic models to scale up and examine the effects forestry can have on flooding from catchment to national scale. The project will define the proportion of a catchment or riparian reach that would need to be forested in order to achieve a significant impact on downstream flooding. Additionally, the consequential impacts of a corresponding reduction in agriculturally productive farmland and the potential decline of water resource availability will need to be considered in order to safeguard the UK’s food security and satisfy the somewhat insatiable global demand on water resources.

The identification of former terrestrial ice stream dynamics from geomorphic evidence and till architecture: A case study of Southern and Central Saskatchewan. Sophie Norris, Durham University A multidimensional study, utilising geomorphological and sedimentological techniques is conducted to investigate the dynamics of former terrestrial ice streams, during the last (late Wisconsinan) deglaciation of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Detailed mapping over a 140,000km2 area of south central Saskatchewan has identified a southwest trending corridor of parallel streamlined landforms (megaflutes and mega-scale glacial lineations)(corridor 1) extending from the Canadian shield to southwestern Saskatchewan totalling more than 900km. Ridges that lie transverse to this dominant

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 streamlining pattern are interpreted as a series of terminal and thrust block moraines. Collectively these landforms demarcate the margin and bed of a large former fast flow trunk or ice stream that terminated as a lobate form. This landform assemblage is cross cut by four (one previously unrecognised) south to southwest trending corridors (corridors 2, 3, 4 and 5) of megaflutes and mega-scale glacial lineations, indicating that terrestrial ice streams in the region underwent a major reorganisation of their flow direction. Analysis of borehole samples within these corridors reveal a superimposed till sequence spatially consistent with a dynamic switch in flow direction. The distribution of landforms in south central Sakatchewan attests to a change in regional glacier dynamics during deglaciation and is proposed to have been caused by variation in the relative timing of ice stream retreat or shutdown, with thinning of one ice stream ultimately triggering initiation of others. This highlights the highly dynamic and transitory nature of former terrestrial ice streams present during the last deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet.

Community-based monitoring and modelling for catchment management and restoration. Eleanor Starkey, Newcastle University Hydrological catchments are complex systems which need to be monitored over time in order to characterise their behaviour on a local level, model, implement mitigation measures and meet policy targets. However, data is often inadequate within rural areas and local knowledge is not routinely harvested. Long-term evidence is required to provide stakeholders with confidence if ‘nature based solutions’ are the way forward. Although the terminology varies in the literature and in practice (e.g. volunteer-monitoring and citizen science), community-based monitoring is a form of participatory action research which encourages the public to observe their local environment. This innovative approach has been implemented across other environmental disciplines but it has not been fully investigated within catchment science, mainly due to data quality concerns. However, this technique has the potential to offer a timely and low-cost solution to mass data collection in catchments, whilst offering social benefits. A community-based monitoring and modelling approach has been implemented within the rural 42km2 Haltwhistle Burn catchment in Northumberland. This has involved engaging with ‘River Watch’ volunteers, encouraging them to share local knowledge and monitor catchment parameters and issues using simple techniques. Lengthy datasets now exist and are currently being used to support the catchment modelling and management process. Other communities in Northumberland are also beginning to implement their own monitoring schemes which suggests that local people want to learn and be part of the management process. It is acknowledged that this approach presents various challenges but without this data, very little information would be available.

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Workshops: 13:40-14:45, Day 1 Block II: 14:45-16:15, Day 1 Session 1. Migration II: Experiences and Encounters Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson Encountering others in Glasgow: Spaces of encounters and feelings of belonging and community among migrants. Melike Peterson Transitions to adulthood: young Poles’ experiences of migration and life in Northumberland. Sean Gill The role of civility and geographical scholarship in challenging everyday xenophobia in discussions about migration in Poland and the UK. Lucy Smout Szablewska

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Encountering others in Glasgow: Spaces of encounters and feelings of belonging and community among migrants. Melike Peterson As cities are becoming increasingly 'super-diverse' (Vertovec 2007), scholars are becoming more and more concerned with the creation of feelings of belonging and community. With diversity being experienced and expressed in shared spaces, these 'micro publics' (Amin 2002) become important zones for intercultural encounters due to their often simultaneous use by diverse groups. While these spaces are not completely a 'world of strangers' (Lofland 1973), on-off as well as strong and more structural interactions take place which stimulate the constant re-negotiation of relations, identities, meanings and rules. Yet, scholars remain divided which type of meeting space and encounter stimulate social inclusion making it necessary to further research the role of different types of meeting spaces and encounters possibly resulting in social change. Scotland provides an interesting background against which to study these issues as, in contrast to other European countries, it is still characterized by a rather 'white' native population. Yet, cities such as Glasgow host an increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse population. In general, ethnic minority groups are claimed to be integrated well into Scottish society with the often referred to reason being Scotland's 'civic' and tolerant national identity. However, incidents of discrimination and racialisation are by no means absent from daily life, making it necessary to better understand how ethnic minorities construct and negotiate their 'Scottishness' within daily zones of encounter.

Transitions to adulthood: young Poles’ experiences of migration and life in Northumberland. Sean Gill, Newcastle University This paper sets out to explore young Polish migrants’ transitions to adulthood and their aspirations for future work and study. I focus upon the rural geographies of the young people’s lives, at a time of deepening inequalities in education and the labour market, and rising uncertainty and precarity characterising young lives. The transition to adulthood, and the lifecourse negotiations associated with this, are important ways through which young people’s experiences can be understood. Accounts of parenting, education, work, family, housing, friendship and leisure can all shape transitions to adulthood. Transitions to adulthood are always complicated and complex; the experiences of migrant youth is ever more complicated, connected to a very particular set of experiences and geographies which this research seeks to explore. This paper emanates from ongoing research exploring the lives of young Polish migrants growing up in the rural towns and villages of Northumberland, North East England, UK. The Treaty of Accession 2003 saw Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia (known collectively as the A8 group) accede to the European Union on the 1st May 2004. This allowed their populations to legally move to the UK. Since 2004, a significant proportion of the A8 migrants which have settled in Northumberland are from Poland. I will present an analysis of data that illustrates young Polish migrants experiences of their transition to ‘adulthood’ and how this is mediated by migration.

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The role of civility and geographical scholarship in challenging everyday xenophobia in discussions about migration in Poland and the UK. Lucy Smout Szablewska, Durham University Doing something practical with your PhD' is one of the many things some geography PhD students are challenged by, delight in and agonise about. One everyday practical action is talking to people about broad structures of injustice, engaging in respectful discussion rather than defending entrenched positions, and reframing debates. This paper reflects on the possibilities and challenges of civility, and the benefits and difficulties of turning to geographical scholarship to put migration within and to the European Union into a broader context. It is based on fieldwork in Poland and Northern England during 2013-2015 into Polish migration to the UK. It sheds light on the construction of everyday, political and media discourses on migration by drawing on geographical perspectives on civic and ethnic nationalism. It explores if and how a rigorous scholarly approach can help PhD students think through their 'blind spots' and 'blank spots', and 'make' rather than 'state' credible and succinct arguments.

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Block II: 14:45-16:15, Day 1 Session 2. Geographies of Sustainability (part 1) Percy Building G.13, Chair: Institute of Sustainability Urban forests in Tripoli: an analysis of citizen participation, policies and practices. Hesham Mohamed Waddini Vector Water: An alternative water management solution for rainfed agriculture and sustainable livelihoods in semi-arid Ethiopia. Catherine Grasham Whey(ste) and other challenges for sustainable cheese. Hannah Brooking

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Urban forests in Tripoli: an analysis of citizen participation, policies and practices. Hesham Mohamed Waddini, University of Hull Recently, the consequences of urbanisation on people and the environment have become more evident; therefore, urban sustainability has come under the spotlight (Fisher and Julia, 2012). Established concerns regarding waste management and human health and sanitation in cities are being surpassed by pressing concerns related to the ecosystem concerning open spaces, in addition to in the achievements of private actors within community settings. Consequently, executives, businesses and neighbourhoods have begun to focus on urban and peri-urban forests as they offer an extensive array of environmental, economic and social values. The primary purpose of this research is to establish how residents in Tripoli value their urban forests and to determine what social benefits are required. However, other benefits will be examined in the context of the social use of urban forests. Data will be collected through literature reviews, a questionnaire and interviews with the results signifying how residents in Tripoli use and think regarding their urban forests. The study should assist urban foresters to examine how to develop their management and provide extensive data connected to the utilisation of urban forests in Tripoli. The results might also enhance the understanding of policy makers in Libya. Additionally, the results of the study might be valuable for urban foresters in multicultural cities that include a significant number of ethnic minorities from the same cultural background

Vector Water: An alternative water management solution for rainfed agriculture and sustainable livelihoods in semi-arid Ethiopia. Catherine Grasham, University of East Anglia This research paper is concerned with increasing agricultural output in semi-arid areas of developing countries. In such areas, water scarcity and land degradation are becoming an increasingly challenging reality. Communities in sub-Saharan Africa have coped with natural resource limitations to varying degrees for generations. However, high rates of urbanisation and rapidly expanding irrigation schemes are resulting in fierce competition for water resources between agriculture and urban centres, which is having a spill over impact on rural communities. The dominant discourse suggests that allocating scarce water resources, in particular dry season water, to irrigation will increase overall agricultural output. However, this research investigates a novel concept, vector water, which seeks to challenge this notion. Vector water is water that sustains rural towns throughout dry seasons and droughts and enables urban services and the rural economy to flourish. It argues that when there is competition for a common pool water resource between irrigation and a rural town water supply, the latter should be protected, even if that means restricting irrigation activities. Rural towns tend to be connected to a large hinterland of rainfed farmers that depend on its services for their livelihoods and agricultural practices. Therefore, a safe, reliable water supply for a rural town can facilitate the intensification of rainfed agriculture to such an extent that overall agricultural output will be greater than if the water was allocated to irrigation. This research is a comparative case study of two rural towns in Ethiopia. It seeks to assess the institutional viability of the concept by exploring how water governance decisions are made in Ethiopia and the impact a rural town water supply has on rainfed production and rural livelihoods.

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Whey(ste) and other challenges for sustainable cheese Hannah Brooking, University of Leicester This research looks at the sustainability of cheese from farm to fork. There are a range of different approaches to agricultural sustainability in the literature, but this study focused on two particular approaches: eco-localist and sustainable intensification. In the past these approaches have been mainly applied to the study of arable farming, but in this study I seek to explore their applicability to the study of the production, distribution and consumption of cheese. Cheese is notoriously unsustainable, as on average 10 litres of milk is needed to make just 1kg of hard cheese and there are large amounts of methane produced by cows as well as various other greenhouse gas emissions and environmental waste from actants along the network. Cheese is important for sustaining rural livelihoods, especially in the context of milk prices falling 25% in the past year resulting in on average nine dairy farms a week closing in the UK. Many dairy farmers are therefore looking to add value to their milk, often turning to cheesemaking. This study makes use of case studies situated on an eco-localist to sustainable intensification continuum. At each case study site, interviews were conducted with key actors across the network, collecting information on sustainability challenges within milk production, cheesemaking, distribution and sales. This paper will discuss preliminary results from this study, drawing on ecolocalist and a sustainable intensified cheese networks. The significance of differing practices along these networks are emphasised and their implications for sustainable cheese are examined.

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Block II: 14:45-16:15, Day 1 Session 3. Finance and Geography (CURDS II) Beehive Lecture Theatre, Chair: Laura Sariego-Kluge Sponsored by CURDS Does access to financial services increase financial inclusion? Elizabeth Bermeo The marketisation of infrastructure: The enmeshment of the qualitative state and variegated capital. Graham Thrower Financialization and the decline of the local pub: An AngloGerman comparison. Liam Keenan

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Does access to financial services increase financial inclusion? Elizabeth Bermeo, University of Bristol Previous research has argued that more access to formal financial services increases people’s financial inclusion. Using multilevel models fitted to data from the Global Financial Inclusion Survey (Global Findex) for 147 countries and over 152, 000 individuals, this paper substantially disqualifies this argument. Results show that while individuals are more likely to be financially included in countries with higher geographical outreach of financial services, this association does not hold when controls for the effect of socio-economic, institutional and policy context are introduced into the analysis. However, statistically significant interaction effects indicate that greater financial access reduces the extent to which low education and low-income harm financial inclusion. This study finds empirical support for the role of ICT infrastructure, rule of law and policy intervention in enhancing financial inclusion. Furthermore, interaction effects between polices to foster financial inclusion and individual characteristics suggest that the use of bank accounts for government payments is especially effective among low-income and less educated individuals, and that the practice of corresponding banking have a positive effect among women.

The marketisation of infrastructure: The enmeshment of the qualitative state and variegated capital. Graham Thrower, Newcastle University This paper examines contemporary financialised infrastructure markets, and how they disclose the evolution of previously defined roles for public and private actors. It presents empirical research based on engagement with public and private institutional investors that challenges orthodox public-private binaries, and presents a more nuanced and geographically promiscuous reality of infrastructure investment. It builds on O’Neill’s (2004) proposition of the qualitative state as an engaged and active multifaceted actor, and critical market maker; but importantly, takes this concept further using emergent analysis based on interviews with government agencies, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), Public Sector Pension Funds (PSPFs), Multilateral Financial Institutions (MFIs), and their private institutional capital counterparts; private equity firms, and infrastructure funds. The research focus is the uniquely problematic asset class that is financialised infrastructure, and how the marketisation of everyday utility services represents a locus where the qualitative state meets variegated private capital. Utilising the perspectives of economic sociology and international political economy this paper examines the construction of these public-private markets, the fragmenting of the moral obligation of the state to provide, the governance consequences of a financialised infrastructure base, and the potential for national, regional and urban scale economic arbitrage suggested by insurgent public-private investment models.

Financialization and the decline of the local pub: An Anglo-German comparison. Liam Keenan, Newcastle University Financialization has been understood in a great number of ways from a great number of contrasting disciplinary perspectives. Accepting the multitude of conceptual and theoretical renditions of the phenomena, this thesis aims to generate a more finely grained, nuanced understanding of financialization which fundamentally appreciates the constitutive roles of space and place. This will be achieved through attempting to understand and explain the ways in which financialization is

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 contributing to the dramatic reductions of pubs in both England and Germany. The decline of the local pub will be utilized as a test case to highlight how the processes of financialization are reorienting economic interests, transforming corporate forms, enrolling an increasing amount of actors into the global financial system, and impacting the experience of a socially significant sector of the economy. The innovative international comparison dynamic serves to explain how the processes of financialization are unfolding in a geographically uneven manner and may significantly contribute to the emergent variegated capitalism discussion. The comparison between “financialized” pubcos and international brewing groups concerned with centralization and market concentration, serves to be a crucial component of the research. Articulated as an inherently spatial phenomenon, it will be argued that whilst financialization does take common forms and exhibit recurrent underlying tendencies, it seems to affect places in different ways depending upon how the spatially constituted social and economic architectures mediate certain processes.

