Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Professor Jen Bagelman

Professor in Human Geography, Deputy Director for the Institute for Social Science

Background

I was born on Dene Territories (Yellowknife, NWT) and grew up on Coast Salish territories (Vancouver Island, Canada) where I completed my BA and MA at the University of Victoria. After finishing my PhD at the Open University, I taught at both Durham University and Exeter University. I am now based at Newcastle, as Professor in Geography & Deputy Director for the Institute of Social Science.

Broad research specialisms:

  • Migration & climate change
  • Reproductive geographies
  • Anticolonial environmental justice 
  • Creative & community-engaged methods (ie: cookbooks, comics, zines, body-mapping)
Research

My work explores the conditions and intimacies of displacement as encountered by diverse migrant and Indigenous communities. I am also interesting in the ways in which communities enact solidarities and respond to the challenges of displacement. I aim to co-design creative and participatory methods to document these accounts and pursue this work through two main streams of research.

The first stream of my work examines how Inuit communities are impacted by persistent settler colonial politics and climate-induced change. I am the UK lead on a 3-year POLAR Knowledge Canada/UKRI NERC grant entitled ‘Carving out Climate Testimony' which brings together a team of Inuit youth with UK and Canadian collaborators to trace how unikkausivut (Inuit forms of storytelling) might articulate the links between climate change, displacement and mental health. This project is inspired by and seeks to support Inuit youth who are leading in this work within their communities. I am also continuing this work as Co-PI on a 3-year New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) project called 'ArcticRoutes' which further explores these intersections across Inuit Nunangat.

My current work builds on decades of collaborative research including involvement in a 5-year Social Science and Humanities Research Canada (SSHRC) grant 'Seascape Stories'  which examined how energy development projects displace Indigenous relations to and sovereignty over land and water. This project also highlights how Indigenous marine epistemologies provide robust critique of and alternatives to destructive energy futures.  

The second stream of my research explores how the practice of 'sanctuary' can challenge (and sometimes inadvertently reproduce) the hostile treatment of refugees and other displaced peoples. My manuscript, Sanctuary City: A Suspended State, explores this topic. Beyond global-north sanctuary movements I examine how women with precarious status living in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camps mobilise sanctuary to establish alternative networks of maternal care. To do this work I lead a GCRF-UKRI Network Grant entitled 'Migrant Mothers: Digital Health Network' which brings together scholars from Kenyatta and Newcastle University with UNHCR practitioners and refugee midwives to consider diverse experiences of birthing across borders. 

Within the university, I am a member both 'Power, Space, Politics' and 'Geographies of Social Change' research groups. I am also the Deputy Director for the Institute for Social Science where I aim to elevate exciting Social Science research happening at Newcastle University. In this role I co-lead Migrations Collective, which connects academic and non-academic partners to think and work together towards migrant justice.

Beyond the university, I volunteer in my community to support various sanctuary initiatives. With my sister, Carly, I also run a non-profit organization called Glean, which seeks to nourish more equitable foodscapes. When not working I'm crafting, surfing, yoga-ing or being walked by my dog.



Teaching

I am passionate about working with students as I see education as a powerful catalyst for generative change. I have written on creative pedagogy and, in keeping with a ‘service-led’ teaching model I aim to make coursework relevant to and useful for communities that extend beyond the classroom. In the past my students have created beautiful community maps that have been used by NGOS and urban designers and zines that have informed campus policies to embed diversity and ensure more sustainable food practices.

I warmly welcome the opportunity to work with students interested in the themes outlined on my research page.

Publications