Power, Space, Politics - Geography, Politics and Sociology

Themes

Geography at Newcastle hosts a vibrant and dynamic group of political and international development geographers who are part of the PSP research cluster. Through our research we examine expressions of political power across space at a range of scales, from the international and national to the intimate, and with reference to a range of global contexts.

Research undertaken by staff within the PSP cluster makes leading contributions to academic debates and to theoretical and empirical development, employs a diverse range of methodologies, and has positive societal impacts around the following areas of political geography:

Borders and boundaries

The international boundaries that separate states are often sources of disagreement, instability and conflict. Our diverse work ranges from analysis of the experiences of people who live alongside them to analysis of the utilisation of military aircraft to enforce and maintain international boundaries. We undertake research on islands (in the Anthropocene), archipelagos and oceanic geographies to allow further interrogation of the often complex and shifting nature of maritime borders and boundaries

People working on this theme:

Critical geopolitics

Critical geopolitics offers a geographical understanding of international relations. Research by members of the PSP cluster makes unique contributions to this field through exploring: theories and models of development across different global contexts; the embodied and everyday geopolitics of childhood, youth and gender; the interface between international and intimate violence.

People working on this theme include:

Matt Benwell	Craig Jones	Peter Hopkins
Nick Megoran	Jonathan Pugh	Alison Williams
Kate Manzo	Raksha Pande	Rachel Pain

Militarism and military geographies

Newcastle University is a leading centre for the analysis of the effects of military activities on space, places, landscapes and people. Members of the PSP cluster have undertaken recent work on: analysis of the production of military memoirs; gender issues in the UK military; the geopolitics of UK military airspace; the UK armed forces Reserves; and the use of creative arts practice in understanding military phenomena.

People working on this theme include:

Neil Jenkings	Craig Jones	Rachel Woodward
Alison Williams	Nick Megoran	Alice Cree

Resistance, justice and peace

Our research aims to better understand the ways in which political power is resisted and how justice and peace are achieved within our political world. These questions are explored through examining: the geopolitics of peace; conflict resolution in the Caribbean; the political strategies of resistance and protest exercised by young people, as well as survivors of violence; the hegemony of neoliberalism and alternative modes of scholarship that are more peaceful and compassionate.

People working on this theme include:

More information can be found on our geographies of justice research site.

Staff

Our research group staff have significant experience and expertise in analysis of power and politics in relation to space.

StaffList: Power, Space, Politics

Dr Matt Benwell
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography

Email: matthew.benwell@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 3935

Dr Alice Cree
Research Fellow

Professor Peter Hopkins
Professor of Social Geography

Email: peter.hopkins@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: (0191) 208 3924

Dr Neil Jenkings
Senior Research Associate

Email: neil.jenkings@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 3806

Dr Craig Jones
Lecturer in Political Geography

Email: craig.jones@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: 0191 208 3960

Dr Robert Shaw
Senior Lecturer

Email: robert.shaw2@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 3918

Dr Kathryn Manzo
Senior Lecturer

Email: kate.manzo@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6454

Dr Nick Megoran
Reader in Political Geography

Email: nick.megoran@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6450

Professor Rachel Pain
Professor of Human Geography

Email: rachel.pain@ncl.ac.uk

Dr Raksha Pande
Senior Lecturer

Email: raksha.pande@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 3557

Dr Silvia Pasquetti
Lecturer in Sociology

Email: silvia.pasquetti@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 5817

Dr Jonathan Pugh
Reader in Island Studies

Email: jonathan.pugh@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6425

Dr Alison Williams
Reader in Political Geography

Email: alison.williams1@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 8489

Dr Astrid Wood
Lecturer in Economic Geography

Email: astrid.wood@ncl.ac.uk

Professor Rachel Woodward
Professor of Human Geography

Email: rachel.woodward@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6434

Associate Staff

Ruth Machen

Teaching

Staff within the PSP cluster contribute to both the undergraduate and postgraduate Geography programmes at Newcastle:

Undergraduate:

Modules include:

Interconnected World
Contemporary Human Geography of the UK
Political Geography
Exploring Everyday Political Geographies in a Divided City: Cyprus field class
Citizenship in a Global City: Hong Kong field class
Migration, Belonging and Everyday Geopolitics: Contested Geographies of New York City
Aerial Geographies
Development and Globalisation
Geographies of Film, Representation and Critical Spectatorship
Geopolitics; Humanitarianism: Representation, Intervention and Rescue
Militarism: Space and Society
Participatory Research and Development
Caribbean Societies
Cities of the Global South

Postgraduate:

Political Geography modules on the MA in Human Geography (Research); Doctoral research students (PhDs).