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Block II: 14:45-16:15, Day 1 Session 4. Geographies of Education Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Graham Gaunt Fifty shades of knowledge transfer. Natalie Tebbett Physical Citizens: Positive Youth Development, ‘life skills’ and outdoor learning. Jo Hickman-Dunne Combining geographies of education with geographies of difference: examining Greek pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards multiculturalism in school. Panagiota Sotiropoulou The multi-scalar geographies of academic conferences on Regional Development in Brazil – 1986-2013. Christiane Fabiola Momm

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Combining geographies of education with geographies of difference: examining Greek preservice teachers’ attitudes towards multicultural education. Panagiota Sotiropoulou, Loughborough University Since the early 1990’s, Greece has transitioned from an emigration point to an immigrant receptacle. The resulting multicultural reality, in which non-natives make up 10% of the country’s population, is reflected in the demography of its student body. As a result, contemporary educational policies are aimed at producing culturally relevant educators who promote the diversity advantage. Research, however, has shown that pre-service teachers hold biased, stereotypical attitudes towards immigrant students. It therefore seems that in order to effectively design such policies, we must identify which factors influence pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards multicultural classrooms. Geographies of education and difference provide a useful theoretical background for such an enquiry. The prior highlight the importance of subjectivities and the role of both formal and informal learning environments, in defining how and what people learn, and the construction of their attitudes. The latter propose a connection between subjectivities, lived experiences, education and spatialities, and the ways in which people engage with the processes of inclusion and exclusion; central issues in multicultural education. This study proposes the construction of a model examining not only the factors influencing preservice teachers’ attitudes towards multiculturalism in the classroom, but also the manner in which they do so. The methods proposed to collect the relevant data required are discussed. These includes the use of questionnaire surveys, widely employed in previous research, but also their enrichment through a mixed methods approach, attempting to shed light on the underlying discourse concerning the multicultural classroom employed by prospective teachers.

Fifty shades of knowledge transfer. Natalie Tebbett, Loughborough University Over the past decade, geographers have begun to examine the production and circulation of knowledge through transnational mobility of researchers and academics (e.g., Ackers and Gill, 2008; Bauder, 2015; Jöns, 2007; 2015), but little is known about knowledge transfer through international faculty in the context of university teaching and learning (Kim, 2009; Pherali, 2014). This paper examines knowledge transfer between non-UK academic staff and their students in British universities, considering both subject-specific ideas and pedagogical practices. Drawing upon 34 semi-structured interviews with non-UK academic staff at three British universities, the paper focuses on the diverse experiences and challenges of international faculty from different cultural and disciplinary contexts in the UK classroom. It is argued that international faculty’s “agency in transforming the academic environment in which they are” (Madge et al., 2014:7) in varies considerably by their previous learning and teaching experience abroad, the inclusiveness of the host institution’s academic culture, and the need to adapt to a different culture of teaching and learning shaped by increasingly neoliberalized university agendas.

Physical Citizens: Positive Youth Development, ‘life skills’ and outdoor learning. Jo Hickman-Dunne, Loughborough University Issues surrounding the positive development of young people are increasingly on the political agenda. This is born out of a media and political representation of youth as somehow apathetic and

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 threatening, as well as a ‘world on the move’ characterised by increasing technologies, migration flows and shifting boundaries which young people must learn to negotiate. Considerable attention is given to producing ‘future citizens’ who have the skills and knowledge to function successfully in modern society. This can be seen through the introduction of Citizenship Education and Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) as compulsory elements of the national curriculum in England and Wales. There is a commitment to producing a politically engaged and civil population with democratic values, a greater self-awareness and citizenly consciousness. In addition to this, there is a powerful and enduring rhetoric connecting ideas of youth, nature, morality and the ‘great outdoors’. This is embedded in the literature informing informal education/learning, an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’ and a dialogical approach to education. There is a diverse historical and contemporary landscape of youth organisations operating in rural settings. The Outward Bound Trust will form the case study for this PhD, which operates as an ‘educational charity’ specialising in outdoor learning to develop young people. My PhD will use a participatory approach to critically examine how active citizenship and life-skills are promoted through outdoor learning with Outward Bound, and consider the ways in which young peoples’ identities are co-constructed through these environments and experiences.

The multi-scalar geographies of academic conferences on Regional Development in Brazil – 1986-2013. Christiane Fabiola Momm, Loughborough University The geography of academic meetings has been less extensively studied than other aspects in the history, sociology and geography of scientific knowledge. Therefore, the aim of this PhD research is to analyze the development and spatial reach of two major academic conference series on regional development in Brazil: the International Seminar of Regional Development (SIDR) organized by the Regional University of Santa Cruz do Sul (UNISC) and the National Meeting of the National Association in Regional and Urban Planning in Postgraduate and Research Programs (ENANPUR). The research uses a mixed methodology considering the quantitative and qualitative aspects of secondary data and semi-structured interviews. According to the first findings, there has been an increase in the number of delegates and papers presented in these two conferences over the past ten years, with a relatively positive gender balance. There is a paradox concerning geographical reach of these two conferences. The International Seminar of Regional Development (SIDR) always takes place in same city Santa Cruz do Sul in the South of Brazil and is an “international” meeting but has very few attendees from overseas. In contrast, ENANPUR is called a national meeting, but constantly changes its location within Brazil and presenters from more than 15 different international institutions and universities have attended in the last two decades.

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Block II: 14:45-16:15, Day 1 Session 5. Geographies of Nature and Energy Percy Building 2.24, Chair: Matthew Scott Governing Off-Grid Energy Provision: exploring the role of local governance in energy transitions in the Global South. Richard Sieff The political ecology of voice (PEV) and the accountability of resource extraction industries (REIs) in non-western countries; the case of Peru. Adrian Gonzalez Defending the rights of nature in Ecuador: Environmental activist NGOs and their resistance to extractivism. Stefan Rzedzian Hard Time in the Garden of Eden? Agency and Original Sin in the Gnostic Anthropocene. Mat Keel

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Governing Off-Grid Energy Provision: exploring the role of local governance in energy transitions in the Global South. Richard Sieff, Loughborough University The changing political and energy contexts of the Global South have resulted in energy access (and decentralised energy as a potential solution) assume increasing prominence among international development agencies, leading to significant international finance becoming available for energy sector interventions. At the same time, technological advances are reducing the cost of solar products (e.g. solar lanterns and solar home systems) leading to their rapid dissemination; whilst international agencies are beginning to invest in a range of mini, micro and nano-grid initiatives. Despite the growing literature exploring these initiatives, insufficient attention has been paid to the crucial role of local governance within these transitions and changing national-local political relationships. This is particularly surprising given the current trend of increasing political decentralisation in developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan countries. This part EPSRC funded PhD aims to bridge the gap between the literatures on energy and political decentralisation (hitherto largely discussed as separate entities). Focussing predominantly on Kenya (the location of previous and ongoing research by the Loughborough team), it attempts to better understand the role of local governance in addressing energy issues and how political decentralisation and decentralised energy might facilitate and enhance each other. A range of issues within this context will be explored: how different layers of governance interact within the energy sector (e.g. local/regional governance structures, NGOs and the private sector); the implications of more power for local authorities in relation to energy; and how energy governance might be enhanced by greater powers for local authorities.

The political ecology of voice (PEV) and the accountability of resource extraction industries (REIs) in non-western countries; the case of Peru. Adrian Gonzalez, Royal Holloway, University of London This paper examines why some oil-producing countries (particularly from Africa and Latin America) appear to suffer higher levels of environmental pollution than other oil-producing countries. To study this issue, the paper will present an innovative theory termed the “political ecology of voice” (PEV). PEV was developed to explore whether a range of stakeholders (citizens, community-based organisations (CBOs) and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) are able to effectively hold resource extraction industries (REIs) to account for environmental pollution. It can be defined as the study of a specific temporal political, economic, social, and geographical environment in which stakeholders’ utilise their voice over an environmental issue. The theory will be illustrated through a case-study of Peru’s Loreto region where fieldwork became focused on the state-owned oil company Petroperu and two distinct oil-based communities; the first, a pueblo adjacent to Petroperu’s Iquitos refinery and the second, an indigenous community living on the banks of the Rio Maranon and in close proximity to the North Peruvian oil pipeline operated by the company.

Hard Time in the Garden of Eden? Agency and Original Sin in the Gnostic Anthropocene. Mat Keel, University of Bristol Does the idea of the Anthropocene revivify eschatological tendencies within the history of EuroWestern thought? In popular narratives of climate change, impending ecological calamity is sometimes figured in a manner similar to tales of wrathful destruction at the hands of a vengeful

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 god. Are these figurations related? Is the apparent discovery of a new human agency registered by the Anthropocene perhaps haunted by the psychic traces of original sin? I explore this suggestion by turning to the Gnostic tradition of negative theology in which original sin was committed not by humans, but by a demiurge that incarcerated pure light inside of evil matter and in which human being is a reviled condition – a grotesque worm-like thing. This gnostic view of materialism influenced figures like Artaud, Cioran and the Situationists suggesting its clearer articulation may productively complicate current conversations around relationships between materialism, agency and the Anthropocene. With the appropriate caveat that Gnostic thought is best approached as an imperfect reconstruction from predominantly lost sources, I will outline the broad contours of Gnostic onto-theology so as to render a spectral figure native to Euro-Western thought but for whom matter is evil, nature is itself always already alienation and the body itself is the production of imprisonment or slavery. I present this figure without necessary endorsement but as a reflexive thought experiment to explore the boundaries of how else we might think the Anthropocene hypothesis within human geography.

Defending the rights of nature in Ecuador: Environmental activist NGOs and their resistance to extractivism. Stefan Rzedzian, Newcastle University In 2008 the newly elected government of Ecuador, led by President Rafael Correa, inscribed the rights of nature into the country’s constitution. This move, along with other additions and changes to the constitution, marked a new era in the country’s history and resulted in many around the globe claiming that Ecuador now boasted one of the greenest governments in the world. Declarations were made as to how the country was championing a new model of development, and was due to usher in a “post-neoliberal” and “post-extractivism” age. Fast forward 7 years and where do we stand? The idea of Ecuador’s “green” government has all but withered away. Environmentalists are being harassed by the state, oil production has increased (including drilling being taken to some of the most pristine and untouched areas of the Amazon rainforest), and mining activity has risen as well, with Correa specifically stating that he wants to embrace mineral exploitation as a vital part of Ecuador’s economy. How then are the rights of nature currently manifesting in Ecuador? Who is defending them, and how? What challenges do these guardians of the rights of Mother Nature face, and how do they seek to overcome them? Drawing on research obtained during a fieldwork period of 18 months in Ecuador, where I worked with environmental activists and their affiliated organisations, this presentation will explore the above questions. My research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how the rights of nature are realised and defended against international and domestic actors in Ecuador, a group that increasingly includes the very government that constitutionalised them.

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Coffee break: 16:15-16:30 Poster Session at Research Beehive 2.20

Block III: 16:30-18:00, Day 1 Session 1. Migration III: Sites and Scales Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson The rise of Rice: Migration strategies contributing to development in Northeast Thailand Trevor Tier Student Mobility versus Student Migration: a terminological dilemma Marina Anastasio Skyping Home: Investigating online and offline experiences of 'home' for British expatriates in the Costa del Sol, Spain. Rebekah Miller Consideration of the generational and spatial impacts on the attitude towards Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) across Somali communities in Britain. Mina Nakai

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The rise of Rice: Migration strategies contributing to development in Northeast Thailand. Trevor Tier, University of Sussex Migration is a valuable tool for development, regenerating agrarian lifestyles in rural Northeast Thailand. To what extent is this activity tied to policy initiatives or personal strategies? How does the geopolitical interest in this area contribute to the success of these ventures or how do they present challenges to the communities concerned? Do the greater geostrategic development initiatives for the region as a whole contribute to or detract from the personal strategic opportunities in this region? Based on preliminary ethnographic interviews in the Udon Thani province an intriguing scenario of migration contributing to agrarian regeneration is emerging. With the backdrop of four Friendship Bridges across the Mekong bringing much needed development opportunities to the mid-Mekong region of Isan the forming of geostrategic corridors create opportunities for the movement of goods and the development of provincial industry centres. Rice is Thailand’s key agricultural export commodity, however demographic pressures, climate variability, rural-urban migration and relationships with its key rice producing neighbours could create challenges to the future viability of production. This research paper examines the nexus of personal migration strategies, demography and development in the Northeast of Thailand with a focus on rice asking, “Is agrarian regeneration through migration an achievable personal strategy harnessing the rise of a rice economy in Northeast Thailand?”

Student Mobility versus Student Migration: a terminological dilemma. Marina Anastasio, London Metropolitan University Despite a significant increase of international student migration or mobility over the last few decades, the topic remains a relatively underexplored field in migration studies. In particular, while the notion of ‘internationalization of higher education’ has undergone an important shift and became a highly prioritized issue in political debates, the heterogeneity of international students is rarely explored. Current literature shows that there is a lack of theorization while the terms ‘student migration’ and ‘student mobility’ often are being used interchangeably both at the academic and policy level. The paper will critical engage with this terminological dilemma and discuss the ideological, political and cultural issues underlying the contradictions between ‘mobility’ and ‘migration’ in higher education. Some contemporary scholars, such as Baas (2012), locate ‘mobility’ in between the two theoretical realms of migration and transnationalism whilst others, (King, 2013), take a broader approach that includes different types of moves: credit mobility, degree mobility and shorter duration schemes. By introducing and exploring key concepts, the aim of the paper is to compare and understand the different experiences of international students from the EU and Third Countries living in the UK. Interrogating the terms ‘mobility’ and ‘migration’ is crucial for both academic and political debates, in order to understand how and why student mobility or migration fits into the bigger picture of the global transformations in higher education.

