Project Staff
Dr. Chris Bear
Currently Chris is working on the Environmental Visions and Angling and Governance work packages in collaboration with Dr Sally Eden (Hull) and Prof Michael Carrithers (Durham). In 2006, Chris completed work on Credibility Claims as Scientific Commodities. This research was funded by the ESRC and was carried out in collaboration with Dr Sally Eden (Hull) and Prof. Gordon Walker (Lancaster). The project investigated the claims made about commercial goods from the perspectives of producers, consumers and intermediaries. In particular, it studied the ways in which scientific claims are made and interpreted, and credibility is maintained, at each stage of a product's development. Case studies included organic food, sustainable fisheries and sustainable timber. Prior to that, Chris’s PhD was on 'Negotiating knowledge and nature in Scottish salmon management'. This research examined constructions of, and responses to, the declining number of salmon returning annually to Scottish rivers. The focus was on three related empirical topics: quantification of salmon; hatcheries and the stocking of rivers; and predation of salmon by humans and animals. By studying these topics, the thesis provided a critique of Scottish salmon management, framed by a discussion of hybridity. Drawing on Actor Network Theory, it attempted to destabilise commonly accepted dichotomies of scientific/local knowledges and nature/culture. Chris’s principle interests are in the geographies of knowledge, understandings of ‘nature’ and in animal geographies. He has an ongoing interest in animal geographies and is particularly interested in the place of individual animals in the world. Chris hopes to develop this interest in the current RELU project.
http://www.ies.aber.ac.uk/en/staff/academic/chris-bear
Dr Louise Bracken (née Bull)
Louise’s research focuses upon the dynamic and complex relationship between the processes that generate and supply fine sediment (on hill slopes and in rivers), and those that move the sediment through the river system. In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that fine sediment is a key factor in the environmental quality of a river system, as it plays an important role in determining the nature and rate of transport of nutrients and contaminants. Hence the understanding of possible sources, pathways and fates of fine sediment is now recognised as an important element of water resource management and is vital for the management of contemporary river systems. Under the predicted scenarios for climate change, water/sediment systems are likely to evolve. It is therefore essential to improve our understanding of the routes and pathways that deliver water and sediment to channels to enable sustainable management scenarios to be developed. Within this framework Louise’s research has four broad themes: (1) the supply of sediment from gullies and hill slopes in semi-arid environments; (2) spatial variations in runoff and sediment transfer, including the pathways that runoff and sediment follow; (3) the supply of sediment from bank erosion in temperate environments; and (4) the introduction of an interdisciplinary approach to bring together the scientific outputs from researching earth surface systems with those of related social science disciplines.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/biological.sciences/staff/profile/?username=dgg0ljb
Dr. Damian Bubb - Worked on the project for 2 years and left to work for the Game Conservancy Trust
Damian has been working as a researcher in the aquatic animal ecology and fisheries research group in the Institute of Ecosystem Science at Durham University for the past two years. During this time he has worked on a variety of projects including examining the behaviour and habitat use of grayling, the spatial ecology and spawning migration of river lamprey. Prior to this Damian completed his PhD at Durham University on the ‘Spatial ecology of signal and white-clawed crayfish in upland rivers, Northern England’. The work focused on the behaviour and impact that the introduced signal crayfish is having on native populations of white-clawed crayfish. Within this project Damian is working on angling and ecology with Martyn Lucas and also on angling and river processes with Louise Bracken.
Professor Michael Carrithers
From 2006 till 2009 Michael has been appointed Economic and Social Research Council Professorial Fellow for the project ‘Sociality and Rhetoric Culture in the Interpretation of Situations: an Anthropological Theory and its Application in East Germany’. Since 1992 he has been Professor of Anthropology in Durham University. Michael held a British Academy Research Readership from 1986 to 1988. His DPhil from Oxford, awarded in 1978, concerned the Buddhist forest monks of Sri Lanka. (This has been published as The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka. Oxford South Asia Monograph Series, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1983.)
Michael’s interest in this project concerns the rhetoric that people devise and use to promulgate projects—such as conserving water quality or encouraging angling—, and the fate of such rhetoric in practice. He is especially interested in the forms of rhetoric devised within organisations, such as the Environment Agency or an anglers’ association, and how such rhetoric plays upon other agencies concerned with rivers and angling. The original inspiration for this part of the AIRE research was the observation that, within large institutions such as the NHS or higher education in England, the language used by one agency (e.g. the Department of Health, the Higher Education Funding Council) might be largely unintelligible, uninformative, or systematically misunderstood by those to whom it is addressed.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/profiles/?id=126
Dr. Sally Eden
http://www.hull.ac.uk/geog/staff/Eden.htm
Steven Emery PhD student, Durham University
http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/postgraduate/pg_students/pg_profile/?id=4710
Steven is a PhD student on the project and his research examines the communication and implementation of CAP-Reform and agri-environmental policy amongst hill farmers in the Esk Valley. His fieldwork combines ethnography with the Esk Valley farmers and land use mapping to relate the effects of recent policy change on farmers' land management practices, with particular reference to practices that impact upon sediment loading in the River Esk.
