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I am a cultural and historical geographer with particular interests in geographies of art and architecture.
My PhD was AHRC funded and examined questions of cultural identity and provincialism in 1960s Nottingham. I have since researched and published on issues relating to urban cultures and geographies of post-war Britain, including provincial art centres (Neate, 2011; 2012); archival method (Ashmore, Craggs and Neate, 2012); modernist architecture (Toogood and Neate, 2013; Craggs, Geoghegan and Neate 2013, 2015, 2016).
I was PI on the British Academy funded 'Cultures of Architectural Enthusiasm' project (2011-2-13) and currently lead the AHRC 'Modern Futures' Research Network (2014-2016) which examines the history and heritage of modernist architecture in Britain.
2011-2015 Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Central Lancashire
2009-2011 Teaching Fellow in Human Geography, University of Edinburgh
International Exchange Co-ordinator, School of Science and Environment
My research works at the intersections of contemporary urban studies and explorations of the histories and heritage of built and cultural landscapes. With an emphasis on the mobility of expertise and the influence of artists, architects and planners on urban spaces my scholarship contributes to three key areas:
1. Histories and Heritage of Modernist Architecture: (funded by the British Academy; Manchester Geographical Society; Arts and Humanities Research Council)
This research examines how special interest groups and broad publics experience, value, and campaign for post-war modernist architecture. Working with the Twentieth Century Society and volunteers behind the ‘Save Preston Bus Station’ campaign this research has focused on activism, enthusiasms, emotions and attachments to built heritage and how these crosscut the legislative and procedural underpinnings of the conservation-planning system, and logics of economic regeneration. I am currently Principle Investigator on an AHRC Research Network Grant entitled ‘Modern Futures’. The network is organised as a series of cross-disciplinary workshops. These are bringing together academics, artists and heritage/conservation professionals to explore how modernist buildings are valued and understood. The aim is to ask what practitioners in conservation and heritage fields might learn from academics and other creative responses to modern landscapes, and how these might feed into statutory, legislative and policy frameworks; and to foster new collaborations for future research projects.
2. Global Geographies of British New Towns: This project, which is being carried out in collaboration with Dr Ruth Craggs (King’s College, London), is re-examining Britain’s post-war new towns in light of current postcolonial theory and critical cultural and historical geography. Exploring the substantial influence of ex-colonial administrators in the managing of these sites of urban experimentation, the project examines the mobility of notions and practices of expertise in urban administration, offering important new global histories to our conceptualisation of the UK’s post-war reconstruction.
3. Geographies of Art and Institutions: (funded by AHRC Doctoral Award, Getty Library Research Grant) Focusing on the cultural geographies of art spaces and institutions in provincial cities, this research explores the intersections between artists’ books, landscape and exhibition via the work of The Coracle Press (and associated wider circles of artists and writers). This research has been published in Social and Cultural Geography (2011) and as a chapter in an edited collection CUSP: Recollections of Poetry in Transition (2012).
H. Neate, R. Craggs (2020). What happens if we start from Nigeria? Diversifying histories of geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 110(3), pp.899-899.
R. Craggs, HL. Neate (2019). Post-colonial careering and the discipline of geography: British geographers in Nigeria and the UK, 1945-1990. Journal of Historical Geography. 66, pp.31-42.
H. Neate, R. Craggs (2020). What happens if we start from Nigeria? Diversifying histories of geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 110(3), pp.899-899.
R. Craggs, HL. Neate (2019). Post-colonial careering and the discipline of geography: British geographers in Nigeria and the UK, 1945-1990. Journal of Historical Geography. 66, pp.31-42.
P. Ashmore, R. Craggs, H. Neate (2012). Working-with: talking and sorting in personal archives. Journal of Historical Geography. 38(1), pp.81-89.
HL. Neate (2021). Architecture, Buildings, Stories. In: The SAGE Handbook of Historical Geography. SAGE,
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Treasurer of the Historical Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society