Staff Profile

Personal website 

https://alastairbonnett.com

Area of Expertise

1. Forgotten and overlooked places
2. The idea of the West
3. The politics and geography of nostalgia and memory
4. The international history of anti-racism, racism and 'whiteness'
5. The geographical theories of the European avant-garde. 

Google Scholar

Research Interests

My research falls into five areas:

1. Forgotten and overlooked places;

2. The idea of the West;

3. The politics and geography of nostalgia and memory;

4. The international history of anti-racism, racism and 'whiteness';

5. The geographical theories of the European avant-garde.

My books have been translated into the following languages: Greek; Korean; Turkish; Czech; Arabic, Farsi, French, Italian; German; Danish; Swedish; Finnish; Dutch; Spanish; Galician; Chinese (Taiwan); Chinese (PRC); Japanese; Polish.

A wide selection of Professor Bonnett's publications can be downloaded from Newcastle University's 'e-prints service'.

Postgraduate Supervision

I am happy to supervise PhD students across a broad range of social science and historical topics, including: social theory; social and cultural geography; occidentalism; memory and nostalgia studies; whiteness; racialisation; anti-racism; ethnicity; psychogeography; the avant-garde; activism.

Current PhD Students:

Ricky Chambers (2020-) 'Embodied displacement and the performance of vulnerability in documentary film'  with Ian Macdonald (AHRC Northern Bridge) 

Haris Husaric (2021-) 'Cultural Landscapes of Post-Socialism: Materiality and Meaning of Work and its Absence' (NUACT PhD) (with James Riding and Rachel Pain)

Some past PhD students:

Daniel Barwick (2018-2022) 'The Black Lives Matter Movement: Transnational Activism and the Role of Neo-Liberal Urbanism' (with Anoop Nayak and Craig Jones)

Beth Robertson (2018-2022) 'Comparison of Dominica and Anguilla and their Recovery of Primary Education Following the 2017 Hurricane Season' (with Jon Pugh and Marcus Power)

Philippa Carter (2016-2023) 'Memory and Post-memory in the Derwent Valley' (with Rhiannon Mason and Helen Jarvis)

Johnny Finn (2016-2021) 'Memory and Identity on Post-industrial Tyneside' (with Anoop Nayak and Michael Richardson)

Daniel Gane (2016-2021) 'The Idea of the Self and the Experience of the Long Sea-Voyage and Maritime Exploration in the Eighteenth Century' (with Matthew Grenby and Laura Kirkley) 

Joe Herbert (2017-2021) 'New Green Activism: A Transnational Study' (with Helen Jarvis and Gareth Powells)

Isabel Williams (2015-2021) 'Cartographies of heritage' (with Rachel Woodward and Wen Lin)

Maddy Thompson (2014-2018) 'Migrant Destinations and the Geographical Imaginations of Nurses and Nurse Students in Metro Manila, the Philippines' (with Anoop Nayak)

Alex Macleod (2011-2016) 'Occidentalism in 'Post-Western' South-East Asia' (with Simon Philpott)

Francesca Fois (2013-2015) 'Utopian Communities' (with Helen Jarvis)

Robin Finlay (2011-2016) ‘Living with the Other’: Race, Religion and the Performance of Immigrant Identities in Grenada, Spain (with Anoop Nayak) 

Jennifer Lloyd (2011-2015) 'Embodied experiences of female transnationals' (with Peter Hopkins) 

Hazel Sheeky (2008-2012) AHRC Collaborative Studentship 'Children's Literature and the Culture of Exploration: from R.M. Ballantyne to Arthur Ransome' (with Matthew Grenby) 

Kate Botterill (2008-2011) Transnational networks and social mobility among migrant workers from the post-socialist world

Chris Kiernan (2004-2007)Sense of Places: Subjectivism, Reflexivity and Phenomenology (MPhil)

Simon Tate (2002-2007) The Idea of the West in British Politics

Jenny Pickerill (1999-2003)Environmental Activism and the Internet Funding

Andrew Law (1999-2003) Heritage Landscapes and the English Conservation Movement

Anoop Nayak (1996-1999) 'Ivory Lives': Race, Ethnicity and the Practice of Whiteness Amongst Young People

Projects: 

Urban Memory, Nostalgia and Use of the City Amongst Ex-residents of Tyneside. ESRC Research Grant (RES-000-22-3833) Jan. 2010-Jan. 2011