Skyping Home: Investigating online and offline experiences of 'home' for British expatriates in the Costa del Sol, Spain. Rebekah Miller, University of Edinburgh This paper will argue that there is space within transnational migration literature to investigate how digital media can play a role in the practices and understandings of the concept of ‘home’. By investigating the everyday use of digital media by British expatriates in the Costa del Sol, there is an

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 opportunity to understand how their senses of ‘home’ and belonging are shaped and experienced; both online and offline. Within this paper digital media will refer predominantly to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, such as Skype), social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) and online forums. Miller and Madianou’s (2012) theory of polymedia will be drawn upon, to understand how social relationships, and the concept of ‘home’, are constructed and impacted by the use of several different types of digital media simultaneously. The concept of ‘home’ is particularly complex for transnational migrants as fluid and multiple senses of home and belonging can be made, and regularly reshaped (see Al-Ali and Koser, 2002; Blunt and Dowling, 2006; Walsh, 2006). For British expatriates living in the Costa del Sol there can be a sense of ‘betwixt and between’ in explaining where ‘home’ is (O’Reilly, 2000: 140). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it will be argued that digital media has become central to the experience of being a British expatriate within the Costa del Sol. This centrality is visible not only in their practice of making a ‘home’ in Spain, but also in maintaining a sense of ‘home’ and belonging in the UK.

Consideration of the generational and spatial impacts on the attitude towards Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) across Somali communities in Britain. Mina Nakai, Royal Holloway, University of London There are an estimated 130 million girls and women today who have had Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practised on them worldwide, with a further 3.3 million girls estimated annually to be at risk. Over the last few years, FGM has begun to be placed under the spotlight in the UK with several cultures continuing the practice in the UK within their communities. My PhD research is seeking to examine how attitudes towards FGM vary spatially and generationally. This will allow an examination of the role of migration and community institutions in framing attitudes towards FGM. This is because of the intertwining of FGM with notions of individual and community identity. I am conducting my research within Somali communities in two cities in the UK. In Somalia and Somaliland the vast majority of women will have been cut, while the practice is illegal in the UK. Thus, my research will examine the between first-generation migrants and their children, and how the migration experience and UK context affects attitudes towards FGM. The study is also unusual in that it includes men as well as women. The paper draws on qualitative research using interviews and ethnographic methods.

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Block III: 16:30-18:00, Day 1 Session 2. Geographies of Sustainability (part 2) Percy Building G.13, Chair: Institute of Sustainability Green space and urban form: a historico-geographical approach. Yiting Zhang Everyday hedging against the future in urbanising Nepal. Hanna Ruszczyk The effect of flooding on the incidence of cryptosporidiosis in Scotland. Isotein Ikiroma-Owiye

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Green space and urban form: a historico-geographical approach. Yiting Zhang, University of Birmingham Studies of urban ecology have hitherto been largely ahistorical and almost entirely acultural. With rare exceptions, cities have been treated by urban ecologists as essentially physical entities unconnected to the concerns of historical geographers. In contrast, key concerns of urban morphologists have been how urban physical expressions of culture have changed over time. This is notably the case with research that has adopted the Conzenian and Muratorian approaches: these and other approaches have stimulated research on the planning of urban form that has been largely divorced from concerns about ecosystem services. This divorce needs to be rectified. One of the major gaps between urban morphology and urban ecology will be focused on in this paper, namely that between the historical development of urban form and the nature, significance and distribution of various types of green space. The principal concern will be the different types of green space (such as parks, golf courses and allotment gardens) associated with fringe belts.

Everyday hedging against the future in urbanising Nepal. Hanna Ruszczyk, Durham University Based on my empirical work in two different parts of a changing city on the Nepal – India border, I will argue that everyday hedging against the future is occurring in informal groups that have been formed against these uncertain futures and the differential interpretations of hedging will be explored. Everyday hedging and the forms through which they are manifested; ways in which urban residents present their ‘resilience’ to everyday life and uncertain futures is explored. Urban residents have carved out mini eco systems on a localised area, a neighbourhood level, that enable them to exist and meet their everyday needs. These islands of territorial governance exist but are not necessarily sufficient for its members to thrive; they hedge against unknown futures that will undoubtedly arrive. Some futures produce precarity; others produce and reinforce social bonding, excluding others. These everyday hedging strategies are informal; are not officially recognised by the government but warrant notice by the government if the residents strive to be noticed, to be “in the light”. This research project utilises a qualitative approach to investigating temporal changes in risk perception over a series of fieldwork trips conducted in 2014 and 2015 in rapidly urbanising Nepal (during the time which the devastating earthquake struck, the country passed a new constitution and the number of municipalities increased 375% in 12 months). Semi structured interviews and focus group discussions in two differentiated geographic parts of a rapidly urbanising large city in Nepal provide the empirical work for this study.

The effect of flooding on the incidence of cryptosporidiosis in Scotland. Isotein Ikiroma-Owiye, University of the West of Scotland There is evidence that flooding influences the incidence of infectious diseases. Studies accomplished in the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, for example have suggested an association between flooding and the occurrence of water-borne diseases such as campylobacter. However, a relationship between, the occurrence of a flood and an increase in the number of cryptosporidiosis cases has not yet been identified nor studied in Scotland where the incidence of this water-borne disease is a public health concern. Hence, this study examines whether flooding is related to an increase in cryptosporidiosis incidence. Weekly cases of cryptosporidiosis and daily

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 river flow data from 11 catchments across Scotland were obtained for the period 2006-2013. A flooding event was defined using a peak over threshold (POT) methodology with the threshold defined as the 95th percentile of the daily river flow data. A logistic regression analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between weeks with a flooding episode and cryptosporidiosis incidence in two catchments, but revealed a statistically significant relationship in nine catchments when a lag time between the occurrence of a flood and cryptosporidiosis incidence was introduced. This study indicates that flooding increases the risk of cryptosporidiosis incidence, suggesting either a direct or an indirect pathway through which resuspension of the pathogens from river sediments increase pathogen levels and human exposure to the pathogens in the environment. Public health officials and risk assessors could use these results in the development of prevention strategies.

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Block III: 16:30-18:00, Day 1 Session 3. Historical Geographies II Beehive Lecture Theatre (session ends 17:30), Chair: Matthew Scott Ordering expended mobility: displaying British railway heritage in the 1950s and 60s. Mark Lambert Unpicking the threads of the Industrial Revolution. Stephen Walker Cecil Rhodes’ Geopolitical Vision. Matthew Scott

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Ordering expended mobility: displaying British railway heritage in the 1950s and 60s. Mark Lambert, University of Nottingham My thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the co-constitutive relationship between railways and British culture by analysing the appropriation of obsolete railway-related objects in the procedures of governmental heritage designation and display in the period between the nationalisation of the British railway network in 1948 and the opening of the National Railway Museum in York in 1975. The thesis analyses why, where and by whom particular railway objects were preserved once their working life had ended. In this talk I am specifically proposing to discuss the establishment and running of museums by the state-owned British Transport Commission (later the British Railways Board)- the Museum of British Transport at Clapham, the Great Western Railway Museum at Swindon, and the Railway Museum at York- looking at the way in which they operated in conjunction with overarching, geographically informed, cultural strategies which affected both the nature of their contents and the way in which they were displayed. I will analyse how these museums were managed, the events which took place in them and their relation to the wider social milieu of this time. The operation of these museums during the 1960s took place against the backdrop of ongoing debates about their future- British Railways was increasingly unprepared to shoulder their cost, particularly as it was attempting to modernise its image. The ultimate resolution to this situation was the establishment of the National Railway Museum in York, operated by the Department of Education and Science under the auspices of the Science Museum.

Unpicking the threads of the Industrial Revolution. Stephen Walker, University of Nottingham In 1778, the firm of Robinson and Sons obtained licenses to use Arkwright’s water frame technology for spinning cotton and, over the course of 18 years, constructed 6 large spinning mills. Their cotton mills were founded on the proceeds and knowledge gained from a proto-industrial bleaching enterprise, providing evidence of trade and industrial linkages within the UK. They brought innovation to industrialisation. In 1785, they were the first in the world to use steam power for cotton spinning. I have been using historical cartographic and documentary sources to examine in detail how location factors affected these early industrialists and the lasting impact in the landscape of their brief period of success. My research aims to answer several questions about the operation of these early cotton factories.  What were the sources of raw material?  What transport links did they require?  How did they recruit a labour force?  How did they modify the landscape and drainage systems to provide water power from a small stream?  In 1830, the mills were closed, but what happened to the workers?  How has the present landscape evolved from those early industrial influences?

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Cecil Rhodes' Geopolitical Vision. Matthew Scott, Newcastle University This paper attempts to understand the life, work, and thought of Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) as a geopolitical vision. In his extraordinary Confession of Faith of 1877, Rhodes outlined an incoherent yet unsettling vision of Anglo-Saxon world dominance based upon the continuing territorial expansion of the British Empire and the creation of a Secret Society to recruit the ablest minds from across the world into his scheme. In this paper I develop the argument that Rhodes' thought is best analysed as a geopolitical vision; one rooted specifically in Cartesian Perspectivalism and more generally in what John Agnew has defined as the modern geopolitical imagination. Based on research in Rhodes' archive in Oxford, in the first part of this paper I argue that in these documents we see the contours of a geopolitical vision based on the ontological separation of the external knowable world and the internal knowing subject Cecil Rhodes. In the second part of the paper I deepen this argument by focusing on Rhodes' relationship to history and time. Rhodes was obsessed with the Roman Empire, the Classic texts of Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca (among others), and finally with the so-called 'Great Men' of history such as Julius Caesar and Napoleon. Dissecting this obsession, I argue that Rhodes' self-proclaimed knowledge of history placed his self-identity, agency, and positionality as anterior to both space and time, lending his ideas a certain veneer of assuredness and objectivity. In the final part of the paper I reflect on Rhodes' well-noted fixation with mountains, suggesting that this is indicative of the all-seeing, God-like way that he looked upon the world.

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Block III: 16:30-18:00, Day 1 Session 4. Geographies of Transport Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Wilbert den Hoed Social theory and transitions in commuting mode in Northern Ireland 1991-2011. Claire O’Boyle Small changes with big consequences? Exploring the use of urban infrastructure by commuter cyclists. Michael Nattrass Invading automobility – contesting urban cycle space from above and below. Katja Leyendecker Enabling resilient transport networks in response to road traffic events. Luke Abberley

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Social theory and transitions in commuting mode in Northern Ireland 1991-2011. Claire O’Boyle, Queen’s University Belfast The daily commute is an essential element of everyday mobilities, accounting for around 1/5 th of all journeys in the UK each day (Pooley & Turnbull, 2000). This study is situated as part of a wider theoretical investigation into those everyday mobilities, with a focus on examining the complexities involved in transitions between commuting modes in Northern Ireland (N.I.). Central to policies in the UK health and sustainability arenas is the desire to encourage modal-shift from private transport commuting to public transport and more active forms of commuting (Department for Transport, 2011; Marmot Review, 2010). However, due to a lack of travel data which is consistent over time there is little understanding of how the determinants of modal choice have altered (Nutley, 2005). The analysis of data from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) produces the first ever longitudinal investigation of commuting mode in the UK and N.I., showing a considerable shift towards private transport commuting and a reduction in both public transport and active commuting. Qualitative data gained through focus groups with employees across N.I. and interviews with transport and health professionals identifies important cultural perceptions of travel modes and the potential impact on wider commuting practices. An examination of Shove’s (2012) Dynamics of Social Practice Theory is utilised to aid the understanding of these patterns of daily mobility.

Small changes with big consequences? Exploring the use of urban infrastructure by commuter cyclists. Michael Nattrass, University College London There are many obvious benefits associated with greater levels of short intra-urban commutes by bicycle and yet for many people in the UK the existing road network is anything but safe for cycling. In focusing upon current cyclists, this research looked closely at how they perceive, negotiate and use the existing road network as an infrastructure for their movement. In doing so, this contributes to recent debates about what can be described as a good cycling environment in the context of the UK. This research reports on a case study centred upon commuters who regularly cycle in Carlisle, England. Particular attention was paid to recent scholarship concerning the significance of risk and infrastructures as two important concepts associated with attitudes towards cycling, through the use of the ride-along and semi-structured interview methods of data collection. In examining the ways in which the existing road network is used and shaped by cyclists, this research emphasises the significance of when, as opposed to what, is an infrastructure. On this basis this research sought to use these frameworks to conceive all carriageways in Carlisle as potential spaces to support everyday cycling. The data collected has highlighted: right-turn junction anxiety; intentional cycling through residential areas; and the obligation to use an off-road cycleway provision. These findings are discussed in reference to the potential for the existing road network to evolve through small incremental interventions, which could make these spaces appear an acceptable and good cycling environment for more people.

Invading automobility – contesting urban cycle space from above and below. Katja Leyendecker, Northumbria University Cities are constantly changing and reinventing themselves, through policy, planning and engineering, undergoing transitions, envisaging new fortunes and futures. Yet transport spaces, city

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 roads and streets, have stayed devoted to the private car, even when urban space comes at a premium. Reimaging city life with ‘less car’ in it, remains a continual challenge. What is needed to discontinue traditional transport thinking and disrupt the car-oriented trend of automobility(1)? Cycling, as such, is a disruptor of the system of automobility. As an opposing force, velomobility(2) claims its own space, rules and demands its own logic. My PhD research takes place in two cities, one with high cycling levels (Bremen, Germany), and the other with low levels of cycling (NewcastleGateshead, UK). The purpose of the research is to bring together both top-down decision-making and bottom-up street use and perception. It will examine people’s observations about their natural street environment as well as confront them with unfamiliar environments. The exploration will be achieved by combining mobile space visualisation and interview techniques. The car entered the urban arena about a century ago – only very recently in evolutionary terms. Just how deep does automobility run in homo urbanus? The presentation brings together theories on urban space, and raises methodological questions of conducting an effective investigation into the disruption of automobility.

Enabling resilient transport networks in response to road traffic events. Luke Abberley, Manchester Metropolitan University The world is made up of multiple networks such as, power grids, the internet, and transportation systems, which include roadways, railways, sea links and airspace. Resilient transport networks are vital for sustainable development and are core part of the ”Smart City”. The major threat to resilient road networks is congestion, which has an estimated cost of 1% of GDP across the European Union, including reduced productivity and increased transport costs. Congestion also has a major impact on air quality and the quality of life in general. Congestion has two forms, non-recurrent congestion, which can be the result of events such as traffic accidents and road works, and recurrent congestion, which can occur at well-known bottlenecks where traffic demand exceeds capacity. This research will focus on the former. Is it possible to identify events using real-time sensor data and then use historical data to predict their likely effects? If so, this will allow traffic managers to react to such events, in a timely fashion, to alleviate congestion. However, definitions of congestion vary and we must firstly identify what congestion is, and what its causes are. This will involve developing a conceptual framework for city centre road congestion. Can analogies be drawn with other networks, such as the internet? Predictive analytical techniques will be used to model the spatial and temporal characteristics of congestion using data provided by Transport for Greater Manchester. Providing the ability to know when an event happens, where it happens, what effect it has on flow and capacity.

