Dr Clifton Evers

Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies

  • Email: clifton.evers@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Media, Culture, Heritage
    Room 2.77
    2nd floor Armstrong Building,
    Newcastle University,
    Newcastle upon Tyne,
    Tyne and Wear, UK.
    NE1 7RU
Background

Research Interests and Practice

- masculinities

- ethnography

- pollution

- media

- sport and leisure

- creative and participatory research methods

Education

BA Sociology, Philosophy (1st class Honours) Griffith University, Australia.

PhD Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, Australia

Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Biography

I joined the Media, Culture, Heritage unit at Newcastle University in September of 2015.  My PhD was completed in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Continuing research interests include gender (particularly masculinities), leisure, media, pollution, and blue spaces e.g. sea/ocean. I primarily employ ethnography to conduct research, and experiment with creative outputs and research methods e.g. ethnographic fiction, soundscapes, film, performance art. A recent film A Toxic Love Affair (2019) won best experimental film at the ReelHeART Film festival in Toronto, Canada.

Administratively, I am co-chair of the School of Arts and Cultures Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion group and am part of the School Executive Board. I also co-ordinate the Media Culture Heritage unit PARTNERS program, a supported entry into university programme. My administrative experience also includes extensive work for Postgraduate Research students, as well as for Widening Participation.  

I have enjoyed collaborating with government departments, community organisations, elite sporting organisations, media outlets, and private industry. I am currently a member of the The Shadow Places Network: a collaboration to re-imagine and co-produce connections for justice in an era of climate change. I am also a team member of the Surf & Nature Alliance: An international and intercultural non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of the marine environment, with a special interest in surf areas and surf culture, and the development of ocean science and literacy. A key goal of mine is to make research accessible to, with, and useful for the wider public through civic engagement.

I am on the editorial boards for the Journal for Sport & Social Issues, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and the Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities

My research has been published in journals such as Environment and Planning E,  Leisure Sciences, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Sport in Society, Social & Cultural Geography, Cultural Studies Review, and The International Journal of Communication. I am on the editorial teams for International Journal of Cultural Studies, Men and Feminism, and the Journal of Sport & Social Issues. My experience includes reviewing for such journals as Sport in Society, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Gender Place and Culture, Men and Masculinities,  Human Relations, History of Sport, Communication and Sport, and more. From 2008 to 2011 I was editor of Kurungabaa: A journal of literature, history and ideas from the sea and from 2010 to 2015 editor of Altitude: An e-journal of emerging humanities work.  I have written for newspapers, magazines, websites, as well as appeared in and made documentaries. 

For five years (2010-2015) I was a lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, which included the role of Deputy Director of the Institute for Creative and Digital Cultures. I have also been a postdoctoral fellowship at the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Clifton also worked as a market research strategy consultant in Shanghai, China. 

Recent selected recent talks/performances

Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics, Cappadocia University, Turkey. 2021. 

Communicate, Bristol Natural History Consortium (2020)

Experience as Placed, Durham University, Medical Humanities Institute (2019)

 

Creative Research in Blue Spaces, Oviedo University (2019)

 

Leisure Studies Association conference, Dundee. Scotland (2019)

 

The First Fossil free Welfare State? Swedish Petro-Dreams, Resistances, and Coastal Transformations. Fiskebackskil and Lysekil, Sweden (2019) 

 

AnthropOcean, Imaginaires, Oceaniques, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (2018)

 

ASA18 Sociality, matter, and the imagination, Association of Social Anthropologists, Oxford University (2018)

 

Leisure Studies Association annual conference, Bath University (2018)

 

International Communications Association conference, Prague (2018)

 

Sydney Ideas Festival, University of Sydney, Australia (2017)

 

Sustaining the Sea conference, University of Sydney, Australia (2017)

 

Leisure Studies Association annual conference, Leeds University, UK (2017)

 

Oceanic Places, Newcastle University, UK (2017)

 

New Approaches to Masculinities symposium, Newcastle University, UK (2017)


Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

MCH1026 Introduction to Social & Cultural Studies

MCH2075 Representations: Identity, Culture & Society

MCH2067 Masculinities

MCH3074 Themes and Issues in Media, Communication & Cultural Studies

MCH3073 Research Dissertation

MCH3072 Research Dissertation

Postgraduate Taught

MCH8199 Research Dissertation

Postgraduate Research Supervision

I welcome postgraduate researchers who want to work in any of the areas relating to my research:

  • Gender, particularly men and masculinities

  • Sport and media

  • Sport, particularly action / lifestyle / extreme sports

  • Culture and pollution 

  • Leisure

  • Cultural studies

  • Mobile media

Research

Research Interests

Men and masculinities, ethnography, blue spaces, pollution, sport and leisure, media, creative and participatory research methods

 primarily employ ethnography to conduct research, and experiment with creative outputs and research methods e.g. ethnographic fiction, soundscapes, film, performance art.