Postgraduates' Projects

Our postgraduates are working on a wide variety of power, space, politics subjects. These range from women's political participation in trade unions in Chile to securing livelihoods in Peru through fair trade.

Name	Topic
Eleojo Abubakar	The Socio-Spatial Coverage and Inequality of Healthcare Services in Nigeria
Paul Barber
Daniel Barwick	The Black Lives Matter Movement: Transnational Activism and the Role of Neo-Liberal Urbanism.
Quan Gao	Religion, migration and the (post)secular city: politics and poetics of migrant-worker Christians in post-reform Shenzhen, China
Panayiotis Hadjipavlis	The Peculiarities of Cyprus' Airspace - Implications for Modern State Sovereignty
Matthew Hanchard	Anchoring securities and mobilities: towards a digital sociology of maps
Joe Herbert	Between crisis and transformation: exploring the agency of young green activists in an era of socio-ecological upheaval
Nathar Iqbal	Exploring everyday social and political geographies and encounters of non-heterosexual Muslims in the UK
Matthew Kearns	Military masculinities and recruitment practices in the British Armed Forces
Hannah Lyons	Assembling the nation: spatialising young, religious American's affective experiences of the nation, fear and danger in the everyday
Stefan Rzedzian	Indigenous Empowerment, Extractive Industries and the Rights of Nature: Assessing Ecuador's "Revolutionary" Political Framework
Lexy Seedhouse	Be(com)ing Indigenous in the Time of Extraction: (Re)articulating Identities in the Context of Peru’s Ley de Consulta Previa.
Lauren Tibble	Playing the Aerial: Storytelling, Spirits and the Sky
Andrea Wilkinson	Climate Change and Fairtrade Agriculture – Securing Livelihoods in Peru
Isabel Williams	Cartographies of Heritage: Mapping the Interpretations of Landscape