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Block III: 16:30-18:00, Day 1 Session 5. Housing (CURDS III) Percy Building 2.24, Chair: Fraser Bell Sponsored by CURDS Housing activism of state-owned enterprise workers in China. Yi Jin Exploring the unknown geographies of Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO). Andreas Culora Understanding urban informality: Everyday life in informal urban settlements in Pakistan. Arezu Bari Housing affordability; Is enough building enough? Upuli Perera

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Housing activism of state-owned enterprise workers in China. Yi Jin, London School of Economic and Political Sciences Intense academic attention was paid to state-owned enterprise (SOE) workers in China within the last two decades for the large numbers of laid-offs caused by the massive reform of Chinese SOEs. Although workers have been deprived of most of their welfare, they keep residing in the public housing that once owned by the enterprises. Thus the public housing becomes an economic safety net to secure the disadvantaged workers, alleviate their grievance, and maintain social stability. However, in some recent projects aiming at renovating dilapidated urban regions, the workers’ housing is under the threat of being demolished. By conducting an ethnographic study in a western Chinese city, where several SOEs were built during the Third-Front construction (1964-1980), this research will investigate the state’s tactics to facilitate the renovating project and the diverse responses of different subgroups of workers. For the workers who protest against the housing expropriation, how they articulate their claims, their strategies of resistance (both explicit and implicit), their primary goals, and how their current activism is similar to or different from that during the massive laid-offs in early 2000s will be discussed. This research tries to answer how the tripartite relations of the state(s), the enterprises, and the workers, and the internal relations of workers are transformed in China’s reform era. In addition, by viewing the danwei (work-unit) space as a spatial process and reviewing its emergence and demise, this research will also explore how the urban change in contemporary China can shed lights on the post-socialist urbanism.

Understanding urban informality: Everyday life in informal urban settlements in Pakistan. Arezu Bari, Newcastle University Rapid urbanisation and severe housing shortages help explain why informal settlements are widespread in Pakistan today. Failure to ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing has led to the steady encroachment of state-owned and private vacant land for informal dwelling. Current estimates are that 67% of the urban population of Pakistan live in unrecognised settlements (National Housing Policy 2008). This study considers how everyday life unfolds through various forms of extra-legal, social and discursive regulations in this context of pervasive informality. A central premise is that we need to develop new theoretical analytic tools that reflect current global urban trends in order to shift the perception of informality from one of deviance and disorganisation to one of alternative functionality and complementarity. Contrary to conventional understanding, the study highlights that informal housing and irregular settlements function as enduring modes of urban development, inadequately portrayed as symptoms of economic backwardness. The study provides concrete examples of how informality is co-produced with formal urban development, often filling the institutional, structural and administrative gaps that state-led planning practices leave behind. The findings reinforce that informality is ordinary rather than deviant. Inhabitants exhibit a sense of attachment, a recognition of alternative property rights and a perceived sense of entitlement in relation to their properties. This is evident through a close reading of well-defined but complex webs of horizontal and vertical social relations. This research demonstrates the multiple ways that urban informality functions as a social field of competition and cooperation simultaneously.

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Exploring the unknown geographies of Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO). Andreas Culora, Loughborough University Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO) has emerged as a key form of housing within the last twenty-five years across the UK. The proliferation of this housing type has been swift and shows little evidence of slowing down in the foreseeable future. However, few attempts have been made in academia to understand the processes governing the proliferation of HMO. As a result, this PhD project will investigate the multiple geographies of HMO, using the Borough of Charnwood in Leicestershire as the main case study. It will use innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to exploit a range of national and local administrative and census datasets in the UK. This has so far involved the use of a range of software skills including map-making using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Structured Query Language (SQL) in Microsoft Access 2010 and complex formula-building in Microsoft Excel. This analysis of ‘Big Data’ will subsequently be followed up by research methods including surveys, interviews and focus groups with a range of institutional actors and stakeholders to examine the diverse processes which underpin the formation and reproduction of different geographies of HMO.

Housing affordability; Is enough building enough? Upuli Perera, Unversity of Birmingham Housing affordability has become a common way of summarising the nature of the housing difficulty in many nations. The current debate in academia, voices of housing advocates and government commissioned research reports in UK often asserts the cause of the housing affordability as a supply issue: “not enough building to meet the demand”. Furthermore the main stream housing literature often follows a normative approach and thereby defines “housing affordability” within the boundaries of house buyer’s ability to pay both housing and non-housing cost. Nevertheless, the housing markets hardly reflect these basic economic principles of supply and demand outcomes. New additions to the housing stock do not typically demonstrate reduction of local house price escalations but being more on the reverse. With the underpinning of Giddens theory of structuration and the Clapham’s Housing Pathway approach, this paper aims to unfold this convolution of local housing markets outcomes by exploring what other factors and agency that come into play in relation to housing affordability as an alternative to the generic summarising of “not enough building” and “no ability to pay”. Empirical evidences were drawn from Dickens Heath New Settlement, Solihull which considered being a sustainable new settlement in Westmidlands with over 1600 housing units. The qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews with various market actors including land promoters, developers, residents, planners, local councillors etc informs that the multiple role of housing, heterogeneity of agency and the dynamic changes in lifestyles of house buyers, fuzzy boundaries and power relationship of market actors are making a significant influence on the housing markets outcomes.

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Keynote 09:00-10:00, Lecture Theatre Dr Erin McClymont

Block IV: 10:15-11:45, Day 2 Session 1. Making Place and Space I Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson Assembling singularities in a Trans-scaler world: St-Andrews as a global-town. Paula Duffy Interrogating local-global discourse through Participatory Art Practice. Alexia Mellor The Royal Welsh Agricultural Show: (re)presenting and (re)imagining Wales? Greg Thomas “We are not rural”: Different discourses of rurality in Turkey. Duygu Okumus

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Interrogating Local-Global Discourse through Participatory Art Practice. Alexia Mellor, Newcastle University Art is commonly thought of as a practice reserved for the artist’s studio and experienced within the white cube of a gallery or museum. However, the increasing attention on social practice in the arts has led to an interest in art’s capacity to transcend these contexts, directly impacting other disciplines and tackling important questions in the humanities and sciences more broadly. In this paper, I will present case studies from my practice-led research, looking at ways in which participatory art practice has the potential to explore our relationship to place, while revealing local models of knowledge exchange and suggesting paths to active citizenry. The research asks questions around how we understand our sense of place in an increasingly globalized and digitallymediated landscape, and how appropriating aspects of “global” culture might be subverted and repurposed to shed new light on the “local”.

Assembling singularities in a Trans-scaler world: St-Andrews as a global-town. Paula Duffy & Anne Finlay, University of St. Andrews Understanding places is a complex process and this widely acknowledged in geography. Indeed new ideas such as assemblage thinking are challenging other theoretical positions such as structuralism. Structuralism focuses on the overarching system and the big influential processes. It propagates dichotomous thinking such as urban/rural and global/local. These dualisms notably leave no place for towns, for in between spaces and places and do not foster a multi-scalar approach. In both Understanding Scottish Places (2015) typology of Scottish towns and my own typological study of Scottish coastal demographies, St. Andrews was an outlier: a category all on its own. We therefore use St. Andrews as an empirical case study of a singularity from these technical knowledges, and question if scale has skewed the understanding of this town space/place. This project brings together qualitative and quantitative data from the aforementioned demographic studies, student migration, retail and commercial activity as well as an analysis of the planning and policy practices which impact St. Andrews. Using assemblage thinking we examine how a trans-scaler approach can better account for St Andrews outlier position and the role it plays within global networks. We reflect on what this means for trans-scaler places, the in-between spaces such as towns. Considering the possibility of global-towns as new geography; One of mismatched power, agency and planning.

“We are not rural”: Different Discourses of Rurality in Turkey. Duygu Okumus, Newcastle University Many countries and international bodies use a positivist approach for defining the rural and classifying settlements as such approach allows to make a comparison between countries and regions by using functional attributes which can be statistically proven. On the other hand, the social-representational approach argues that there is no objective definition of the rural. Instead, individuals and institutions construct their own realities. However, social representations of the rural may not be overlapping with what is defined as rural through the positivist approach. This controversy may lead to inaccurate understanding of places and mismanagement, as a consequence of ill-adapted policies. This paper examines the concept of rurality through both positivists and socio-cultural approaches

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 in Bozcaada, a small island which is classified as urban place although it does not meet the criteria of rurality in the Turkish context. The positivist approach to this study has been undertaken by a literature review of the Turkish context. A social-representational approach has been carried out in a fieldwork in June-July 2015. As the results suggests that the residents do not prefer to describe the island as a rural place due to the negative perception of rural localities in Turkish context. However, the attributes they gave the island are strongly related with the rural idyll.

The Royal Welsh Agricultural Show: (Re)presenting and (Re)imagining Wales? Greg Thomas, Aberystwyth University With a population of around three million, Wales is a small, but proud nation, with a distinct rural heritage. Established in 1904, the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show is the largest and most prestigious event of its kind in Europe and considered by policymakers as being one of Wales’ signature, showcase events. There has been much work looking at the impact of mega-events on perceptions of place and identity, however thus far the rural has been widely ignored in this work. This paper argues that the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show forms an imagined community with Wales’ rural heritage at its heart. Compared only to a Welsh Rugby International game and the National Eisteddfod, the event mobilises national sentiments in a way that cannot be done in other day-today arenas, it places rural Wales and Welshness on an international stage (re)presenting the nation to ever increasing global audiences. The Royal Welsh Agricultural Show not only (re)creates the Welsh rural life, but provides a space where visitors can consume rural Wales; the Show transforms the physical and social aspects of rural life into aesthetic commodities that are consumed by rural and urban dwellers alike. The Royal Welsh Agricultural Show allows rural Wales to (re)present and (re)imagine itself, on not just a regional, but a global scale allowing its often conflicting identities to be negotiated.

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Block IV: 10:15-11:45, Day 2 Session 2. Physical Environments Percy Building G.13, Chairs: Eleanor Starkey & Mhari Barnes Optimising flow cytometry for quantification of bacterial cells in supraglacial meltwater samples. Ian Stevens Controls of air temperature variability over a small Alpine Glacier. Thomas Shaw Climate variability and long-term expansion of peat lands in Arctic Norway during the late Pliocene (ODP Site 642, Norwegian Sea). Sina Panitz Revised Chronostratigraphy and Palaeoenvironmental History of the Fazzan Basin, Libyan Sahara. Helena White

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Optimising flow cytometry for quantification of bacterial cells in supraglacial meltwater samples. Ian Stevens, Aberystwyth University Despite being historically considered as an inhospitable environment for life, the cryosphere is now acknowledged as a globally important habitat for microbial life; it has been estimated that microbe populations within the upper 2 m of global ice masses are equal to that observed in the upper 200 m of oceans worldwide, containing in the order of 1026-29 bacterial cells1. Through their roles in processes of nutrient cycling2-4 and modification of surface albedo5-7 and micro-scale topography8, they can be considered sentinels and amplifiers of global climatic forcing9. Despite the prevalence of bacterial cells in the near-surface of glaciers, there is limited understanding as to the processes governing the transport and redistribution of this biotic material. However, it has proven difficult to enumerate bacterial communities in liquid environmental samples containing suspended mineral sediment10. Flow cytometry (FCM) represents a high-throughput technique which has demonstrated the ability to quickly and accurately enumerate cells in clinical and non-environmental applications. Glacial meltwater samples require limited preparation for the application of FCM, whereas in contrast alternate quantification methods such as epifluorescence microscopy and quantitative PCR require time-consuming preparation procedures and enumeration protocols. FCM additionally enables “sorting” of samples, allowing biotic material to be isolated in suspension suitable for further microbial analysis such as metabolomics and next-generation sequencing. This work presents an improved protocol for the collection and analysis of such samples, examining the influence of controlling factors such as cell genus, sediment lithology and abotic particulate concentration.

Controls of air temperature variability over a small Alpine Glacier. Thomas Shaw, Ben Brock & Nick Rutter, Northumbria University Álvaro Ayala, Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich Near surface air temperature (Ta) is one of the most important controls on energy exchange between a glacier surface and the overlying atmosphere. However, not enough detail is known about the controls on Ta in space and time due to sparse data availability. Recent work has provided insights into variability of Ta along centre-line positions of glaciers in different parts of the world, yet there is still a limited understanding of Ta variability and how best to estimate it from distant off-glacier locations. We present a new dataset of distributed Ta records for a small Alpine valley in Northwest Italy gathered in 2015. Data provide detailed information of lateral (across-glacier) variations in Ta, with ~20,000 hourly observations from July-September. The suitability of different lapse rates in estimating air temperature is considered under a range of meteorological conditions and from different forcing locations. Investigation of spatial trends reveals interesting controls of glacier surface topography and the role of boundary layer development. A relationship of general trends with regional-scale reanalysis data is also presented. Our work reaffirms the current issues of distributing meteorological variables and moves toward explaining local scale Ta variations and their importance to melt modelling.

Climate variability and long-term expansion of peat lands in Arctic Norway during the late Pliocene (ODP Site 642, Norwegian Sea). Sina Panitz, Northumbria University 75

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I present the first high-resolution reconstruction of vegetation and climate change in northern Norway between 3.6-3.14 Ma based on pollen assemblages in the marine sediments of ODP Hole 642B, Norwegian Sea (67°N). During the late Pliocene vegetation alternated between cool temperate forests during warmer-than-present intervals and boreal forest similar to today during cooler intervals. The northern boundary of the deciduous to mixed forest zone was displaced at least 4-8° further north and warmest month temperatures were 6-14.5°C higher than present during warm phases. Diverse cool temperate deciduous to mixed forests grew under warm climatic conditions in the lowlands of the Scandinavian mountains during the earliest late Pliocene (c. 3.63.47 Ma). A distinct cooling event at c. 3.47 Ma led to the predominance of boreal forest and the development of open, low alpine environments. The cooling culminated around 3.3 Ma, coinciding with Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) M2. After c. 3.29 Ma a high variability of climate is indicated by the repeated expansion of forests and peat lands during warmer and cooler periods, respectively. Climate progressively cooled after 3.18 Ma, resembling climatic conditions during MIS M2. A long-term cooling is expressed by an expansion of Sphagnum peat lands that potentially contributed to the decline in atmospheric CO2-concentration and facilitated ice growth through positive vegetation-snow albedo feedbacks. Correlations with other Northern Hemisphere records suggest hemisphere-wide effects of climate changes. Late Pliocene vegetation changes will be compared to alkenone-based sea surface temperature reconstructions and dinoflagellate cyst assemblage changes for ODP Hole 642B.

Revised Chronostratigraphy and Palaeoenvironmental History of the Fazzan Basin, Libyan Sahara Helena White, University of Leicester The Sahara Desert is a key region for the study of global climate change, yet important gaps remain in our understanding of the palaeoenvironmental history of the Sahara. The Fazzan Basin, southwest Libya, is one of a few regions to document North Africa’s palaeohydrological history in the form of lake shorelines and sedimentary deposits. The most extensive of these belongs to the Al Mahruqah formation which is believed to have been deposited by Lake Megafazzan. Understanding of the late Quaternary history of the basin has increased in recent years, yet the origin and age of the formation is subject to ongoing debate with the chronological and palaeoenvironmental framework of pre-Quaternary units lacking. In order to build on and extend the Quaternary knowledge of the basin, geochemical and sedimentological analyses along with palaeomagnetic dating has been conducted on sediment samples from six stratigraphic sections from across the Fazzan Basin. This presentation will discuss the magnetostratigraphic dating of these deposits which are allowing exciting and new assessments to be made and the previous research of the Al Mahruqah formation to be re-evaluated.

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Block IV: 10:15-11:45, Day 2 Session 3. Governing Economies (CURDS IV) Beehive Lecture Theatre, Chair: Liam Keenan Sponsored by CURDS The role of citizens in smart city governance. Gabriele Schliwa The inclusive virtual city: reality, dream or delusion? Ian Babelon Innovation beyond the market? Public sector innovation and local economic development. Laura Sariego-Kluge Decentralisation and devolution in England: the changing role and shape of the local state in local economic development. Anja McCarthy

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The role of citizens in smart city governance. Gabriele Schliwa, James Evans & Andrew Karvonen, University of Manchester The concept of the ‘smart city’ has become increasingly influential since 2010 and has emerged as a compelling approach to modernise urban policy. While the notion of ‘smart’ symbolises ICT-led innovation, it also has the potential to introduce new modes of governance and citizenship. This paper focuses on the implications of smart cities for local democracy and civic engagement. There is a growing need to examine the potential of 'smart cities' for citizen empowerment and bottom-up civic engagement. Innovation spaces and events such as living labs and civic hackathons have the potential to address urban challenges, offering the opportunity for new forms of governance through collaborative experimentation and problem-focused iterative learning. At the same time, an emerging critique suggests that smart cities are overly focused on corporate interests and technologies at the expense of civic engagement and political accountability. Thus there is a tension between the smart city as emancipatory and participatory vs technocratic and undemocratic. This paper provides explores the various ways that citizenship and civic engagement are being defined and enacted in smart city governance. It develops an understanding of the different roles people have within smart city initiatives and helps scholars as well as stakeholders from public, private and civic society alike to consider the implications of top-down and bottom-up initiatives and practices.

The inclusive virtual city: reality, dream or delusion? Ian Babelon, Northumbria University The first virtual cities emerged just years after the public release of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s, concerns were expressed over the fact that the inclusive virtual city may at best be a distant dream, and at worst, a delusion serving the interests of elite classes and reproducing inequalities in society. In the age of the Web 2.0 and e-Governance, inclusiveness in the virtual city seems to remain an ideal. The “digital divide”, although lessened through increased access to mobile and desktop internet technologies, still persists today. In particular, the “second” digital divide takes the form of widely differentiated skills among users to make full use of digital technologies: this may include varying capacities in interacting with environments such as virtual globes and virtual city models. In the process, the virtual city not only risks reproducing the diverse inequalities extant in the real city but also aggravate them. This presentation preliminarily investigates the extent to which diverse web-based virtual city environments can provide optimised inclusiveness, so as to inform inclusive planning in the real city. In particular 2D-4D applications will be compared in terms of affordances provided to different user groups, and their relative suitability for crowdsourcing urban planning solutions to particular urban planning problems related to liveable and age-friendly cities.

Innovation beyond the market? Public sector innovation and local economic development. Laura Sariego-Kluge, Newcastle University The capability of identifying and solving (or at least lessening) new societal, economic and environmental challenges while also monitoring and acting on those which are structural, assumes the capability for innovation within the public sector (PSI). Academics in economic geography have yet to immerse in the study of PSI processes. I will briefly explore this gap focusing on local economic development (LED) and will dive into the theories of public sector innovation to explore

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 how space, place and scale may be used to contribute to the understanding and explanation of PSI in relation to LED.

Decentralisation and devolution in England: the changing role and shape of the local state in local economic development. Anja McCarthy, Newcastle University This paper examines the role and shape of the local state (elected/unelected) in shifting frameworks of government and governance for local economic development in England. It focuses on the unique and pivotal role of local government within a complex web of multi-scalar and multiactor institutional arrangements for addressing uneven growth and development. The English case presents an advanced example of local state restructuring. It has a highly centralised governance system and has witnessed a continuing revolution of sub national governance arrangements in the post-war period, including the abolition of the regional tier by the Coalition government in 2010. This has led to the emergence of new spatial imaginaries and associated governance arrangements in response to political, fiscal and administrative decentralisation and devolution in England. The paper is based on a comparative analysis of local state restructuring in the city-regions of the North East and Greater Manchester, including in-depth interviews with local governments, central government departments, and city-region actors. Analysing the state as complex and heterogeneous and in constant interplay with non-state actors (O'Neill, 2004), the paper critically examines the institutional (re)configuration and (re)negotiation between local state actors in a broadening field of local economic development, and how this shapes and is shaped by the politics of decentralisation and devolution in England. The research contributes empirically to questions on the (geographically distinctive) configuration, manifestation and contribution of local institutions to economic development (Gertler, 2010; Farole et al., 2011; Pike et al., 2015; Tomaney, 2013).

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Block IV: 10:15-11:45, Day 2 Session 4. Political Geographies Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Matthew Scott Popular geopolitics and political humour in post-apartheid South Africa. Dave Ashby Journalistic constructions of our globe, global space and global politics: Considering the Geographies of Media Production Culture and Practice. Ashley Crowson “Just simply not credible”? Exploring the transformative political potentialities of anti-austerity resistance in Liverpool. Joshua Blamire Governing the space between survival and abandonment: Food banks as an emergent biopolitics. Sam Strong

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Popular geopolitics and political humour in post-apartheid South Africa. Dave Ashby, University of Leicester Political humour is a unique style of communication. It is perceived by many as able to provide a “truth”, perspective or critique less encumbered by special interests; and numerous studies on humour and protest suggests it can be deployed as a political “weapon of the weak”. Though underresearched, work that aims to identify and analyse knowledges and narratives produced by political comedians and humourists can highlight (often overlooked) popular perspectives. This project aims to do this focussing on the context of post-apartheid South Africa. The knowledges and narratives produced (and reflected) by political humour are spatially and temporally relevant. As a result, the new geopolitical meanings, relationships and tensions which have emerged (and are emerging) within post-apartheid South Africa can be more fully elucidated by research into these knowledges and narratives, as well as how people (audiences) identify and engage with them. This project is rooted in, and intended to contribute to, the recently emerging literature on humour within the field of “popular geopolitics”. Building on a previous project, which explored how issues of race and class were framed in political cartoons on the Marikana massacre of 2012 (and will serve as a starting point for this presentation), this project will focus on national and regional political cartoons in newspapers as well as stand-up comedy in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Journalistic constructions of our globe, global space and global politics: Considering the Geographies of Media Production Culture and Practice. Ashley Crowson, King’s College London Popular geopolitics has traditionally set about its role of interrogating "how and why we have come to think of the world (or parts of it) in a certain way" (Dittmer, 2010 p.11) by decoding the spatial discourses of popular media texts and, latterly, by analysing audience reception and engagement (Dodds, 2006). While acknowledging the importance of such contributions to the field, this paper contends that these approaches have overlooked the crucially important geographies of media production culture and practice. Concentrating on the news media, it seeks to conceptualise modern 'objective', professional journalism as a discursive construction with a specific set of geographical, historical, social and conceptual 'conditions of existence'. It argues that the globally dominant libertarian journalistic model is, in large part, a product of late Nineteenth Century America, with its normative ideals of detachment, autonomy and, crucially, 'objectivity' finally cemented in place under the academic and political firmament of the Cold War. Focussing on the Global South, it explores the role played during this period by the US State Department, philanthropic foundations, educational organisations, and development agencies in the worldwide export, reification and normativisation of these ideals, as well as attempts to challenge and reformulate them. The paper contends that this reorientation of focus is essential, not so much for answering questions of how journalism, alongside other elements of the media, 'spatializes' the world, but for addressing crucial questions of why: Why does journalism produce, reproduce, reinforce and even contest particular spatial conceptions of our globe and global politics?

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“Just simply not credible”?: Exploring the transformative political potentialities of antiausterity resistance in Liverpool. Joshua Blamire, University of Liverpool As neoliberal austerity continues to ruin, multifarious forms of ‘anti-austerity’ resistance have emerged in the UK to oppose those unprecedented attacks to the welfare state and the final remnants of the social-democratic consensus. In Liverpool, where austerity has particularly begun to pinch, these manifestations re-imagine an alternative political pathway; the socialist Liverpool council of 1983-87 resisted cuts, and neoliberal austerity must similarly be confronted. Liverpool, they argue, has previously, and can again, be the laboratory within which radical alternatives may emerge (cf. Taaffe and Mulhearn, 1988). Yet, these protests are increasingly confronted by ‘practical’, ‘pragmatic’ and professional municipal politics that pursue the steady management of, and collaboration with, private capital as a means to negotiate the crisis (cf. Peck, 2012). As one senior Labour Party city councillor described, “those protestors…they’re just simply not credible”. This research explores those interpretations ‘from below’ (cf. Featherstone, 2015), considering how these forms of anti-austerity contestation narrate, embody and mobilise particular place-based conceptions of austerity, and explores the transformative political potential of the different antiausterity discourses that are being (re)produced. Here, place-based particularities exact both opportunities and limits for radical political transformation (cf. Featherstone, 2008), and serve to frame the confines of localised contestation which is situated in class-based and place-dependent identity constructions. The research thus concludes that the generation of a more radical critique of crisis depends, in part, upon the histories and spatialities of resistance and that re-imagining alternative futures requires the (re)production and (re)construction of particular place-based political identities.

Governing the space between survival and abandonment: Food banks as an emergent biopolitics. Sam Strong, University of Cambridge One would be hard-pressed of late to miss the escalating usage of food banks in the UK and their burgeoning media coverage. According to latest figures from the Trussell Trust, the largest operator of food banks in the country, over the past 12 months alone more than one million packages of three-days worth of emergency food were handed out to people in need. Drawing on 15 months of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in a set of food banks in the South Wales Valleys, this paper will begin to conceptualise the broader significance of their operation. It will firstly examine the decisions between abandonment and survival which emerge at ground-level within the spaces of the food bank and the different actors and technologies seeking to govern and regulate these spaces. Secondly, it will engage with the testimonies and everyday experiences of the hungry bodies which populate the food bank, and how they navigate the different institutions which stitch together a landscape of care in the county. In these ways, the role of food banks as part of an emergent 'austerity biopolitics' will be explored, leading to questions about the role of the neoliberal state in maintaining its social contract with citizens, and the broader spatial and political implications of the rise of food banks.

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Block V: 11:50-13:20, Day 2 Session 1. Making Place and Space II Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson Making Space in the Contemporary Museum. Pippa Gardner Everyday practices in proximate tourism spaces: the gustatory experiences on England’s canals. Maarja Kaaristo Maps that learn and grow: a map generalisation framework for representing the transduction of rhizomatic space. Lucas Godfrey

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Making Space in the Contemporary Museum. Pippa Gardner, University of Sheffield Museum space is now recognised as a space with a history of its own, a space active in the making of meaning and, most importantly, a space open to change” (MacLeod, 2005:1). Museum studies has experienced a ‘spatial turn’ in the last decade or so, drawing upon theories of space and place from a variety of other disciplines such as Architecture. Engagement with geographical thought has been more limited, despite the potential for interdisciplinary working having been identified by cultural geographers such as Hilary Geoghegan (2010). As part of a wider collaborative project with Museums Sheffield, this paper will consider a selection of key theories from Geography that can be usefully applied to the museum context. Framed within the process of making space in the museum, the author will present the advantages and limitations of drawing upon understandings of and debates around empirical space and materiality; place; and unbounded space or the space of flows. Each can offer us new ways to think about the museum as a public meaning-making institution.

Everyday practices in proximate tourism spaces: the gustatory experiences on England’s canals. Maarja Kaaristo, Manchester Metropolitan University Food and drink comprise a set of important experiences while travelling, as food turns our focus to the sensory experience of actually tasting a (often foreign) place. Yet in its essentiality, it is also very much part of the everyday, especially so in the context of proximate touristic activities such as domestic tourism. In recent years, tourism studies have seen rise in the interest of the mundane in the tourist experience, allowing us to see how tourist spaces are actually full of everyday practices. Therefore, I will focus on everyday gustatory experiences of the leisure boaters on the canals of northern England. During the boating holiday, mealtimes provide one of the most important points of structure to the day, marked by various points of spatial and temporal intersections, such as cruising, shopping and/or sightseeing and walking, creating specific rhythm and routine. I will examine how performing mundane domestic tasks and chores connected to food are integral to the boating practices: they are means of creating the homely and comfortable atmosphere and can also become expressions of (mundane) national identity. The paper is based on my 2015 ethnographic fieldwork (semi-structured interviews and participant observation) on the canals in northern England, aiming to identify the key sensorial and multi-modal elements of everyday practices in waterways tourism.

Maps that learn and grow: a map generalisation framework for representing the transduction of rhizomatic space. Lucas Godfrey, University of Edinburgh Mobile digital technology has transformed the way we access spatial information and in particular the way we navigate through urban geographic space. The underlying design paradigm of these technologies in terms of how space is conceptualised and represented has however changed very little from the paper-based maps that laid the foundations for cartographic convention. A fundamental aspect of this conventional framework that we are particularly interested in challenging is the representation of an absolute view of space. This view is one that is intrinsically tied to notions of fixed hierarchy and consistent scale, and essentially disregards the underlying

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 user context of travel, where people transition through various states, and where space is a performative medium that is constructed through an interplay between the individual and their environment, contingent on task and other variable conditions across multiple temporalities. While this absolute view of geographic space is clearly very powerful in many use-cases, our hypothesis is that for people navigating across cities, and in particular where a journey traverses a number of modes of transport, a more emergent and contingent conceptualisation of space will facilitate a more effective representation of navigational information. The research turns to Deleuzian notions of structure, and explores how the effective representation of information that minimizes cognitive load on the user in context may be constructed through data models and visual interactions that represent the transduction of space across multi-modal travel.