Catherine Cookson Foundation, 2015, North East Heritage Research website

Undergraduate Teaching

GEO2103 Globalization and Development

GEO3153 Geographies of Race and Nation

• Articles

  • Bonnett A. The mapping revolution. Geography 2025, 110(1), 45-48.
  • Pande R, Bonnett A. Translating India to India: Travelling Translations, Patanjali Ayurveda, and the Visual Language of Spiritual Consumerism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2024, epub ahead of print.
  • Bonnett A. The new popular geography and pursuit of the curious. Scottish Geographical Journal 2023, 139(1-2), 223-228.
  • Mason O, Sarma J, Sidaway JD, Bonnett A, Hubbard P, Jamil G, Middleton J, O'Neill M, Riding J, Rose M. Interventions in walking methods in political geography. Political Geography 2023, 106, 102937.
  • Bonnett A. Multiple racializations in a multiply modern world. Ethnic and Racial Studies 2018, 41(7), 1199-1216.
  • Bonnett A. The enchanted path: magic and modernism in psychogeographical walking. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2017, 42(3), 472-484.
  • Bonnett A. Nostalgia and Anti-nostalgia in English Radical History: The Case of Thomas Spence (1750-1814). Groniek: Historisch Tijdschrift 2017, 214, 45-57.
  • Shaw W, Bonnett A. Environmental crisis, narcissism and the work of grief. Cultural Geographies 2016, 23(4), 565-579.
  • Bonnett A. The agnostic Saladin. History Today 2013, 63(2), 48-51.
  • Jarvis H, Bonnett A. Progressive Nostalgia in Novel Living Arrangements: A Counterpoint to Neo-traditional New Urbanism?. Urban Studies 2013, 50(11), 2349-2370.
  • Bonnett A, Alexander C. Mobile nostalgias: connecting visions of the urban past, present and future amongst ex-residents. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2013, 38(3), 391-402.
  • Bonnett A. The Critical Traditionalism of Ashis Nandy: Occidentalism and the Dilemmas of Innocence. Theory, Culture & Society 2012, 29(1), 138-157.
  • Bonnett A. Geography: what's the big idea?. Geography 2012, 97(1), 39-41.
  • Bonnett A. Geography: one of humanity's big ideas. Teaching Geography 2012, 37(3), 120-121.
  • Bonnett A. Radicalism, antiracism and nostalgia: the burden of loss in the search for convivial culture. Environment and Planning A 2010, 42(10), 2351-2369.
  • Bonnett A. Thomas Spence, Property in Land Every One’s Right (1775). Labour History Review 2009, 74, 1, 134-136.
  • Bonnett A. The dilemmas of radical nostalgia in British pyschogeography'. Theory, Culture and Society 2009, 26(1), 45-70.
  • Bonnett A. What does history teach us about eco-towns?. BBC History Magazine 2008, 9, 11, 18-19.
  • Bonnett A. Shades of difference: African Native Americans. History Today 2008, 58(12), 40-42.
  • Bonnett A. The other Rights of Man. History Today 2007, 57, 9, 42-48.
  • Bonnett A. Radical nostalgia. History Today 2007, 57, 2, 41-2.
  • Bonnett A. The Nostalgias of Situationist Subversion. Theory, Culture and Society 2006, 23(5), 23-48.
  • Bonnett A. The Americanisation of anti-racism? Global power and hegemony in ethnic equity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2006, 32(7), 1083-1103.
  • Bonnett A. Pale face, red mask: racial ambiguity and the imitation of 'American Indian' facial expressions. Cultural Politics 2006, 2(3), 319-338.
  • Bonnett A. Occidentalism and plural modernities: or how Fukuzawa and Tagore invented the West. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2005, 23(4), 505-525.
  • Bonnett A. From the crises of whiteness to Western supremacism. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association Journal 2005, 1(1), 8-20.
  • Bonnett A. Occidentalism. History Today 2004, 54(10), 40-41.
  • Bonnett A. Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and academic geographical imaginations. Area 2003, 35(1), 55-63.
  • Bonnett A. From white to western: 'racial decline' and the idea of the West in Britain, 1890-1930. Journal of Historical Sociology 2003, 16(3), 320-348.
  • Bonnett A. The metropolis and white modernity. Ethnicities 2002, 2(3), 349-366.
  • Bonnett A. Makers of the West: National identity and occidentalism in the work of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Ziya Gokalp. Scottish Geographical Journal 2002, 118(3), 165-182.
  • Bonnett A. Communists like us: ethnicized modernity and the idea of 'the West' in the Soviet Union. Ethnicities 2002, 2(4), 435-467.
  • Laurie ND, Bonnett A. Adjusting to equity: The contradictions of neoliberalism and the search for racial equality in Peru. Antipode 2002, 34(1), 28-53.
  • Bonnett A. Whiteness in crisis. History Today 2000, 50, 12, 39-40.
  • Tomlin RI, Carrington B, Bonnett A, Nayak A. The recruitment of new teachers from minority ethnic groups. International Studies in Sociology of Education 2000, 10(1), 3-22.
  • Bonnett A, Carrington B. Fitting into categories or falling between them? Rethinking ethnic classification. British Journal of Sociology of Education 2000, 21(4), 487-500.
  • Bonnett A. Situationist strategies and mutant technologies. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities 1999, 4(2), 25-32.
  • Bonnett A. Who was white? The disappearance of non-European white identities and the formation of European racial whiteness. Ethnic and Racial Studies 1998, 21(6), 1029-1055.
  • Bonnett A. How the British working class became white: the symbolic (re)formation of racialized capitalism. Journal of Historical Sociology 1998, 11(3), 316-340.
  • Carrington B, Bonnett A. The Other Canadian 'Mosaic' - 'race' equity education in Ontario and British Columbia. Comparative Education 1997, 33(3), 411-431.
  • Bonnett A. Geography, 'race' and whiteness: invisible traditions and current challenges. Area 1997, 29(3), 193-199.
  • Bonnett A. White studies: the problems and opportunities of a new research agenda. Theory, Culture and Society 1996, 13, 2, 145-155.
  • Bonnett A. The transgressive geographies of daily life: socialist pathways in everyday urban spatial creativity. Transgressions 1996, 2/3, 20-37.
  • Bonnett A. The new primitives: identity, landscape and cultural appropriation in the mythopoetic men's movement. Antipode 1996, 28, 3, 273-291.
  • Bonnett A. Constructions of 'race', place and discipline: Geographies of 'racial' identity and racism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 1996, 19(4), 864-883.
  • Bonnett A, Carrington B. Constructions of anti-racist education in Britain and Canada. Comparative Education 1996, 32(3), 271-288.
  • Bonnett A. Anti-racism and the critique of 'white' identities. New Community 1996, 22, 1, 97-110.
  • Bonnett A. The formation of public professional radical consciousness: the example of anti-racism. Sociology 1993, 27, 281-297.
  • Bonnett A. Forever white? challenges and alternatives to a racial monolith. New Community 1993, 20, 173-180.
  • Bonnett A. Art, ideology and everyday space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1992, 10, 69-86.
  • Bonnett A. America' multicultural panic. Forum 1992, 34, 3, 71-72.
  • Bonnett A. Anti-racism as a radical educational ideology in London and Tyneside. Oxford Review of Education 1990, 16, 255-267.
  • Bonnett A. Situationism, geography and poststructuralism. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1989, 7, 131-146.