Publications

Pinkerton, A and Benwell MC. Heritage, strategic narratives, and the making of geopolitical pasts, presents and futures at Europa Point, Gibraltar. Political Geography, 2017, epub ahead of print
Benwell MC. Argentine territorial nationalism in the South Atlantic and Antarctica. In: Dodds, K; Hemmings, AD; Roberts, P, ed. Handbook on the Politics of Antarctica. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017, pp.540-554.
Benwell MC. Going Underground: Banal Nationalism and Subterranean Elements in Argentina’s Falklands/Malvinas Claim. Geopolitics 2017, epub ahead of print.
Benwell MC. Connecting ontological (in)securities and generation through the everyday and emotional geopolitics of Falkland Islanders. Social & Cultural Geography 2017, (ePub ahead of Print).
Benwell MC, Núñez A, Amigo C. Flagging the nations: citizen’s active engagements with everyday nationalism in Patagonia, Chile. Area 2018, (ePub ahead of Print).
Hopkins P, Hörschelmann K, Benwell M, Studemeyer C. Young people's everyday landscapes of security and insecurity. Social and Cultural Geography 2018, ePub ahead of print.
Núñez A, Baeza B, Benwell MC. Cuando la nación queda lejos: fronteras cotidianas en el paso Lago Verde (Aysén-Chile) - Aldea Las Pampas (Chubut-Argentina). Revista de Geografía Norte Grande 2017, 66, 97-116.
Gasel A, Benwell MC. Memorias, cotidianeidad y territorios: Malvinas en las escuelas secundarias argentinas. Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales 2017, 8(1), 88-107.
Manzo K. The usefulness of climate change films. Geoforum 2017, 84, 88-94.
Megoran, N. (2017) Nationalism in Central Asia: A biography of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Boundary, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press.
Megoran, N. (2017) Warlike Christians in an Age of Violence, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock
Megoran, N. (2017) Martin Luther King in the UK: A resource pack for teachers in key stages 2,3 & 4, Newcastle: Martin Luther King Peace Committee.
Khamidov A, Megoran N, Heathershaw J. Bottom-up peacekeeping in southern Kyrgyzstan: how local actors managed to prevent the spread of violence from Osh/Jalal-Abad to Aravan, June 2010. Nationalities Papers 2017, Epub ahead of print.
Pasquetti, Silvia and Giovanni, Picker. 2017. "Confined Informality: Global Margins, Statecraft, and Urban Life". International Sociology, 32, 4 (special issue).
Behr EH, Megoran NWS, Carnaffan J. Peace education, militarism and neo-liberalism: conceptual reflections with empirical findings from the UK. Journal of Peace Education 2017, epub ahead of print.
Foster Russell, Megoran Nick, Dunn Michael. Towards a geopolitics of atheism: Critical geopolitics post the ‘War on Terror’. Political Geography 2017, 60, 179-189.
Megoran N. Warlike Christians in An Age of Violence: The Evangelical Case Against War and for Gospel Peace. USA: Wipf & Stock, 2017.
Chander, D and Pugh, J (2018) ‘Islands of Relationality and Resilience: the shifting stakes of the Anthropocene, special section in Area on ‘Contemporary debates in Island Studies’ e-put ahead of print https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/area.12459
Pugh, J (2018) ‘Relationality and island studies in the Anthropocene’, Island Studies Journal, 13(2), 93-110, https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.48
Pugh J and Grove, K. (2017) Assemblage, Transverality and Participation in the Neoliberal University, EPD: society and space, 35, 6, 1134–1152.
Pugh, J. (with The Analogue University) (2017) Academic identities in the managed university: Neoliberalism and resistance at Newcastle University, UK, Australian University Review, 59, 2, 23-36.
Pugh J. (with The Analogue University) (2017) Control, resistance and the ‘Data University’: towards a third wave critique. Antipode https://antipodefoundation.org/2017/03/31/control-resistance-and-the-data-university/
Pugh J. (2017) A sceptical approach to ‘the everyday’: Relating Stanley Cavell and Human Geography. Geoforum, 79, 36-45.
Pugh, J. (2017). Postcolonial development, (non) sovereignty and affect: living on in the wake of Caribbean political independence. Antipode, 49(4), 867-882.
Pugh, J. (accepted, forthcoming) Resilience and Islands. In Fassin, D. Das, V. (eds) Words and Worlds: a lexicon for dark times, Princeton University Press.
Pugh. J. (accepted) A phenomenology of archipelagos: from thinking with to within the archipelago. In: Stephens, M. and Martínez-San Miguel, Y. Anthology: Archipelagic Thinking: Towards New Comparative Methodologies and Disciplinary Formations.
Grove K, and Pugh J. (2018) Adaptation Machines or the biopolitics of adaptation. In Lawrence J, Bohland J, Davoudi S, Knox P, (eds) The Resilience Machine, London and New York: Routledge. chapter 7, pp 110-125.
Pugh J. (2017) Resilience as New Political Reality. In: Butler R. W. (ed) Resilience and Tourism. CABI: Wallington, Oxfordshire, chapter 16, pp 206-215.
Pugh, J (2018) Review of Michael Wiedorn, Think like an archipelago: paradox in the work of Édouard Glissant, Islands Studies Journal, 13 (2), pg 211-213.
Pugh, J. (2017) Review of Roberts. B.R. and Stephens M.A. ‘Archipelagic American studies’, Duke University Press, Durham and London. Review in Island Studies Journal (2017), 12 (2) 329-330.
Pugh J. (2017) Review of Crane, R and Fletcher, L Island Genres, Genre Islands: conceptualisation and representation in popular fiction. Rowman and Littlefield: London and New York. Review in Island Studies Journal (2017) 12 (1) 255-256).
Pugh J. (2017), Review of Crane, R. and Fletcher, L (2017) Island Genres, Genre Islands: conceptualisation and representation in popular fiction. Rowman and Littlefield: London and New York. Cultural Geographies, 24(4), 255-256.
Williams, AJ. Vertical: the city from satellites to bunkers, Island Studies Journal, 12(2): 331-334.
Williams AJ. The Hidenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology
Williams AJ. Aircraft carriers and the capacity to mobilise US power across the Pacific, 1919–1929. Journal of Historical Geography 2017, 58, 71-81.
Woodward R, Jenkings KN, Williams A. Militarisation, universities and the university armed service units. Political Geography 2017, 60, 203-212.
Williams AJ. The Empire's Edge: Militarization, Resistance, and Transcending Hegemony in the Pacific (Book Review). Geographical Review 2017, 107(2), e19-e23.
Woodward R, Duncanson C. An introduction to gender and the military. In: Rachel Woodward and Claire Duncanson, ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London: Palgrave, 2017, pp.pp.1-20.
Woodward R, Duncanson C, Jenkings KN. Gender and military memoirs. In: Rachel Woodward and Claire Duncanson, ed. The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military. London: Palgrave, 2017, pp.525-542.
Merriman P, Peters K, Adey P, Cresswell T, Forsyth I, Woodward R. Interventions on military mobilities. Political Geography 2017, 56, 44-52.
Woodward R. Military geography. In: The International Encyclopedia of Geography. Oxford: John Wylie & Sons, 2017.
Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Serving in Troubled Times: British Military Personnel’s memories and accounts of service in Northern Ireland. In: Dawson G; Dover J; Hopkins S, ed. Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp.91-107.
Jenkings KN, Woodward R. Serving in troubled times: British military personnel's memories and accounts of service in Northern Ireland. In: Dawson, G., Dover, J. and Hopkins, S, ed. The Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp.pp.92-107.