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Block V: 11:50-13:20, Day 2 Session 2. Geographies of Vulnerability Percy Building G.13, Chair: Stefan Rzedzian Placing disaster identity in the Global South: Disaster spectacles for the construction of cities in Chile. María Otero A natural experimental approach to human vulnerability, resilience and adaptation in historic Greenland. Rowan Jackson Increasing vulnerability to floods in coastal cities during development: an evidence from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Phan Duy Post-disaster event spaces: older people’s practices and performances of post-disaster recovery. Sarah Tupper

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Placing disaster identity in the Global South: Disaster spectacles for the construction of cities in Chile. María Otero, University of Leeds In places that are disaster-prone, “disaster” becomes an integral part of identity in its social and cultural construction. The in-depth examination of the Mega Fire of Valparaiso, Chile, of April 2014, is a relevant case study which explores the links between place, identity and disaster as a dialogical triad. It embodies a disaster event as a major construction, which goes beyond the narrow understanding of disaster studies as response and reconstruction issues; especially in the Global South, where identities are shaped through disaster and spectacle in city life. This disaster-driven identity plays a significant role on the construction of community resilience, and in the aftermath, evolving at times into forms of urban contestation. For the study of these collective perceptions, this research is based on a mixed-methods approach for data gathering, primarily semi-structured interviews, participant observations and elicited data (own participants constructions, i.e. mind-maps); focused on understanding the imaginaries and perceptions of a diverse range of Valparaiso residents involved in the disaster in general. For data analysis, this research will use the dimensions and categories methods, followed by a cross examination with triangulation techniques. This research is expected to offer new theoretical insights on disaster studies, by building on Wyatt’s “disaster as crisis” concept, and Debord’s “spectacle” into a new conceptual framework of “disaster spectacles” and the ways a disaster event functions in a social level, in its links to place and identity. This new understanding should offer, finally, better guidelines for future mitigation and preparedness protocols in Chile.

A natural experimental approach to human vulnerability, resilience and adaptation in historic Greenland. Rowan Jackson, Edinburgh University The Viking Age/late-Medieval Scandinavian settlement of Greenland (ca. A.D. 985-1450) offers a discrete set of case studies through which we might better understand the interplay and dynamics of social and ecological systems. Set against the conceptual background of social resilience, human vulnerability and adaptation, this project aims to better understand the population dynamics and utilisation of ecosystem services in the Greenland environment. While there is little consensus on the causal factors leading to the collapse of Norse Greenland, increasing evidence suggest conjunctures between environmental, socio-political, economic and cultural challenges exacerbated the society’s vulnerability. Exploring the conjuncture between social and ecological changes is important not only to unravel the reasons why the Norse were able to adapt to short-term changes (fast variables)—for example, cold winters causing heightened livestock mortality—but how these short-term adaptations could in fact compromise their resilience to long-term changes (slow variables)—such as, decline in population, fodder yield and access to wild resources—leading to collapse in the 15th century. The corroboration of historical texts with archaeological discoveries in Greenland is essential to understanding Norse culture, adaptation and the geographies of everyday life. Utilising a social scientific-historical approach advocated by the Annales School of historiography a serial history is adopted to analyse long-term vulnerability to changing social and environmental conditions. The paper will present key debates concerning the decline of historic Greenland, and explores the combination of historical texts with archaeological data as well as human-environmental modelling. Research themes include: cultural adaptation, maritime and terrestrial mobility, political-economic

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 transformation in Europe (‘renaissance bazaar’) and analysis of hunting practices and sedentary farming in a changing Arctic environment.

Increasing vulnerability to floods in coastal cities during development: an evidence from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Phan Duy, University of Birmingham Flood is a hazard to many cities that are at risk often have flooding protection systems which are designed to protect citizens for a given level of flood event. The devastations to some coastal such in New Orleans, Manila, Bangkok, have proven the failure of protection systems; meanwhile the lessons raise the crucial role of urban planning and management in mitigating flooding impacts. Alongside to this, emerging cities have been facing floods to development process in South East Asia. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), which is one of largest cities in Vietnam, is considered a “hot spot” (WB, 2010). It has been facing flooding problems to both central and urban fringe areas despite many projects dealing with floods. More than 50% of urban areas have been affected by regular floods (ADB, 2010). For the projection in 2050 by ADB (2010), 71% of HCMC’s territory will be inundated by 2050 in the case of extreme events (ADB, 2010). The impacts on urban activities have been urgent. For example, in 15th September 2015, a flood which had the highest magnitude over 80 cm in year made the urban road network disrupted by traffic jam at several places because of the occurrence at peak-time lasting nearly four hours. Significant evidence from this city will indicate the impacts on transportation network leading to unexpected disruption to urban activities. This has claimed a need of integrating a resilient transport system into spatial development in order to enhance urban resilience to floods.

Post-disaster event spaces: older people’s practices and performances of post-disaster recovery. Sarah Tupper, University of Exeter The term ‘event’ is a widely used yet under-theorised concept within geography and the social sciences. Dewsbury (2007:452) indicates that simply the event is something which just occurs: eyes dilate, a chord is struck, the cell splits and a document is signed.’ Yet, the event spaces which emerge, replaces the orderliness of striated static spaces with more unruly, nomadic, smooth spaces in flux (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). This paper employs the term event to make sense of post-disaster recovery. As UNESCO states, “one cannot speak of a “disaster as a time-bound event but rather a culture of disaster,” indicating that the event cannot be seen as something with a fixed beginning and end, but is something that occurs in the midst of history, causing us to redistribute our sense of what has gone before it and what might come after (Rajchman, 1991). Using six months of empirical fieldwork carried out in Christchurch, New Zealand, this paper outlines the ways in which the series of earthquakes which devastated the city can be conceptualised as an event and the processes and spaces which emerge can be considered sites as ongoing eventfulness. In particular, I demonstrate the entanglement of the disaster-event with the lives of older people. Using material obtained from ethnographic fieldwork, I explore diversified ways in which the event is practiced and performed in everyday life. This highlights how particular rhythms attend to and contest the ways in which the disaster acts as an agent to shape post-disaster subjects and in doing so can challenge pre-conceived norms around ageing.

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Block V: 11:50-13:20 Day 2 Session 3. Urban Regeneration (CURDS V) Beehive Lecture Theatre, Chair: Fraser Bell Sponsored by CURDS ‘Gentrification is not a risk, it’s a reality’: An ethnographic investigation into local government- ‘regeneration’ in Brixton, South London. Chris Hilborne From Interstitial to Institutional: exploring artists’ experiences of place. Rebecca Prescott Gentrification in the UK and Ireland: the good, the bad and the exclusionary. Anna Carnegie Proactive stewardship and the delivery of affordable nonresidential space in London’s high streets and town centres. Gavin McLaughlin

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‘Gentrification is not a risk, it’s a reality’: An ethnographic investigation into local government- ‘regeneration’ in Brixton, South London. Chris Hilborne, University of Leicester This paper outlines the initial findings of currently on-going participant-observation research into state-led gentrification (Cameron, 2003) practices in Brixton, south London. In the course of their research, the author has developed a detailed understanding of the rationale of local government regeneration activities and the power relations that produce and are produced through these activities (Allen, 2003). Gentrification presents itself to local government officers and council members as an inevitable and unstoppable force, driven by private sector activity that local state apparatus cannot reign in. Gentrification structures the terrain across which the local state operates. Rather than attempting to resist the gentrification of neighbourhoods and communities, local council have increasingly adopted ‘regeneration’ strategies that seek to achieve governmental objectives – which operate at the level of populations (Foucault, 2007) – by working through already existing processes of gentrification. The development trajectory of gentrification process is thus altered, but not fundamentally challenged, by local government ‘regeneration’ programmes. The coincidence of gentrification and ‘regeneration’ entails partnership working between local council officers, local landowners, property developers, and other business interests (McCarthy, 2007). Although the objectives of these different agents are not entirely aligned – they all benefit from the increasing land values that drive gentrification in different ways. For local authorities, cuts in central government funding have encouraged the adoption of entrepreneurial models of governance (Harvey, 1989) such that local councils are increasingly relying on surplus values captured from over-inflated land values as a source of funding for the provision of different services.

From Interstitial to Institutional: exploring artists’ experiences of place. Rebecca Prescott, Northumbria University The often dynamic and symbiotic relationship between artists and urban space has become attractive to policy makers in an age of austerity. Current policy within the UK positions artists within an urban narrative where they, and the places they inhabit are indicators and drivers of future urban and economic regeneration. This paper critically considers the notions of the creative city evident in interstitial artistic communities; the (often) temporary reclamation of derelict or disregarded urban space for creative ‘meanwhile’ use. Within these ecologies, the temporality of artists ‘residencies’ within urban space is also considered. Whilst the term ‘resident’ is etymologically linked to residence suggesting stability and permanence, artists lifeworlds are increasingly subject to flux; of economic forces, urban planning alongside the ‘short-termism’ of funding, work spaces and labour practices. Being ‘resident’ by extension means being ‘non-resident’ at times and although embedded in a network of heterogenous relations, how do artists and their communities negotiate this flux? Conversely, if these communities remain in place how does the imposition of formal planning and/or increased institutionalisation affect what was experimental and informal. Drawing from ethnographic data collected with two artist-led communities in Newcastle upon Tyne (Commercial Union House and Lime Street Studios) this paper investigates how artists individually and collectively negotiate the boundaries between formal/informal interventions in urban space. The aim is to give a rich account of artists’ individual experiences of place, both through being and becoming a resident and the systems by which they thrive, or barely survive.

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Gentrification in the UK and Ireland: the good, the bad and the exclusionary. Anna Carnegie, University of York Glass’s observation of demographic change in 1960s London which she termed gentrification has become an established process of neighbourhood transformation. The trend of areas becoming wealthier over time has prompted intense debate in academic and policy circles alike. Often situated in areas of decline, some commentators view the use of gentrifying practices as a remedy to problems of neighbourhood decline. Indeed, said strategies have been endorsed as a regeneration mechanism by governments in an attempt to address concentrations of poverty and area-based stigmatisation, for example through encouraging tenure mix. Others however, maintain that the negative results of gentrification outweigh any potential benefits. Through a reflection on regeneration practices in the UK and Ireland, this paper outlines the ways gentrification has been incorporated into urban policy and comments on its’ effects in less advantaged neighbourhoods. It poses questions of who regeneration is really for and whether it can ever be targeted to serve marginalised citizens. Through the medium of culture-led strategies (one mode by which gentrification can occur), it comments on two of the main criticisms often levelled at gentrification advocates. Firstly, the displacement of existing inhabitants and their replacement with a more economically prosperous populace, and secondly, the civilising and behavioural modification tactics often targeted at vulnerable groups inhabiting new entrepreneurial city spaces Ultimately, the paper argues that while gentrification can serve as a beneficial policy tool, it has the potential to prove damaging to already marginalised groups.

Proactive stewardship and the delivery of affordable non-residential space in London’s high streets and town centres. Gavin McLaughlin, Greater London Authority Regeneration practitioners increasingly assume that mixed use is pivotal to the vitality and prosperity of urban neighbourhoods, with non-residential land-uses in particular contributing to chains of value creation that drive local cultural and economic development. Applied to high streets and town centres, this trend is dovetailing neatly with renewed interest amongst urban policymakers in active industrial management (see Aghion et al 2013), especially clustering (e.g. ‘Tech City’, see Nathan & Vandore 2014), and widespread efforts to stimulate regeneration by attracting creative industries (Florida 2002, Evans 2009, Ferm 2011). Under the new policy discourse of ‘proactive stewardship’ (Future of London 2015, Greater London Authority 2015, Mayor of London 2015), London has seen land uses such as SME workspace (Ferm 2014) and street markets (Aiesha 2012) being protected and supported by policy initiatives including planning gain mechanisms modelled on those used to secure affordable housing, the exemption of certain areas from permitted development rights, and grant funding to subsidise land costs for non-residential occupiers (deploying resources from European Structural and Investment Funds, City Deals and Growth Deals). This paper evaluates the existing policy initiatives enabling proactive stewardship of affordable non-residential space in London’s high streets and town centres. Using various contemporary case studies emerging in London, I will demonstrate that despite recent efforts, significant legal, financial and practical barriers continue to discourage stewardship of such space by users and occupiers. Current policy, for example, tends to pepper-pot small business space too widely to generate agglomeration economies (Rydin 2013). Strict controls on the future use of buildings are also needed to ensure ongoing affordability and engender a sense of long-term ownership (Town and Country Planning Association 2013).

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Block V: 11:50-13:20, Day 2 Session 4. Geographies of Young People and Children Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Graham Gaunt Uncovering the geographies of language schools in the UK. Charlotte Bolton Examining the relationship between childhood residential mobility and adolescent drug use: a quantitative approach. Tim Morris Living the dream: Youth, employment, and middle class living in Cairo. Harry Pettit Hassling for life on my own: a study of street-connected children and relationships in northern Tanzania Gemma Pearson

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Uncovering the geographies of language schools in the UK. Charlotte Bolton, Loughborough University In the last decade there have been extensive explorations into ‘studentification’; a term that refers to the social, economic, cultural and physical impacts of students at a community scale. Whilst students in higher education institutions have been the focus of these debates, research on English language students has been notably absent in this literature. In a 2013 report on international education, it was stated that the UK was the most popular destination for students studying the English language outside of their home country, contributing £2.5 billion to the economy in 2011. The demand from this global market is also expected to increase further alongside demographic changes and rising incomes in globalising countries in the coming years. With the predicted expansion of the English language school industry in the UK it is important to understand the effects that this transitory group has on the host communities. This research thesis focuses specifically on Brighton and Hove as one of the key destinations for English language education in the UK, and a city already embroiled in debates on the relations between ‘locals’ and university students. This paper will outline the scale of the language school industry and highlight initial findings on student demographics, the reasons students engage in English language education and the temporality of the student’s stay. It will also highlight how language schools have enabled the development of the ‘homestay’ in the city, and begin to explore the motivations behind the host family’s decision to engage in this industry.

Examining the relationship between childhood residential mobility and adolescent drug use: a quantitative approach. Tim Morris, University of Bristol This paper investigates the impact of childhood residential mobility on drug use in adolescence. We employ a quantitative approach and draw upon literature from migration geography, epidemiology and neighbourhood research to shed new light on social and contextual influences of drug use. The data used come from a UK cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which provides a uniquely detailed spatio-temporal biography throughout childhood and detailed self-reported information on drug use and abuse in the teenage years. From this data we not only have longitudinal repeat measurements of alcohol use, but also information about family demographics, key life events throughout childhood, detailed migration histories, and appropriate contextual/neighbourhood information. This use of a rich and comprehensive dataset permits the project to address a number of limitations within the literature in order to advance understanding of the independent effects of residential mobility on a modifiable behaviour that contributes to a range of health problems. We utilise a hybrid multilevel statistical approach in order to separate underlying differences between individuals from differences within individuals following residential moves which offers more freedom to draw causal inferences from the data. Our focus on children helps to avoid the issue of selective migration and identify potential pathways in which adverse health behaviours may track into adulthood.

