Research group: Spatialities
Developing a critical understanding of spaces and places by examining their cultures, politics, histories and responses to climate change.
Summary
About our research
The Spatialities Group has a long-standing reputation for boundary-crossing research.
Our research is focused around shared interests in the cultures and politics of spaces and places in the past and present.
We examine the socio-cultural, political, economic and environmental geographies of spaces and places around these themes:
- climate, resilience and adaptation
- public participation in governance
- post-crisis cities and the right to housing
- sexual citizenship and geographies of sexualities
- sonic and music geographies
- critical historical geographies
- geo-health
- geographies of platform urbanism
Our researchers are renowned for their influential work. Cosmopolitan Urbanism – how cities are re-branding themselves to attract investment and tourism – is still a landmark text 15 years on from publication. It’s used extensively across human geography, urban studies and sociology.
We draw on a range of theories, including postcolonialism/decolonialism, non-representational theories, post-workerism and intersectionality. And we use a variety of methodologies such as discourse analysis, archival research, ethnography and big data.
Postgraduate students interested in exploring our key themes are welcome to discuss research study opportunities.
We are committed to international scholarship with projects in China, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Community and Eastern and Southern Europe.
Our work is supported by regional, national and international funders, including:
- Research Councils UK
- The British Academy
- The European Commission
- Defra
- The British Standards Institute
- British Council
- Manchester Geographical Society
- The Wellcome Trust
- the National Natural Science Foundation of China
Research themes
Climate, resilience and adaptation
We investigate societal responses to climate change. Recent work has included:
- a vision for progressive climate resilience with Manchester Climate Change Agency
- identifying and sharing good practice in climate adaptation
- examining interpretations of resilience and climate adaptation
- critical interpretations of insurance for climate resilience
- exploring the use of small-scale adaptive technologies for smarter flood governance
- examining community engagement in resilience agendas
Public participation in governance
We consider how the public and interest groups can engage with governance agendas and practices. Studies include:
- re-evaluating the concept of NIMBYism in spatial planning governance
- exploring notions of capture and autonomy for people and interest groups involved in urban governance
- participatory practice in climate policy and practice
Post-crisis cities and the right to housing
Based on research in Ireland, Italy and Spain, we have investigated topics including:
- social movement responses to the housing crisis
- urban vacant spaces
- the financialization of housing and daily life
- precarity, welfare regimes and political subjectification
- feminist and queer geographies of home
Sexual citizenship/Geographies of sexualities
Our research has covered:
- LGBTQI activism in a transnational perspective
- sexualities, class and consumption
- queer mobilities, transport and migration
- queer film festivals
- queer placemaking practices and comparative urbanism
- HIV, biomedical technologies and their impact on gay communities
- sex and drugs
Sonic geographies/Geographies of music
Our research explores how music and sound shape our understanding of the world, including:
- sonic production and apprehension of space and place
- sonic heritage
- sonic methods and methodological experimentation
- musical spatialities and imaginative geographies
Critical historical geographies
Examining legacies of past geographical practices from the 18th to the 20th centuries, including:
- histories of geography and decolonisation
- utopian urbanism and modernist architecture
- geographies of religion, spirituality, and the occult
- geographies of peace and conflict
- contested heritages
- archival encounters and methodological experimentation
Geo-health
We look into the links between where people live and their health, including:
- computational healthy city and street
- geo-physical activity
- health inequalities
- how our COVID-19 pandemic experiences have been influenced by where we live
Geographies of platform urbanism
We draw on research undertaken in the UK, Romania and France to investigate how digital technologies reconfigure work and the urban. Studies include:
- the gig economy and the reconfiguration of time and space
- work mobilities in the digital age
- the future of work
- creative and art-based methodologies
Selected projects
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Selected publications
- Alexis-Martin, B (2019) Disarming Doomsday: The Human Impact of Nuclear Weapons Since Hiroshima London: Pluto Press
- Binnie, J and Klesse, C (2018) The politics of age and generation at the GAZE International LGBT Film Festival in Dublin Sociological Review, 66(1) pp 191-206
- Binnie, J and Klesse, C (2018) Comparative queer methodologies and queer film festival research Studies in European Cinema, 15(1) pp 55-71
- Brown, G, and Di Feliciantonio, C (2021) Geographies of PrEP, TasP and undetectability: Reconceptualising HIV assemblages to explore what else matters in the lives of gay and bisexual men Dialogues in Human Geography
- Di Feliciantonio, C (2016) Subjectification in times of indebtedness and neoliberal/austerity urbanism Antipode 48(5), pp 1206-1227
- Holloway, J (2017) Resounding the landscape: the sonic impress of and the story of Eyam, plague village Landscape Research. 42(6), pp 601-615
- Stevenson, A and Holloway, J (2017) Getting participants’ voices heard: using mobile, participant led, sound‐based methods to explore place‐making Area, 49(1), pp 85-93
- Craggs, R and Neate, H (2020) What Happens If We Start from Nigeria? Diversifying Histories of Geography Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110(3), pp 899-916
- Craggs, R and Neate, H (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
- Jones, RD, Robinson, J and Turner, J (2016) The Politics of Hiding, Invisibility, and Silence Between Absence and Presence Routledge
- O’Hare, P (2018) Resisting the ‘Long‐Arm’ of the State? Spheres of Capture and Opportunities for Autonomy in Community Governance International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(2), pp 210-225
- Popan, C (2021) Embodied Precariat and Digital Control in the “Gig Economy”: The Mobile Labor of Food Delivery Workers, Journal of Urban Technology
- White, I and O’Hare, P (2014) From Rhetoric to Reality: Which Resilience, Why Resilience, and Whose Resilience in Spatial Planning? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 32(5), pp 934-950
- Jefferies, T, Cheng, J and Coucill, L (2020) Lockdown urbanism: COVID-19 lifestyles and liveable futures opportunities in Wuhan and Manchester Cities and Health
- Wu, C, Cheng, J, Zou, J, Duan, L and Campbell, JE (2021) Health-related quality of life of COVID19 survivors: an initial exploration in Nanning City, China Social Science and Medicine
Organisations we work with
Defra
Institute of Place Management
Building Standards Institute
Manchester School of Architecture
Contact
Contact us
You can contact individual members of the team through their staff profiles.
For general enquiries, please contact our research group leads Dr Hannah Neate or Dr Cosmin Popan.