I am part of a research team on the grant The First Fossil free Welfare State? Swedish Petro-Dreams, Resistances, and Coastal Transformations. The project asks:

⦁ How is the fossil free transformation imagined and narrated by people who live outside Sweden’s urban centers and in close proximity to fossil-intensive industries? What barriers, risks and dislocations are brought to the fore in the stories told about the fossil free society? 
⦁ How do fossilized systems of production and consumption shape everyday life in these places? What emplaced sense of identity and self are instituted, practiced and challenged by the fossil free transformation? 
⦁ What politics of possibility emerge from local transformative struggles? How are alternative futures cultivated and practiced?

I am also on the team for the project Illness in the Age of Extinction: Anglophone narratives of personal and planetary degradation (2000-2020) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. This research project analyses the experience of being ill in the first two decades of the 21st century, specifically focusing on the relationship between human and environmental diseases. We focus on anglophone narratives published in the UK, Ireland, and the USA between 2000 and 2020, a period usually referred to as "the age of extinction", as the basis for future research projects on wider geographical, linguistic, and cultural areas. Ours is a collaborative project of an interdisciplinary research team (with specialists in the areas of Literature, History, Fine Arts, Translation and Interpretation Studies, Medicine, and Medical and Environmental Humanities). The project involves scholars from Oviedo University (ESP), Newcastle University (UK), and Harvard University (USA).

I am a co-investigator on a grant entitled: The pilot project is a collaboration between University of Bristol, Newcastle University, Bristol Museums, and Windmill Hill City Farms. By adopting a ‘practice-as-research’ model of arts-related research, Temperature life histories has two underlying aims:
1. To facilitate personal exploration of human experiences of climate change with the non-human (weather, climate and heatwaves) and in so doing build connection and understanding of each other’s environmental lives.
2. To inform climate impacts science of the breadth, movement, and idiosyncrasies of human experience of temperature.

I am currently a member of the The Shadow Places Network: a collaboration to re-imagine and co-produce connections for justice in an era of climate change. I am also a team member of the Surf & Nature Alliance: An international and intercultural non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of the marine environment, with a special interest in surf areas and surf culture, and the development of ocean science and literacy. A key goal of mine is to make research accessible to, with, and useful for the wider public through civic engagement.

I am co-investigator on the project: Northeast coastal community resilience: a just transition from industrial heritage to a low carbon future. Funded by OnePlanet. The context is how coastal communities with an industrial heritage experience resilience and transformation as they face ongoing climate crisis challenges.  These challenges include their future socio-economic well-being and evolving identity given the arrival of new low carbon technologies . 

I am also on the team for a project entitled Improve Your Play (IYP) project aims to reduce technology-facilitated harm of a sexualized nature experienced by young women. To achieve this, the will conduct research, consult with young people, and ultimately develop resources and a social media campaign designed to encourage and empower young men (15-17 years) to make ethical decisions when engaging in online conversations of a sexual nature with young women. The project is funded by The Alannah & Madeline Foundation, Australia. 

Research Projects

Northeast coastal community resilience: a just transition from industrial heritage to a low carbon future. Funded by OnePlanet. 

Improve Your Play (IYP). The project aims to reduce technology-facilitated harm of a sexualized nature experienced by young women. To achieve this we are focused on improving the mindset and behaviour of young men. Funded by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation.

Temperature life histories: Experiencing a changing climate through stories, poetry and data. Funded by the Brigstow Institute. Collaborators from University of Bristol, Newcastle University, Bristol Museums, and Windmill Hill City Farms

Age of Extinction: Anglophone narratives of personal and planetary degradation. Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Oviedo University (ESP), Newcastle University (UK), and Harvard University (USA).

The First Fossil free Welfare State? Swedish Petro-Dreams, Resistances, and Coastal Transformations. FORMAS. 

Shadow Places Network (a collaboration between Deakin University, Linkoping University, Macquarie University)

Newcastle Institute of the Creative Arts Grant, Polluted Leisure

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Social Cohesion through Football. 

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Peer-Based Mentoring in Sport: Strategies for Best Practice. 

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. Safer Sex Beliefs and Practices in Multi-Partner Heterosexuals. 

Consultancy with New South Wales State Government Health, Australia. Using New Media Cultures to Provide Sexual Health Information for Young Australians.

Consultancy with National Rugby League and Australian Federal Government. Respectful Relationships. 

Consultancy with Australian Sports Commission. Towards a Level Playing Field: Research and Evaluation of the Portrayal of Female Athletes and Women in Sport by the Media. 

Consultancy with New South Wales State Government Department. Strategies for Building and Sustaining Respect in New South Wales Public High Schools. 

Consultancy with New South Wales State Government Institute of Sport, New South Wales Premiers Department for Women and University of Sydney Sport. Sportswomen: Get Out in Front.  


Publications