Living the dream: Youth, employment, and middle class living in Cairo. Harry Pettit, London School of Economic and Political Sciences Examining how marginalised groups make their lives liveable has been the focus of scholarship for many years. However it has overwhelmingly neglected – with notable exceptions (Mains, 2012; De

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 Nunzio, 2014) – how people who are locked out of systems of value focus their practices not on the here and now, but on the undetermined future. This research illustrates how marginalised middle class youth in Cairo, who have been left behind during Egypt’s economic liberalisation in the last 40 years, attempt to manage the disconnect between their aspirations and present realities by engaging in practices which maintain a hopeful present. For this, they rely on forms of knowledge gathered from self-help books, religious text, and a variety of training courses, as well as the daily performative consumption of desirable goods, and incessantly applying for new jobs and scholarships which could ‘change their life’. These practices come together to provide the feeling that they are moving towards their dreams. Maintaining hope fundamentally relies on a belief that these youth can change their futures through their own behaviour. They come to learn this within NGO training courses (amongst other platforms) designed to help the youth obtain jobs. These courses propagate the logic that it is up to the individual to decide their future. The youth actively take part in this promising belief: to use Talal Asad’s terminology, they incite their own autonomy in order to maintain the belief that their dreams are reachable. Yet it also becomes the knowledge on which the blame for failure is placed upon the shoulders of youth, both by those who become ‘successful’, and by those who ‘fail’. Thereby it acts to legitimise a status quo which excludes them, not due to their lack of effort as this meritocratic logic would have us believe, but through their lack of access to the valued forms of cultural, social, and economic capital in Cairo which are possessed by an increasingly exclusive cosmopolitan elite.

Hassling for life on my own: a study of street-connected children and relationships in northern Tanzania Gemma Pearson, Royal Holloway, University of London Street-connected children and young people live complex and challenging lives. Many programmatic interventions focus on removing children from the street. However, such interventions are not always successful. Working in partnership with StreetInvest, a UK-based charity that trains youth workers across Africa and India, this research investigates the role of relationships in the lives of the children and young people who do not feel ready or able to leave the street. This paper will introduce the findings from a six-month field-trip in Tanzania researching the relational and social aspects of the lives of street-connected children. Using grounded theory methodology, 25 individual and group interviews were collected from 55 street-connected children and young people, former street-connected adults, community members and practitioners. Initial findings suggest that (1) when faced with adversity, street-connected children respond by making their own way in life, (2) not being trusted by society due to stigmatisation limits children and young people’s options for leaving the street and (3) age plays a role in the way that streetconnected children think about their daily lives and decision making. The findings of this research will inform StreetInvest and other practitioners about the relational concerns of street-connected children and youth. By gaining a greater understanding of the role of relationships in street-connected children’s lives, practitioners can learn to draw on, strengthen or contribute positive relationships in order to help children and young people to broaden their prospects.

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Keynote 14:10-15:10, Lecture Theatre Prof Peter Hopkins

Block VI: 15:10-16:40, Day 2 Session 1. Health Geographies Pybus Room (Old Library Building level 3), Chair: Maddy Thompson Anxious Bodies and Minds: Everyday Geographies of Social Anxiety Disorder. Louise Boyle The uncertain and unstable body: (re)assembly through kidney transplantation. Hannah Smith Laughter, life and death in a residential nursing home. Phil Emmerson Oil-related health risks and inaccessibility to health care in the Niger-Delta of Nigeria. Emmah Etim Ima

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Anxious Bodies and Minds: Everyday Geographies of Social Anxiety Disorder. Louise Boyle, University of Glasgow Social Anxiety Disorder (SAnD) is characterised by a persistent fear of social interactions and situations, through which the structures of everyday life are disrupted. Such anxiety-induced disruptions often result in severe social and functional impairment which have the capacity to compromise psychosocial wellbeing. This paper aims to explore the everyday experiences of people living with SAnD by adopting a geographical lens to uncover the situationally, spatially and temporally specific nature of the ‘disorder’. Drawing from interview narratives and written testimonies from online blogs and collective conversations on user-led web forums, I unpack how socially anxious bodies and minds consume, manage and negotiate everyday spaces and interactions both on- and off-line. As geographers call for the inclusion of the body in its representational and material forms in geographical studies of health (Hall 2000), I intend to pay particular attention to the spaces in-between. This includes the messy experiences of the anxious body-in-space through the visible and audible manifestations of anxiety (i.e. shaking, blushing, stuttering, tics, etc.), exploring how these challenge the (in)visibility of mental ill-health for individuals with SAnD. Furthermore, I will explore how, in turn, such physical symptoms create a state of heightened consciousness or awareness of the body-in-space and the implications this has for sociality and wellbeing. By exploring the spaces in-between there is an attempt to deconstruct the binaries of body-mind in geographies of health and impairment in order to achieve a material and embodied understanding of SAnD – and unpick something of the inherent geographies within.

The uncertain and unstable body: (re)assembly through kidney transplantation. Hannah Smith, University of Leicester Since the call for a ‘reformed medical geography’ (Kearns, 1993) in the 1990’s, the geography of health has aimed to provide a critical, socio-cultural appreciation of space and place. However, while it has been argued that although health geography is a field inherently linked to the body (Hall, 2000), Kearns and Collins (2010, p.22) state that a ‘fully embodied health geography’ is only recently emerging. As a result there has been a persistence of singular conceptualisations of the body in health geography, rather than made up of multiple and assembled corporealities. This paper aims to address dualistic conceptualisations of the body as singular or multiple by presenting the results of an in-depth ethnographic case study that investigated knowledge production in a medical laboratory in North East England. Findings demonstrated that understandings of the body as ‘disassembled’ and ‘fragmented’ were reproduced through practices of the laboratory. However, there were also uncertainties and contradictions in processes of fragmentation on occasions where bodies were humanized and reassembled. This demonstrated the fundamentally unstable nature of the idea of disassembly, which is relevant to critical health geography literature. This presentation will discuss preliminary ideas of how my current PhD research can further develop the notion of (re)assembly of the visceral body in relation to kidney transplantation and the geographies of health more broadly.

Laughter, life and death in a residential nursing home. Phil Emmerson, University of Birmingham Laughter is both an interesting and highly insightful phenomenon because it can erupt in a number of situations, both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, thus forming an innovative catalyst for thought through

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 which various types of politics (emotional, affective, bio, gendered etc.) can be explored. This empirical paper draws on my own experiences of laughter within a care home to explore the highly complex sets of ‘everyday’ politics that emerge from this setting. With roughly 0.5% of the UK population living in elderly residential care, care homes form a key feature of many people’s lives – the residents of course, but also the multiple friends and family members who visit, and the numerous professionals working a variety of jobs within the care sector on a daily basis. The paper thus draws out how, in care homes, politics are often focussed around the connections between life and death, arguing that these concepts should be thought of as intimately intertwined, rather than as separate issues.

Oil-related health risks and inaccessibility to health care in the Niger-Delta of Nigeria. Emmah Etim Ima, University of Birmingham Pollution from oil exploration and exploitation has been a global and significant issue since the discovery of crude oil (Kadafa, 2012). In Nigeria, oil exploration and exploitation activities are predominantly in the Niger Delta region. These activities have caused severe damage to the environment due to the unsustainable manner in which oil is being extracted in the region (Oshwofasa et al, 2012; Bayode, et al, 2011). Over the years, the oil-bearing communities have been exposed to various levels of risks; social, economic, ecological and most especially health (UNDP, 2006; Babatunde, 2010). Following the heightened health risk, the key problem now facing the people of the Niger Delta is the accessibility to health care, with the quality, distance and adequacy of care available being major concerns (UNDP, 2006; Chukwuani et al, 2006). This research seeks to explore the problem of oil-related health risks and inaccessibility to health care in the region.

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Block VI: 15:10-16:40, Day 2 Session 2. Climate and Governance Percy Building G.13, Chair: Stefan Rzedzian Tracing energy and climate change discourse through time and space, and back to the future in the EU’s Arctic policy. Michael Laiho Antarctic Practices: The institutionalization of a region and its governance. Daniela Portella Sampaio Vive le nucléaire? French bulldozing, British stagnation, and the role of the media within nuclear energy policy. William Hingley

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Tracing energy and climate change discourse through time and space, and back to the future in the EU’s Arctic policy. Michael Laiho, Durham University While remaining aware of the epistemological relevance of realist interpretations of politics in the circumpolar north, this paper follows a tradition of critical geopolitics by conducting a discourse analysis of European Union policy-making. In doing so, this paper uses qualitative data from elite interviews and official documents to deconstruct Arctic policy-making. The aim of the study is to understand whether or not ‘contested spaces’ of the Arctic (Steinberg et al 2015) are played out in the policy-making world as a result of hegemonic, scientific facts about the material world. It is proven that ‘carbon geographies’ exists in the minds of policy making elites and other nongovernmental actors whose political influence is reflected in official EU policy discourse. To understand the process further, this paper draws on post-structural readings of discourse in relation to concepts of power/ knowledge, which are used to deconstruct practices of Arctic policymaking through time and space as the EU seeks to govern future carbon geographies. In conclusion, the author argues that imaginary spaces follow conflicting energy and climate change security ‘myths’ that reflect the past, present and future state of Arctic space in response to valuing hydrocarbons and carbon emissions.

Antarctic Practices: The institutionalization of a region and its governance. Daniela Portella Sampaio, Royal Holloway, University of London & Universidade de São Paulo The Antarctic Treaty had the stabilization of the Antarctic region as its main purpose. At that time, Antarctic had become object of potential conflict among main international powers, which claimed national sovereignty over some sectors of the region; meanwhile, there was not any politic arrangement for its governance. As a solution, in 1961, the Antarctic Treaty prompted a complex governance arrangement that has been progressively institutionalized by the increasing number of actors involved, and also by a decision-making process which determined the norms and actions undertaken. As a consequence, Antarctic governance has prevailed over Cold War disturbances, legitimacy critics, and pressures for mineral exploration; and it has been guided by principles of peace maintenance, international cooperation and environment protection. Along this institutionalizing process, sovereign interests, which motivated this cooperative framework, became decreasingly ostensive, but in what extent they still influence Antarctic governance is not precise. Therefore, based on the Antarctic Treaty Database, this work proposes to analyze how Antarctic governance has been consolidated with a sovereignty that is technically suspended. It will be analyzed: the correlation of main principles in terms of norms and practices; which are the most participative actors and their effectiveness; main discussed topics; the rate of joint participation; and alliance patterns.

Vive le nucléaire? French bulldozing, British stagnation, and the role of the media within nuclear energy policy. William Hingley, Aberystwyth University Decarbonisation strategies within the electricity sector have become the most prominent climate change mitigation strategies over the last 20 years. Such policy consideration has been combined with obligations to maintain affordable energy tariffs for consumers, whilst safeguarding energy supply security in an increasingly unstable world. Nuclear power is a significant alternative

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 technology available to address this policy ‘trilemma’, though it remains a contentious option. France and the UK, although of similar economic and social credential, instigated substantially dissimilar policies following the 1973 oil-crisis. Abundant sovereign fossil-fuel resources resulted in a carbon-intensive strategy within the UK; the lack of which in France led to wide-scale nuclear rollout. Using interviews, this study examines the justification behind such policies, the implications left for the power sector today and in the near-future. Questionable economic viability, plateauing demand, and environmental risk perception, are identified as fundamental stimulants initiating the stagnation of the UK nuclear programme. France had few options but to go nuclear: they may, however, have induced vulnerability within their nuclear infrastructure. The media, in particular newspapers, have a discernible influence upon public perceptions of nuclear power. Drawing upon media discourses and internet search volumes, the extent to which the media and public interest coalesce and how this translates into policy-making is examined within this study. State bulldozing and meagre investigative journalism are highlighted as key weaknesses within French culture. A nuclear renaissance appears to be emerging within the UK; uncertainty remains as to whether political and socio-economic forces will permit this fruition.

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Block VI: 15:10-16:40, Day 2 Session 3. Affective Geographies Beehive Lecture Theatre, Chair: Matthew Scott Geography of a dance(r): Putting dance in place. Nerida Godfrey Habit, affect and engineered outdoor advertising encounters. Thomas Dekeyser Encountering conviviality: practicing visual ethnography to explore affective urban multiculture in super-diverse Finsbury Park, London. Katherine Stansfeld The brain and the body in urban psychogeography. Tess Osborne

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Geography of a dance(r): Putting dance in place. Nerida Godfrey, University of New South Wales Geographical nuances of place are complicit in shaping artistic practice and the creative endeavours of artists (see Wood, Duffy and Smith 2007; Evans and Foord 2008; Hawkins 2013; Hracs and Leslie 2014). Myriad genres of contemporary dance practices are frequently associated with practitioners whose work has emerged with, and articulated with, place based social-cultural contexts (Desmond 1997; Burridge and Dyson 2012). Moreover, as ‘dance changes place and above all changes places’ (Derrida in Derrida and McDonald 1995, 145) journeys of dancers have sparked new artistic and social movements, and dances emerging in a given place have proved capable of circumnavigating barriers and transgressing social spaces (Goellner and Murphy 1995; Cresswell 2006). Building on these themes this paper asks: if places are imbedded in creative production, how then, are places simultaneously engaged in curbing, restricting or altering creative undertakings? This paper tells the stories of creative practitioners’ response to changing landscapes and structures influencing their artistic practice. It does so by drawing on qualitative mixed-medium life course case studies that have used oral history interviews, time-lines and kinaesthetic responses to assemble the journeys and place encounters of contemporary dancers. A central feature of this research is to highlight the capacity for the nuances of place to affect embodied practice and the realisation or termination of creative endeavours is illuminated. From the dancers’ reflections, the role that inherently inequitable geographies play in fostering and curbing of performance of this embodied practice contribute to thinking about how places work not only to facilitate but to also impede creative practice.

