A Brighton graduate has won a prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) award for her dissertation on the ‘Geographies of Love Within British Reality Dating Shows’.
Category Archives: Geography
Podcast: Catching up with Dr Nick McGlynn
In the latest University of Brighton podcast Geography lecturer Dr Nick McGlynn discusses his research into LGBTQ communities in both rural and urban areas.
He also discusses his ongoing Bear Space project, the attraction of Brighton and his high energy teaching style.
Listen to the podcast by clicking ‘play’ in the link below. Alternatively, most of the interview is transcribed on this page.
You can listen to all of our podcasts by searching ‘University of Brighton’ in Spotify, Apple and many more podcast apps.
Enjoy the podcast. Read More
Greetings from Helsinki! – Kiira Kalmi
“After gaining valuable work experience at another Finnish energy company, I started working as a project coordinator in Licensing and Safety Assurance Unit at Fennovoima (a Finnish nuclear energy company based in Helsinki) last year. Funny enough, I was very anti-nuclear during my first years of studies. My opinion started slowly changing when I learned more about our current energy sources and how the demand for greener energy options will rapidly increase in the future.
A new look at care
University of Brighton researchers are contributing to an installation and programme of events that provide an insight into experiences of care for older people.
The programme of talks, films and workshops at Fabrica in Brighton – entitled ‘Intensive Care’ – accompanies ‘Care(less)’, a virtual reality installation produced by British artist Lindsay Seers with input from Brighton academics lead by Dr Lizzie Ward. Its aim is to highlight and explore our relationship with caring.
The events taking place as part of ‘Intensive Care’ include a discussion called ‘Conversation Piece – Feminism and Care’ on Wednesday 23 October, led by University of Brighton doctoral candidate Elona Hoover of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics.
Looking ahead to the event, Elona said: “I think this discussion is important because it emphasises the ethical and political nature of care as a set of ideas and practices. Read More
First field trip for our Geographers, Cuckmere Haven
Welcome to all our new students!
Dr Mary Geary, senior lecturer in Human Geography, introduces our new Geography students to working in the field with a trip to Cuckmere Haven.
“There’s nothing like a charabanc full of slightly soggy staff and new students heading off to the coast to kickstart the new academic year. As part of our introductory welcome week here in the School of Environment and Technology the Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences teams always take our fresh intake of first year undergraduates off to visit one of Sussex’s most iconic landscapes – the Seven Sisters, viewed from the estuary of the River Cuckmere in Cuckmere Haven. Read More
Rising sea levels threaten the South East
Rising sea levels and extreme weather events (storm surges, intense rainfall) are threatening to overwhelm coastal defences in the UK, according to research at the University of Brighton.
Dr Ward recently was interviewed for a BBC South East ‘Inside Out’ programme which focused on the threat to homes close to cliffs at Cuckmere Haven near Seaford.
RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Midterm Conference April 2019
I am a doctoral candidate at the School of Environment and Technology (SET). My doctoral research project is supervised by Dr Paul Gilchrist, Dr Mary Gearey and Professor Andrew Church who are all part of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics (SECP) and the Centre for Aquatic Environments research groups, which I am also affiliated with.
Catching up with Dr Annie Ockelford
In the ‘Catching up with…’ series of podcasts, we sit down with staff from a wide range of roles to find out more about what they do, what their department does, and what interests them.
In the latest episode we catch up with Dr Annie Ockelford, senior lecturer in physical geography, who recently shared her research with MPs and governmental organisations in Westminster.
To find out more about Annie’s research, click here to view her University profile page.
You can also listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, where you can like and subscribe – or search University of Brighton in your preferred podcast app.
Presenting at the Association of American Geographers annual conference
Dr Mary Gearey, Senior Research Fellow from the School of Environment and Technology reflects on her latest conference presentation and participation at AAG Washington 2019
There seemed to be a problem on the streets of Washington DC when I arrived last week at the beginning of April. Dotted along the streets, scores of lonely, abandoned scooters, harshly left propped against streetlights, blossoming cherry trees, shop doorways.
Who would care for these miscreant mobile technologies? Luckily with 9000 physical and human geographers in town for the annual Association of American Geographers (AAG) meeting help was on hand with both theoretical and applied solutions. Read More
Exploring Morocco with our 2nd year geographers
Every year, 2nd year undergraduates on our BA Geography course spend 8 days exploring Morocco as part of their dedicated field work module. This year they were joined by gender and sexuality specialist Dr Nick McGlynn, sustainable energy expert Dr Kirsten Jenkins, and senior geoarchaeology lecturer Dr Chris Carey.
The field trip was split across two locations. For 6 days the students worked and studied in the tourist hotspot and cultural heartland of Marrakech. Through transect walks across the French-planned New Town and the older Medina (the walled centre), students observed the lingering impacts of colonialism in the built environment and culture of the city.
They also investigated ways in which national and transnational policymaking – particularly the ‘Plan Maroc Vert‘ agenda – influence the very rapid development of Morocco, with consequent tension around use of land and water evident in peri-urban Marrakech.
Water usage in particular was studied further as students traveled into the Atlas Mountains for two days, in the village of Imlil. Here the focus was on changing rural livelihoods, traditional forms of agriculture and immigration, and the impacts brought by the growth in tourism. Despite rainy and stormy weather, students managed to spend a lot of time observing these issues first-hand. Local guides pointed out mechanisms and strategies for managing flooding, soil erosion and landslides, and explained the ‘targa’ irrigation system and the social practices used to manage it.
Help was also at hand (or more accurately at hoof) in the form of local mules, which carried staff and students to the lower slopes near Mount Toubkal. Here we could see the still-existing damage caused by a devastating flood and rockslide in 1995, and the differences between tourist-oriented villages like Imlil and more isolated settlements higher in the mountains.
Returning to Marrakech for the final days of the field trip, our budding geographers concluded by developing their own group projects. Data for these was gathered over two days, and subsequent findings were presented to staff and fellow students. This year our groups’ research topics were:
The Morocco field trip serves as a critical introduction to fieldwork and the research process for students. But we also find that it really brings our students together as a group, and helps them work together and support one another in their vital final year. We can’t wait to see how they progress as we move into 2020!
