Introducing the editors…

Photography: Adam Badger

The blog’s current editors are Katy and Huw, both first year PhD students and members of the Social, Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group at Royal Holloway University of London. We are delighted to take over this role to continue the exciting dialogue generated in this research group, which happens at our bi-weekly ‘Landscape Surgery’ meetings, as well as in publication, through public events and academic conferences, interdisciplinary workshops and dialogue with other institutions. We always welcome content from the ‘surgeons’ on their topical research interests, upcoming events, general PhD, post-doc and career advice; and all things Geography (and beyond!) We also welcome guest posts, so if you have anything you’d like to submit, please get in contact with us at huw.rowlands.2014@live.rhul.ac.uk or katy.lawn.2015@live.rhul.ac.uk.

Katy is a first year ESRC-funded PhD student whose work focuses on the changing nature of workspaces/places through a consideration of cultural products and artistic responses to the experience of paid labour. When she is not editing blog posts or reading Peter Fleming, Katy also helps with Royal Holloway’s student-run film and debate society, Passengerfilms and reads/experiments with creative research methods and poetic ethnography.

Huw is a first year AHRC-funded PhD student whose research focuses on re-performances of first-contact encounters in a colonial-indigenous context. A ‘Surgeon’ since undertaking an MA in the department 2014-15, Huw particularly enjoys the interdisciplinary nature of surgeries. When not studying, he is also a (very) part-time project manager at the British Library. Other activities include photography, drawing, theatre, world music, badminton and avoiding cats.

AAG Dry Run: Miriam Burke, Pip Thornton and Simon Cook

On a (finally slightly more spring-than-winter-like!) afternoon, the Landscape Surgery group gathered at Bedford Square to hear early versions of some of the papers being presented by group members at this year’s AAG Annual Meeting in Boston. We heard from Miriam Burke and Pip Thornton (pictured left), who delivered fascinating material; whilst Simon Cook, who was unfortunately unable to make the session, offered his apologies, but also had some fascinating material to share.

Miriam, Pip and Simon are also convening sessions at the AAG – below are both the summaries of their papers, and the description of the sessions they are convening.

 

Miriam Burke

Paper Title: Threads, ties and tangles: exploring the idea of ‘more than human’ social reproduction as a means to cultivate caring practices for the climate using participatory art practices

Abstract: In their ‘feminist project for belonging in the anthropocene’

The Second Annual Denis Cosgrove Lecture: Dee Heddon

Photo: Ed Brookes

Walking Aesthetics and Performing Landscape

by Ed Brookes

The second annual Dennis Cosgrove lecture was presented by artist and researcher Dee Heddon. Dee is professor of contemporary performance at the university of Glasgow, and author of several publications including ‘Autobiography and Performance’ (2008) and co-editor of a new book series for Palgrave on ‘performing landscapes’. Her talk entitled ‘Walking Aesthetics and Performing Landscape’ invited us to explore

‘A Smaller Audience than the Kardashians’: social media for academics with Prof Stuart Elden and Dr Mark Carrigan

The Landscape Surgery group was pleased to welcome Professor Stuart Elden (Professor of Political Theory and Geography at the University of Warwick, and founder of the Progressive Geographies blog) and Dr Mark Carrigan (digital Sociologist, social media consultant and author of the recently published book Social Media for Academics).

The aim of the session was to share knowledge about how to productively use social media platforms in an academic context – even though none of us will (probably) ever have a social media audience as big as the Kardashians, as our speakers pointed out.

Academic Blogging
Stuart shared some advice from his own personal experience of blogging…

1) Be Useful to Yourself
What is the blog for? How will it be helpful for you? The primary goal should always be that blogging is something that is useful to you as a researcher: whether this is a way of thinking things through, sharing ideas and thoughts, or a way to connect to a wider research community. For Stuart, Progressive Geographies started out as a kind of public notebook or digital archive – a way to keep track of the research process and thoughts. Some academics also say that it helps with writers block – the practice of just writing something can spark off new ideas and perspectives and get the creative juices flowing!

Tate Exchange Workshops

Environments / Encounters / Exchanges

by Ed Brookes

Photography: Ed Brookes

On February 14^th the Tate Modern played host to a series of workshops entitled Environments/Encounters/Exchange. Organised by Royal Holloway’s Centre for the Geohumanities it formed part of the Tate gallery’s week long exchange programme with the university.  It aimed to explore how