Habit, affect and engineered outdoor advertising encounters. Thomas Dekeyser, University of Southampton This paper develops a habit-inspired understanding of affective outdoor advertising-encounters. The conceptual foundation is the critique put forth by Barnett (2008) and Rodgers et al (2014) suggesting that urban engineered affect, as initially conceptualised by Nigel Thrift (2010), is still afforded a considerable degree of pre-conscious, affective force beyond the recognition of subjects. Drawing on the recently coming to the fore of Felix Ravaisson's vitalist conception of habit (2008) and plastic habits (Dewsbury, 2011) in geographical scholarship, this paper unpacks a more modest account of the affective refrains of engineered interventions into urban consumer-bodies. Taking Clermont-Ferrand (a city in South-France) as its methodological field for a video auto-ethnography, three critical correctives to existing accounts of affective engineering are suggested. First, this reconceptualisation suggests the necessity of a greater incorporation of the multidimensionality of affective logics. Second, it draws attention to the volatile personal and more-than-personal complications of compatibility in body-environment-advert circuits. Third, it seeks to centralise the plastic potency for political liberation. The result is a contribution to the contemporary debates on the (often non-seamless) manifestations engineered urban affect and a continuation of more politically-laden geographical engagements with habit theory.

Encountering conviviality: practicing visual ethnography to explore affective urban multiculture in super-diverse Finsbury Park, London. Katherine Stansfeld, Royal Holloway, University of London

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 This paper explores the potential of visual ethnography to investigate ‘multicultural intimacies on the ground’ (Wilson, 2012) in contemporary ‘super-diverse’ cities (Vertovec, 2007). The notion of super-diversity has been widely adopted in recent research to recognize the ‘intense convergence of diverse individuals who shift in and out of urban terrains’ (Hall, 2012:128). While ‘conviviality’ has been deployed as a critical concept to understand and recognize the genuine and ordinary ways we live together with difference. However, researchers can often struggle to fully express the ambivalent ways difference is experienced in these places. This research uses forms of video ethnography and participatory urban photography in the superdiverse neighbourhood of Finsbury Park, North-East London to explore the multiplicity of place; how overlapping trajectories are manifested and assemblages of race and relational practices occur by performing an active process of encountering. The visual holds unique potential to capture the experience of super-diversity, evoke the particular practices, rhythms and moods that make up places; to express this ‘affective urban multiculture’ (Swanton, 2013) that exists in cities. Also through a practice of ethnographic self-reflexivity with the camera, I argue unique encounters with a multitude of others can occur which question and consider what is really needed in space to foster conviviality or what may cause contestation. I argue a recognition of both atmosphere and affect is important for conceptualizing the everyday processes of living together that enables cooperation to manifest.

The brain and the body in urban psychogeography. Tess Osborne, University of Birmingham The practice of psychogeography has been applied in a number of ways from radical and playful tactics to altering the way we interpret ourselves, others, and the urban environment (Bridger 2013; Pinder 2006; Richardson 2015). This paper looks beyond most Situationist and ‘artistic’ psychogeographical thinking by considering the more nuanced spatialisations of feelings and emotions through the Francophone work on ambiances and critical neuroscientific enquiry. In doing this, it discusses how the sensory and emotional production urban environs have the capacity to ‘pull and push’ the mobile body, which allows for a wider exploration of feeling-cognitivist subject’s engagement with urban space.

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Block VI: 15:10-16:40, Day 2 Session 4. Identities Percy Building 1.19, Chair: Anoop Nayak Ancient, autochthonous and European: National identity, heritage tourism and the Theory of Albanian-Illyrian Continuity. Dave Fermor Placing the intersectional identity within geography. Catherine Oliver Working in Industry: Exploring Identity and Engineering Apprenticeships in Teesside. Graham Gaunt

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Ancient, autochthonous and European: National identity, heritage tourism and the Theory of Albanian-Illyrian Continuity. Dave Fermor, Manchester Metropolitan University Heritage sites and museums are places where national identities are created and shaped. The stories and “myths” of national identity are told at these sites, to an audience which often includes foreign as well as domestic tourists. The way heritage is interpreted for visitors, and even what is deemed as a heritage site or historic artefact and what is not, can therefore influence the way the nation is perceived at home and abroad. In this paper I focus upon one important facet of the Albanian national narrative; the theory of Illyrian-Albanian continuity. Through an exploration of the origins of this theory, the ways in which this important facet of Albanian identity has been represented through time, and the ways in which it is represented at heritage sites and museums today, the complex and dynamic nature of national identity formation will be revealed. While the presentation focuses primarily on the example of Albania, broader questions are addressed. To what extent can small/poor nations control/influence their own national narratives? How have neoliberal policies and globalisation affected national identity formation in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe? How does tourism affect national identity formation? Are we headed to a post-national world?

Placing the intersectional identity within geography. Catherine Oliver, University of Birmingham Intersectionality, coined by Crenshaw (1991), identifies the insufficient attention given to women of colour in mainstream feminism and thus is becoming critically important within feminist theory and practice. Despite, the concept’s development over the last twenty years, there is a form of separation and subsequent oppression that remains more resistant to social progress: speciesism, defined as irrational discrimination on the basis of human superiority over non-humans (Singer, 1975). Geographers are increasingly aware of the importance of engagement with the ‘more-than-human’, ‘non-human’, and the ‘post-human’, and as such need to be informed by these arising holistic intersectional approaches to theory and praxis. This paper, using the vegan-feminist as the epitome of the intersectional identity, will problematize the ‘more-than-human’, ‘non-human’ and ‘post-human’ approaches in human geography. Specifically the paper explores vegan-feminist activism as a movement that incorporates all beings into their liberatory actions, which raises issues for its place in wider social justice movements who focus on single-issue campaigns. For vegan-feminists, the parallel oppressions of women and animals are maintained because of one another (Adams, 1990) in a matrix of domination that underpins all oppression. This paper concludes by attempting to carve out a space within geography’s sub-disciplines within which intersectionality can find a theoretical and empirical home.

Working in Industry: Exploring Identity and Engineering Apprenticeships in Teesside. Graham Gaunt, Newcastle University In recent years all of the main political parties have emphasised the importance of apprenticeships, with the Government aiming to create three million apprentice places by 2020. Despite this, we know very little about young people’s experiences of vocational training, with much of the current literature on apprenticeships focusing on outcomes and successful completion rates and not on the

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 lived experiences of apprentices. Based on interviews carried out with engineering apprentices that are currently working in Teesside, this paper will give a voice to these young people and explore their experiences of training provision, working environments, aspirations for the future and their daily lives. For those the subject of my study, doing an apprenticeship was seen as an investment in the future and a way to escape the precarious employment that would otherwise be found within the service sector. With very low pay and their lowly position within the workplace, it was the future promise of relatively secure, well-paid and skilled industrial employment that was the main draw. This paper will also consider apprenticeships within the context of the ‘missing middle’ within youth transitions. Unlike Steve Roberts’ model, overall apprenticeships wouldn’t be considered precarious forms of work, as they are expected to lead into relatively well-paid and secure employment, however apprenticeships do not fit into the largely recognised and accepted ‘slow transition’ either, as most apprentices earn very little and are forced to continue to live in the family home.

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Coffee break: 16:40-17:00

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Annual General Meeting: 17:00-17:30 (Incl. Closing and Poster Prizes by Newcastle Organising Committee) Beehive Lecture Theatre

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Delegate details Surname

First name

Email address

Dave

Institution Manchester Metropolitan University University of Birmingham London Metropolitan University University of Leicester

Abberley

Luke

Altarawneh

Deyala

Anastasio

Marina

Ashby Babelon

Ian

Northumbria University

[email protected]

Bari

Arezu

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Barnes

Mhari

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Bell

Fraser

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Bermeo

Elizabeth

University of Bristol

[email protected]

Blamire

Joshua

University of Liverpool

[email protected]

Bolton

Charlotte

Loughborough University

[email protected]

Boyle

Louise

University of Glasgow

[email protected]

Brooking

Hannah

University of Leicester

[email protected]

Carnegie

Anna

University of York

[email protected]

Clancy

Cara

Plymouth University

[email protected]

Crowson

Ashley

King's College London

[email protected]

Culora Da Silva Machado Darkal

Andreas

Loughborough University

Felipe

Plymouth University

Hoayda

Plymouth University

[email protected] felipe.dasilvamachado@plymouth. ac.uk [email protected]

Dekeyser

Thomas

University of Southampton

[email protected]

Den Hoed

Wilbert

[email protected]

Dobson

Julian

Dockerill

Bertie

Newcastle University Sheffield Hallam University University of Liverpool

Duffy

Paula

University of St Andrews

[email protected]

Duy

Phan

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

Emery

Jay

University of Leicester

[email protected]

Emmerson

Phil

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

Etim Ima Fabiola Momm Felder

Emmah

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

Christiane

Loughborough University

[email protected]

Sonja

[email protected]

Fermor

Dave

Newcastle University Manchester Metropolitan University

Figueroa Martínez

Cristhian

University of Leeds

[email protected]

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[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

[email protected]

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 Surname

First name

Institution

Email address

Gardner

Pippa

University of Sheffield

[email protected]

Gaunt

Graham

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Gill

Sean

[email protected]

Godfrey

Nerida

Godfrey

Lucas

Gonzalez

Adrian

Grasham

Catherine

Newcastle University University of New South Wales University of Edinburgh Royal Holloway, University of London University of East Anglia

Hardie

Lisa

[email protected]

Hardy

Alex

University of Brighton Royal Holloway, University of London

Jo

Loughborough University

[email protected]

Chris

University of Leicester

[email protected]]

Hind

Sam

University of Warwick

[email protected]

Hingley

William

[email protected]

Ikiroma

Isotein

Jackson

Rowan

Jin

Yi

Johnston

Brian

Kaaristo

Maarja

Keel

Mat

Aberystwyth University University of the West of Scotland University of Edinburgh London School of Economic and Political Sciences Queen's University Belfast Manchester Metropolitan University University of Bristol

Keenan

Liam

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Laiho

Michael

Durham University

[email protected]

Lambert

Mark

University of Nottingham

[email protected]

Leyendecker

Katja

Northumbria University

[email protected]

Longman Maldonado Deller

Jack

Northumbria University

[email protected]

Armandina

University of Nottingham

[email protected]

Marcatelli

Michela

McCarthy

Anja

Erasmus University Rotterdam Newcastle University

McCauley

Jamie

University of Exeter

[email protected]

McLaughlin

Gavin

Greater London Authority

[email protected]

Mellor

Alexia

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Miller

Rebekah

University of Edinburgh

[email protected]

Morris

Tim

University of Bristol

[email protected]

Musmar

Aya

University of Sheffield

[email protected]

HickmanDunne Hilborne

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[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] .uk [email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 Surname

First name

Email address

Sophie

Institution Royal Holloway, University of London University College London London School of Economic and Political Sciences Durham University

Nakai

Mina

Nattrass

Michael

Nogueira

Mara

Norris O'Boyle

Claire

Queen's University Belfast

[email protected]

Okumus

Duygu

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Oliver

Catherine

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

Osborne

Tess

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

Otero

María

University of Leeds

[email protected]

Panitz

Sina

[email protected]

Pearson

Gemma

Perera

Upuli

Northumbria University Royal Holloway, University of London University of Birmingham

Peterson

Melike

[email protected]

Pettit

Harry

Pewa Portella Sampaio

Mbali

University of Glasgow London School of Economic and Political Sciences University of Hull Royal Holloway, University of London

Prescott

Rebecca

Northumbria University

Reavley

Elizabeth

Robinson

Nick

Ruszczyk

Hanna

Durham University Royal Holloway, University of London Durham University

[email protected]. uk [email protected] [email protected]. ac.uk [email protected]

Rzedzian

Stefan

Newcastle University

[email protected]

Sariego-Kluge

Laura

Newcastle University

Schliwa

Gabriele

University of Manchester

Scott

Matthew

Newcastle University

[email protected] [email protected] k [email protected]

Serban

Anca

University of Cambridge

[email protected]

Shaw

Thomas

Northumbria University

[email protected]

Siddiqui

Rezwan

King's College London

[email protected]

Sieff

Richard

Loughborough University

[email protected]

Smith Smout Szablewska Sotiropoulou

Hannah

University of Leicester

[email protected]

Lucy

Durham University

[email protected]

Panagiota

Stansfeld

Katherine

Starkey

Eleanor

Loughborough University University of London, Royal Holloway Newcastle University

[email protected] [email protected] .ac.uk [email protected]

Daniela

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[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016 Surname

First name

Institution

Email address

Stevens

Ian

Aberystwyth University

[email protected]

Strong

Sam

University of Cambridge

[email protected]

Tebbett

Natalie

Loughborough University

[email protected]

Thomas

Greg

Aberystwyth University

[email protected]

Thompson

Maddy

[email protected]

Thorshaug

Ragne Øwre

Thrower

Graham

Newcastle University Norwegian University of Science and Technology/ University of London, Queen Mary Newcastle University

Tier

Trevor

University of Sussex

[email protected]

Tindale

Sophie

Durham University

[email protected]

Todd

James

Durham University

[email protected]

Tupper

Sarah

University of Exeter

[email protected]

Van Diepen

Cornelia

University of Portsmouth

[email protected]

Waddani

Hesham

University of Hull

[email protected]

Walker

Stephen

University of Nottingham

[email protected]

White

Helena

University of Leicester

[email protected]

Whittle

Matthew

University of Leeds

[email protected]

Zhang

Yiting

University of Birmingham

[email protected]

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[email protected] [email protected]

RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

NOTES

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NOTES

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

Get involved with the Postgraduate Forum… Enjoyed the conference? Want to get involved with the Postgraduate Forum?

You can become a Postgraduate Fellow of the RGS-IBG: http://www.rgs.org/JoinUs/Postgraduate+Fellowship.htm Get in touch with us through any of our three main communication channels: 1. Follow us on Twitter - @PGF_RGSIBG 2. Like us on Facebook – Royal Geographical Society with IBG Postgraduate Forum. 3. Sign up to our website updates – www.pgf.rgs.org Join us at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in London from Tuesday 30 th August to Friday 2nd September 2016. http://www.pgf.rgs.org/call-for-papers/ The Postgraduate Forum are sponsoring a record number of 17 sessions this year, with around 90 postgraduates from around the world presenting their research. If you are attending the conference, come along to the sessions - many postgraduates in the past have flagged them up as one of the highlights of the conference and their popularity has been growing year on year. These sessions are designed to provide space for postgraduate researchers to present their work in more relaxed and informal settings than many conferences allow for. If you have any questions about the sessions then please feel free to find Phil Emmerson over the course of the next two days or email Phil on [email protected]. Join us at PGF-ACTS 2016 in London on Monday 29th August. http://www.pgf.rgs.org/pgfacts-2016/ The Postgraduate Forum Annual Conference Training Symposium (PGF-ACTS) is jointly organised by the RGS-IBG and the Postgraduate Forum. Launched in 2011 it provides a training and networking opportunity for postgraduates attending the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference. The workshops, panel discussions and opportunities for questions and answers, led by established professional geographers, and other experts, enable postgraduates to develop transferable skills whilst also enriching the conference experience.

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RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2016

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