• Authored Books

  • Bonnett A. Losing Nature: How Environmental Nostalgia is Shaping the World. Cambridge: Polity, 2025. In Preparation.
  • Bonnett A. 40 Maps That Will Change How You See the World. London: Ivy Press, 2024.
  • Bonnett A. What is Geography?. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2023.
  • Bonnett A. How to be Original: Transform Your Assignments and Achieve Better Grades. London: Sage, 2023.
  • Bonnett A. How to Argue: A Students Guide. London: Sage, 2023.
  • Bonnett A. Radicalism, Anti-racism and Representation. London: Routledge, 2022.
  • Bonnett A. Multiracism: Rethinking Racism in Global Context. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022.
  • Bonnett A. The Age of Islands: In Search of New and Disappearing Islands. London: Atlantic Books, 2020.
  • Bonnett A. Elsewhere: A Journey Into Our Age of Islands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
  • Bonnett A. An Uncommon Atlas: 50 new views of our physical, cultural and political world. London: White Lion, 2019.
  • Bonnett A. New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before. London: Aurum Press Ltd, 2017.
  • Bonnett A. Beyond the Map: Unruly Enclaves, Ghostly Places, Emerging Lands and Our Search for New Utopias. London/Chicago: Aurum/University of Chicago Press, 2017.
  • Bonnett A. The Geography of Nostalgia: Global and Local Perspectives on Modernity and Loss. London: Routledge, 2015.
  • Bonnett A. Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies. New York, USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.
  • Bonnett A. Off the Map: Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places and What They Tell Us About the World. London: Aurum Press Ltd, 2014.
  • Bonnett A. Radicalism, anti-racism and representation. London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2013.
  • Bonnett A. How to argue (third edition). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2011.
  • Bonnett A. ΓΕΩΓΡΑΦΙΑ: ΜΙΑ ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ [Geography: An Introduction]. Athens: Kritiki, 2010.
  • Bonnett A. Left in the Past: Radicalism and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Continuum, 2010.
  • Bonnett A. What is Geography?. London: Sage, 2008.
  • Bonnett A. How to Argue: Essential Skills for Writing and Speaking Convincingly. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2008.
  • Bonnett A. The Idea of the West: Culture, Politics and History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
  • Bonnett A. How to Argue: A Students' Guide. Harlow: Prentice Hall, 2001.
  • Bonnett A. White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives. Harlow: Prentice Hall, 2000.
  • Bonnett A. Anti-racism. London: Routledge, 2000.
  • Bonnett A. Radicalism, Anti-racism and Representation. London: Routledge, 1993.

• Book Chapters

  • Bonnett A. A kind of permanent indulgence. In: Jeppe Sengupta Carstensen and Anna Aslaug Lund, ed. Critical Coast. Copenhagen: The Danish Architectural Pres, 2023, pp.486-489.
  • Bonnett A. The dilemmas of radical nostalgia: Acknowledging the power of the past in the politics of the Left. In: Jacobsen, M, ed. Nostalgia Now: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on the Past in the Present. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020, pp.116-128.
  • Bonnett A, Smith T. Landscapes of Loss: A Conversation with Alastair Bonnett. In: Robertson E; Smith T, ed. Dark Mountain 13. Dark Mountain Project, 2018, pp.126-133.
  • Bonnett A. 'Occidentalismo e modernita plurali'. In: Falcioni, D, ed. Genealogie dell'Occidente. Turin, Italy: Bollati Boringhieri, 2015, pp.111-146.
  • Bonnett A. ‘Walking through memory: critical nostalgia and the city’. In: Tina Richardson, ed. Walking Inside Out: British Psychogeography in the 21st Century. London, UK: Roman and Littlefield, 2015, pp.75-88.
  • Bonnett A. The transgressive geographies of daily life. In: Martínez,F;Slabina,K, ed. Playgrounds and Battlefields: Critical Perspectives of Social Engagement. Tallinn, Estonia: Tallinn University Press, 2014, pp.271-293.
  • Bonnett A. Spence and the Politics of Nostalgia. In: Bonnett, A; Armstrong, K, ed. Thomas Spence: The Poor Man's Revolutionary. London: Breviary Stuff Publications, 2014, pp.75-88.
  • Bonnett A. Introduction. In: Bonnett, A; Amstrong, K, ed. Thomas Spence: The Poor Man's Revolutionary. London: Breviary Stuff Publications, 2014, pp.1-6.
  • Bonnett A. Critique. In: Roger Lee, Noel Castree, Rob Kitchin, Victoria Lawson, Anssi Paasi, Chris Philo, Sarah Radcliffe, Susan M Roberts and Charles WJ Withers, ed. The SAGE Handbook of Human Geography. London, UK: Sage Publications Ltd, 2014, pp.185-205.
  • Bonnett A. Radicalism is nostalgia. In: Pugh, J, ed. What is Radical Politics Today?. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp.179-187.
  • Bonnett A. East/West. In: Kitchin R, Thrift N, ed. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Volume 3. Oxford: Elsevier, 2009, pp.280-284.
  • Bonnett A. Constructions of 'race', place and discipline: geographies of 'racial' identity and racism. In: M. Bulmer and J. Solomos, ed. Ethnic and Racial Studies Today. London: Routledge, 2009.
  • Bonnett A. Asian Occidentalism and Rediscovered Modenities. In: Browning C, Lehti M, ed. The Struggle for the West: A Divided and Contested Legacy. London: Routledge, 2009.
  • Bonnett A. Whiteness and the west. In: Dwyer C; Bressey C, ed. New Geographies of Race and Racism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, pp.17-28.
  • Bonnett A. 'Re-thinking Asia: Multiplying Modernity'. In: Delanty G, ed. Europe and Asia Beyond East and West: towards a new cosmopolitanism. London: Routledge, 2006, pp.269-283.
  • Bonnett A. Whiteness. In: Atkinson D; Jackson P; Sibley D; Washbourne N, ed. Cultural Geography: A Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts. London: I.B.Tauris, 2005, pp.109-114.
  • Bonnett A. 'Anti-racism' and 'Whiteness'. In: Cashmore, E, ed. Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. London: Routledge, 2004, pp.32-35 and 451-454.
  • Bonnett A, Nayak A. Geographies of race and racialization: The territory of race. In: Anderson K; Domosh M; Pile S; Thrift N, ed. The Handbook of Cultural Geography. London: Sage, 2003, pp.300-312.
  • Carrington B, Bonnett A, Nayak A, Short G, Skelton CS, Smith F, Tomlin RI, Demaine J. Teacher education and the question of ethnicity. In: Demaine J, ed. Sociology of Education Today. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, pp.100-118.
  • Bonnett A. A white world? White identities in Latin America and Japan. In: Levine-Rasky C, ed. Working Through Whiteness: International Perspectives. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001, pp.69-106.
  • Bonnett A. Definitions of: 'Dust', 'Supermarkets', 'Graveyards', 'Buses'. In: Pile S; Thrift N, ed. City A/Z: Urban Fragments. London: Routledge, 2000.
  • Bonnett A. Alternative film or other film: in and against the West with Trin Minh-ha. In: Crang M; Thrift N, ed. Thinking Space. London: Routledge, 2000, pp.349-359.
  • Bonnett A. Definitions of: 'Male' 'masculinities' 'mythopetic men's movement', 'myth/mythology', 'laddism', 'new age'. In: Mc Dowell; Sharp J, ed. The Feminist Glossary of Human Geography. London: Arnold, 1999.
  • Bonnett A. Constructions of whiteness in anti-racism. In: Torres R; Miron L; Inda J, ed. Race, Identity and Citizenship: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, pp.200-218.
  • Bonnett A. Constructions of 'race', place and discipline: geographies of 'racial' identity and racism. In: in M. Bulmer and J. Solomos, ed. Ethnic and Racial Studies Today. London: Routledge, 1999.
  • Bonnett A. Constructions of whiteness in British and North American anti-racism. In: Werbner P; Modood T, ed. Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism. London: Zed Press, 1997, pp.178-189.
  • Bonnett A. The situationist legacy. In: S. Home, ed. What is Situationism? A Reader. Edinburgh: AK Press, 1996.
  • Bonnett A. Contours of crisis: antiracism and reflexivity. In: P. Jackson and J. Penrose, ed. Constructions of Race, Place and Nation. London: UCL Press, 1993.

