Staff Profile

KEY RESEARCH INTERESTS

· Small Islands and Archipelagos 

· Critical thought in the Anthropocene

· Contemporary Caribbean 

· Participatory approaches

For full list of downloadable publications:

https://newcastle.academia.edu/JonathanPugh 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonathan-Pugh-3

OVERVIEW

Jonathan’s main areas of research are islands and archipelagos. He has over 100 publications and is particularly noted for his development of the 'relational turn' in islands studies, producing a number of influential publications examining how contemporary scholarship disrupts insular and isolated island geographies. Jonathan has presented over 30 invited international keynote addresses, held many visiting fellowships, and given invited lectures including at Princeton, Harvard, Virginia Tech, London, Cornell, Vienna, Zurich, Trinity College Dublin, Rutgers, California, University of West Indies and National Taiwan Normal University.

Jonathan presently focuses upon two key areas of work:

1] The figure of the island in the Anthropocene, where he has launched the 'Anthropocene Islands' initiative (https://anthropoceneislands.online). This gains its initial impetus from the book (2021) 'Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds' (co-written with David Chandler, University of Westminster Press, in paperback and freely downloadable https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book52/). It explores the widespread turn to working with islands for the generation of contemporary approaches to critical thinking, knowledge and policy practices associated with the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Islands initiative has a monthly reading group, early career group, a special 'Anthropocene Islands' section of Island Studies Journal, and holds regular conference sessions and workshops.

2] 'Abyssal Geography' (with David Chandler) draws out a highly distinctive approach to contemporary critical thought. Rather than rethinking the human and the world, abyssal work is a meta-theoretical approach to the violence of modern and colonial world-making. It marks how many contemporary approaches to ‘worlding otherwise’ maintain the ontological foundations of ‘worlding’ which emerged during early modernity. In 2023, Jonathan and David published the book 'The World as Abyss: the Caribbean and Contemporary Critical Thought in the Anthropocene' (Westminster University Press, paperback and freely downloadable https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book72/). Information on the 'Abyssal Geography' project can be found on the ‘Anthropocene Islands’ website here: https://www.anthropoceneislands.online/page-9.html

Jonathan has also been involved in a range of practical and transformative participatory programmes in the islands of the Caribbean. For example, co-initiating a seven-country programme employing 128 Caribbean fisherpeople funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to stimulate the development of fishing community networks across the eastern Caribbean archipelago. Drawing upon such practical programmes, Jonathan has published a number of critiques of participatory approaches (Environment and Planning D: society and space, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers/Royal Geographical Society; Annals of the Association of American Geographers; Progress in Human Geography; Antipode; Area; Geoforum; Geography Compass, for examples).

Finally, such concerns often intersect with Jonathan's general interest in the changing nature of critique. In 2004 Jonathan launched the 'Spaces of Democracy' network with Chantal Mouffe and Doreen Massey. The network ran until 2016, involved 18 institutions worldwide and examined the changing character of radical politics today. Throughout this time Jonathan launched and was editor of the online magazine Radical Politics Today. In 2009 Jonathan edited the book ‘What is Radical Politics Today?’, which was covered in a range of popular media and launched by the British Council at Canada House, Trafalgar Square.

TEACHING HONOURS

• Voted by PhD and Masters students studying at the Faculty of Humanities of Social Sciences, Newcastle University, to give the annual plenary lecture to PhD and Masters students in the Faculty (19^th June, 2014).
• Nominated three times by undergraduate students for a Newcastle University Teaching Award.
• Innovation Fund for Teaching, Newcastle University: Pugh, J. Hewett, C. Williams, A. Tate S. and Large, A. Developing Discursive Skills for the workplace: piloting an interactive seminar series. Quality in Learning and Teaching (QuILT) (£4995) [2012].