Steven's PhD is supervised by Michael Carrithers and Louise Bracken. Prior to his PhD Steven worked for three years as an Environmental Consultant working on a range of projects including environmental assessment and audit, resource efficiency, statutory Environmental Impact Assessment, sustainability appraisal and corporate environmental management. Steven has a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Management and a MSc in European Environmental Management, both achieved at Lancaster University. He is also an Associate Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (AIEMA) and a registered BREEAM assessor.
Dr Martyn Lucas
Martyn leads the aquatic animal ecology and fisheries research group in the Institute of Ecosystem Science, School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University. He is a keen angler (coarse, game and sea) and is at his happiest when he is near or in water. His last catch was three grayling from the River Wear, all of which were returned. Recent research by his group has included studies on fish migration, fish stocking in inland fisheries, habitat use by fish in rivers, conservation biology and inland fishery rehabilitation. Much of the work has been in collaboration with anglers and government agencies in the UK and abroad. Martyn believes that anglers have a key role to play in ensuring the maintenance of a scenic countryside, rich in wildlife, including fish and that greater understanding of the opportunities and constraints of angling for aiding sustainable management of river catchments is vital. Martyn also believes that angling, especially for kids, is a great way of encouraging a direct interest in our environment and the wildlife it supports.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/biological.sciences/staff/profile/?username=dbl0mcl
Dr. Elizabeth Oughton
Elizabeth Oughton is currently a Principal Research Associate at the Centre of Rural Economy, University of Newcastle. She previously lectured in the department of geography at Durham University and before that in the Department of Agricultural Economic and Food Marketing at Newcastle. Liz gained her PhD on Food Policy in India as a staff member of the department in Newcastle following two years of field work in western Maharashtra. She has continued to work in interdisciplinary teams. As a rural socio-economist on a livestock development project in Jordan, Liz worked with Bedouin women and their households. More recently she has been the work package co-ordinator on an EU funded project analysing the institutional factors affecting resource use in four European wetlands in Finland, Greece, Lithuania and Romania. Liz has just completed a RELU scoping study grant to develop interdisciplinary tools for river catchment analysis. In addition to the current RELU project, Angling in the Rural Environment, Liz is working on an EU Framework VI project on food quality and safety of organic and low input foods.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cre/people/profiles/eo.htm
Professor Jane Wheelock
Jane has been Professor of Socio-economics in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University since 1999. This RELU funded project interests her because Jane has always worked from an interdisciplinary perspective. Jane has entered into the spirit of the varied interdisciplinary contexts within which she has been employed: first in social sciences, then in a business school (both at Sunderland University) and latterly in social policy, and now sociology. The title of her chair indicates that Jane has been at the cutting edge of the interface between sociology and economics. Her conceptual and empirical work on the relationship between the formal (paid) and the informal or complementary (unpaid) economies also incorporates policy dimensions (covering the rural and the urban). Participation in two RELU funded projects has now allowed Jane to extend her interdisciplinary interests to the physical sciences.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cgws/staff/jane_wheelock.php
Dr. Geoff Whitman
Geoff began his academic career as an ecologist before coming to Newcastle to do his PhD within the Centre for Rural Economy [CRE]. In between this transition Geoff worked with a variety of conservation NGOs and research organisations primarily focusing on upland ecological and farming issues. His PhD research, completed in 2006, explored the concept of environmental knowledge through England’s implementation of Less Favoured Areas policy using north Northumberland as its context. Drawing on theoretical work that links knowledge, power and identity consideration was given to exploring and understanding the complex knowledge's of hill farmers, ecologists and policy representatives, and how these are embedded in power relations in the English uplands. Since finishing his PhD Geoff has worked on a variety of projects both in CRE and as part of the Rural Economy and Land Use [RELU] program. Within this current RELU project Geoff is working on the work packages that relate to Governance with Liz Oughton and on Rural Development with Jane Wheelock. Geoff’s principle interests are in how environmental knowledges are constructed by different actors, the interaction of knowledges, power and identity in rural policies and the construction of expertise and how this affects the use of knowledges within rural policies.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cre/people/profiles/gw.htm