• Edited Books

  • Hopkins P, Newcastle Social Geographies Collective, Pain R, Shaw R, Gao Q, Bonnett A, Jones C, Richardson M, Rzedzian S, Benwell MC, Lin W, McAreavey R, Stenning A, Blazek M, Pande R, Najib K, Finlay R, Nayak A, Ridley G, Mearns G, Bonner-Thompson C, McLaughlin J, Boussalem A, Iqbal N, Heslop J, Jarvis H, Burrows R, Bambra C, Copeland A, Tate S, Campbell E, Thompson M, James A, Raynor R, Cunningham N, Powells G, Herbert J, Hocknell S, ed. Social Geographies: An Introduction. London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.
  • Bonnett A, Armstrong K, ed. Thomas Spence: The Poor Man's Revolutionary. London: Breviary Stuff Publications, 2014.

• Editorial

  • Bonnett A. Earth to academia: on the need to reconnect university and school geography - Response to Stannard. Area 2003, 35(3), 323-324.

• Online Publication

  • Bonnett A. Psychogeography. Oxford University Press, 2014. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199874002-0020.

• Reports

  • Carrington B, Bonnett A, Demaine J, Hall IR, Nayak A, Short G, Skelton CS, Smith F, Tomlin RI. Ethnicity and the professional socialisation of teachers. Teacher Training Agency, 2001. 0701701145 (ISBN).
  • Scutt R, Bonnett A. In Search of England: Popular Representations of Englishness and the English Countryside. Newcastle: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1996. CRE Working Paper 22.

• Reviews

  • Bonnett A. White studies revisited. Ethnic and Racial Studies 2008, 31(1), 185-196.
  • Bonnett A. The international politics of race. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2005, 31(2), 417-418.