• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Meet us
    • Open days
    • Virtual tours
    • Upcoming events
    • Applicant days
    • Meet us in your country
    • Chat to our students
    • Ask us a question
    • Order a prospectus
    • Our campuses
    • Our four campuses
    • Accommodation options
    • Our halls
    • Helping you find a home
    • What you can study
    • Find a course
    • Full A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Our academic departments
    • How to study with us
    • Undergraduate application process
    • Postgraduate application process
    • International student application process
    • Apprenticeships
    • Applying through Clearing
    • Transfer from another university
    • Fees and financial support
    • Undergraduate finance
    • Postgraduate finance
    • Our funding and support options
    • Supporting you
    • Your wellbeing
    • Student support and guidance tutors
    • Study skills support
    • Careers and employability
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Baboshka-banner
Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics
  • What we do
  • Join us for study, work or visit
  • Who we are

Welcome to the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics

Unique in its approach, the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics undertakes interdisciplinary research to address global and planetary challenges such as climate change, human migration, social inequalities and resource access or depletion.

We explore the environmental, spatial and cultural dimensions of ecological and social challenges in specific places, to offer new knowledge and practice for the creation of more sustainable and socially just societies.

  • For latest activities, events and opportunities - visit our Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics research blog site.
  • We welcome new members and associates. Please visit our 'Join us for study, work or visit' pages 

 

PhD applicants - Find out more about studying within the centre

Contact the centre regarding membership enquiries, doctoral study, research collaboration or to receive regular updates on our news and events.

CentreSECP@brighton.ac.uk

SECP_Wind_turbine

What we do

Climates

Join us for study, work or visit

SECP_man_on_bike

Who we are

Discover our latest research activity
Visit our blog site for work-in-progress, events and opportunities.

Discover our research in detail 
Explore our centre on the university's database of research and knowledge exchange. 

Head and shoulders portrait of Professor Julie Doyle Co-Director and co-founder of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics

Professor Julie Doyle (above) and Dr Nichola Khan, Co-Directors of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics.

Head and shoulders portrait of Dr Nichola Khan

An introduction to the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics from the Co-Directors, Professor Julie Doyle and Dr Nichola Khan.

Global challenges – climate change, human migration, resource access or depletion, and the many social inequalities – require interdisciplinary research and productive, efficient knowledge exchange. In this way, we can work together to interrogate and address the complex interconnections between their spatial, environmental and cultural dimensions. The Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics (SECP) was created to give  researchers from across the disciplines opportunities to combine their expertise and to develop relationships with global partners in order to face these challenges. 

The research work we undertake addresses urgent ecological and social challenges through a unique focus upon their interconnected dimensions. Collaborative research combines theories and methods from geography, the social sciences, the physical sciences, the arts, media and communication studies, and humanities, to offer interdisciplinary perspectives on large and small-scale global challenges. With this commitment to collaborative research, we co-create research projects with a range of non-academic partners from policy, communities, arts, education, and the public and private sectors, seeking to transform people’s lives at the local, national and global level.

Our researchers at the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics (SECP) explore ways the spaces, environments and cultures are governed, represented and experienced within local, national, international and everyday contexts. We span the politics of environment, race, nationality, gender, culture, ethnicity, North-South and East-West divides – including how they are spatially shaped and imagined, ideologically inspired or limited, and diversely lived and experienced.

The research centre’s themes respond to the changing world around us and the best opportunities our research has for impact, making a difference and motivating real-world change. Details of these can be seen on our What we do pages. To give some examples here, we have long-standing depth across: research into Environmental politics and climate change including extractivism, climate justice, climate activism and engagement, minority land rights, conservation, feminist political ecology, histories and genealogies of conceptual debates and dominant framings; research into Migration and mobilities including undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and legal provision, borders and bordering, housing, diasporic identities and communities; and research into Decolonial practices and anti-racist politics including legacies of empire, neo-imperialisms and activisms, settler colonialisms, indigenous communities, colonial and intergenerational trauma, post-Brexit literature, race in sport and popular culture.

With the goal of contributing to the creation of more sustainable, inclusive and socially just societies, the centre places collaborative and participatory research as central to the production of transformative knowledge and practice in achieving more ethical and sustainable communities. We seek to challenge and subvert power relations through insights into their spatial, cultural and political dynamics, and provide alternative modes of living and being. As such, we take an ethical commitment to tackling issues of governance, science and technology, and politics. Through innovative outputs like podcasts, ‘zines and multi-modal research articles, many of our members have worked collaboratively with each other for the first time as a direct result of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics. These include funded doctoral studentships, research outputs, funding applications and external events.

We look forward to meeting partners, associates, collaborators and students who can join with or benefit from our research work.

Professor Julie Doyle and Dr Nichola Khan

 

News from the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics

SECP on the University of Brighton news pages

Is open water swimming good for you?

Is open water swimming good for you?

Following her recent report to the All Party Parliamentary Group on outdoor swimming, 'Blue Spaces' author Catherine Kelly is set to assure everyone it is.

Funded PhD opportunities in the UK 2023 at the University of Brighton

Funded PhD opportunities in the UK 2023 at the University of Brighton

Funded PhDs across sciences, arts, humanities and social sciences. Study for your postgraduate research degree.

Brighton to host public talk over contested historical statue of Cecil Rhodes

Brighton to host public talk over contested historical statue of Cecil Rhodes

The University of Brighton will host an online public talk on 12 November exploring turbulent debates over the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University.

Brighton academic in BBC discussion of Afghan migrant experience

Brighton academic in BBC discussion of Afghan migrant experience

University of Brighton's Dr Nichola Khan will feature on Radio 4's Thinking Allowed on 6 October, discussing the experience of Afghan migrants in England.

Displaying 1 to 4 of 7 Next Previous |

Our researchers write for

Logo for news service The Conversation

  • Individual action won’t achieve 1.5℃ warming – social change is needed, as history shows: Matthew Adams
  • Football must stop blaming British South Asian communities for under-representation: Dan Burdsey
  • Now’s the time to rethink your relationship with nature: Matthew Adams
  • How the media can help young people create zero carbon societies
  • From billboards to Twitter, why the aesthetics of protest matters more today: Olu Jenzen 

News and events from our blog site

Book Publication | ‘Contours of Feminist Political Ecology’ co-authored by Centre members

Book Publication | ‘Contours of Feminist Political Ecology’ co-authored by Centre members

Centre members Rebecca Elmhirst, Dian Ekowati, Alice Owen and Elona M.

Event Recording | J.T. Roane – ‘Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place’

Event Recording | J.T. Roane – ‘Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place’

The Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics was delighted to co-host J.

Research projects| ‘From drawing matter to touching matter. A reflexion about soil. Part 2’ by Arabel Lebrusan

Research projects| ‘From drawing matter to touching matter. A reflexion about soil. Part 2’ by Arabel Lebrusan

By Arabel Lebrusan Extractivist Soil   For the second part of my Visiting Fellowship research — (see the first part here)—  my intention was to explore if handling soil/toxic soil would activate individuals.

Workshop | Co-constructing Memory in our Landscapes: TECHNOLOGIES 8th December 2.00-5.00 pm

Workshop | Co-constructing Memory in our Landscapes: TECHNOLOGIES 8th December 2.00-5.00 pm

This in-person workshop is part of the ‘Co-constructing Memory in our Landscapes’ project.

 

Visit our news and events posts on our SECP blog site.

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19
  • The Student Contract

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents