Who we are

My early research career was focused on conceptual work relating to the theoreisation of identity, at the boundaries of social psychology and sociology. My book Self & Social Change (2007) reflects these interests. My interests then shifted towards a more explicit emphasis on social issues, including class, consumption mental health and more lately, ecological crisis and climate change, especially the social and psychological dimensions. My book Ecological crisis, sustainability & the psychocial subject (2016) is a good example of my approach to these topics. I also work collaboratively with community groups and academic colleagues exploring these and related issues.

I am a critical social and community psychologist using discourse analysis, participatory and creative methods to look at how people are making sense of themselves and their lives in the context of neoliberalism. My PhD research involves using a critical discursive approach to explore constructions of happiness and wellbeing, both in ‘expert’ texts (popular psychology books) and in everyday talk. Before moving into academia, I worked in arts fundraising and health journalism in the UK and Australia.

Phil Ashworth is a Professor of Physical Geography specialising in river morphodynamics and sedimentology. His research interests span a range of scales including the largest rivers and estuaries in the world. He focusses on the field quantification of alluvial morphodynamics, the diversity of large river pattern and the application of fluvial sedimentology in characterising reservoir heterogeneity. This work has been supported by 14 NERC grants and several contracts from the petroleum industry.

Recent projects include quantifying the relationship between fluvial processes and preserved sedimentology in the world’s largest rivers, and quantifying the morphodynamics and sedimentology of large estuaries.

Ongoing projects are quantifying bedform dynamics in unsteady flows, modelling how sediment suspension controls the morphology and evolution of sand-bed rivers, and the impacts of drought in South Africa.

Phil's research projects have been based in Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and USA, and earlier work focussed on experimental modelling of braided rivers in a tilting, aggrading stream table.

Dr Harriet Atkinson is a historian of design and culture with particular interest in the uses of design for propaganda, nation-building, diplomacy or resistance, from the 1930s to the present day. From February 2019 to January 2023 Harriet is AHRC Leadership Fellow and Principal Investigator on the project '"The Materialisation of Persuasion": Modernist Exhibitions in Britain for Propaganda and Resistance, 1933 to 1953'. This builds on her recent University of Brighton Rising Stars Award (2017-18), for a project entitled 'Information, Persuasion, Citizenship: Public Exhibitions 1914 to now'. 

Duncan has practised, researched, and taught around issues of sustainable design, the Circular Economy and closed-loop systems for over 25 years. He has worked on projects as diverse as 'The Greenwich Millennium Village' in London with Ralph Erskine, the RIBA’s ‘House of the Future’, and more recently the multi-award-winning New Country House & Estate Master Plan in Hadlow Down East Sussex. Author of ‘The Re-Use Atlas: a designer’s guide towards a circular economy’ published by RIBA, he is perhaps best known for a series of thought-provoking ‘house’ projects testing issues of sustainable design and resource management including 'The House that Kevin Built’ in 2008 and ‘The Brighton Waste House’ in 2014.

Duncan is currently the Principal Investigator for two separate Interreg research programmes. One considers the viability of local waste flows to be processed into insulation for the social housing sector. The other, in partnership with Rotor DC of Brussels tests ideas associated with deconstructing late 20^th Century/ early 21^st Century buildings and re-constructing them. He lectures widely on issues relating to sustainable development and the circular economy in the design and construction industries. In December 2018 Duncan delivered a keynote address ‘Designers can save Planet Earth’ at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College. He is the curator of the annual ‘Waste Zone’ at FutureBuild; a three-day symposium and exhibition focusing on discussing many of the most pressing issues presenting the emerging concept of Circular Cities, involving over 50 invited speakers including Prof. Walter Stahel, Prof. Michael Braungart, Clare Ollerenshaw (LWARB), Gillie Hobbs (BRE), Dr. Zoe Laughlin (Inst.of Making) and David Benjamin of New York’s ‘The Living’.

Duncan’s research tests the viability of a number of practices and materials, recognising the potential of discarded “waste” as a valuable resource in the future of construction, as well as live projects as valuable teaching aides. Through his projects he fosters community development and regeneration, working with apprentice builders and students, informing young people of all ages as to their role in sustainable living. Duncan creates examples of community practice that, through the use of innovative techniques such as ‘resource mapping’ can redefine what local materials are and match them with local skills and trades.

Duncan has taught at both undergraduate and post-graduate level since 1994, recently running an undergraduate design studio at the School of Architecture & Design, as well as coordinating undergraduate Technology & Professional Practices modules. His research practice informs his teaching, and vice versa. Duncan recently coordinated the design and construction of the multi-award-winning Brighton Waste House with over 360 undergraduate students, volunteers, and apprentices. As well as being a successful ‘live project’ and pedagogic tool, it is also Europe’s first permanent building made of waste material and the host of a number of funded on-going research projects.

Dr Frauke Behrendt's research contributes to the understanding of both the design process and the user experience of emerging/innovative mobile and digital technologies.

Her findings have impact in the areas of media, mobility, sustainability, interaction design, sound studies, intelligent transport and smart cities. Behrendt's results and insights translate into policy, design and teaching.

I trained as an architect and practice as an artist, whose practice often engages with the public realm.

My recent practice and research has explored material poetics, memory, heritage and regeneration. In my PhD, 'Détour and Retour: Practices and poetics of salt as narratives of relation and re-generation in Brixton', I proposed that a 'poetics of re-generation' could allow a renegotiation of the instrumentalised term regeneration, expanding the language of regeneration and spatialising relational practice to emphasise an ethics of regeneration practices.

Therefore from a practice perspective, I'm interested in how artistic interventions and critical spatial practices that highlight and reveal poetics of place could contribute to more ethical and effective models of regeneration (including a more ethical engagement with pasts of a place, spectral traces and relation to the new).

I'm currently developing a new practice-based research project, in collaboration with Dr Lizzie Lloyd (University of Bristol/UWE), into the spaces and subjectivities of socially engaged practice and critical writing about the practice.

Through my PhD I became involved with the work of the poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant and his poetics of Relation. I'm currently working on research that seeks to understand how we can take Glissants ideas into spatial and social practice in art and architecture.

I'm interested in the material cultures of migration and trade - which connect the historical and present - for example salt, which formed the basis of my PhD work. I'm interested in the relevance and significance of everyday practices, rituals and engagement with material culture to how places are made and continue to be remade and maintained.

Some of my recent artistic projects have explored textiles as a medium, and as part of collaborative research project Making Suburban Faith I worked with Professor Claire Dwyer and researcher Nazneen Ahmed at UCL to produce a collaborative textile art project, which has been written up in a number of papers and chapters, as well as an artists book (see outputs).

Katrin Bohn teaches and researches sustainable architecture and urban design with a focus on urban food production. Much of her design research deals with the relationships between urban space and food-productive urban landscape and bridges the gaps between environmental design thinking, urban space production and sustainable lifestyles.

Since the UK's first urban agriculture conference Urban Nature (2001), co-curated by Bohn, she has contributed widely to conferences, publications, exhibitions and design and policy debates, both nationally and abroad. As an internationally recognised urban agriculture expert, she has also been advising on national and international research, policy documents and pioneer projects. Her work has been quoted by the UN and UNESCO and has influenced urban planning in the UK, as well as worldwide.

My research involves sociological, cultural and geographical analyses of race, ethnicity and popular culture. It is linked fundamentally by its central theme of qualitative observational research on ethnicities as lived in public cultures/spaces, and comprises explorations and critiques of the spatial dimensions of racialised inequality and resistance. My work emphasises notions of theoretical innovation, empirical originality and sociological intervention.

My substantive research interests can be divided into three main areas:

 - The experiences of British Asians in sport and leisure (combining both in-depth qualitative fieldwork and critical discourse analysis)

 - Social and cultural aspects of the contemporary English seaside and coast, especially the connections between race, whiteness, migration and ‘new’ spaces of multiculture (utilising ethnographic methods)

  - Theorising race and racism in football, with particular focus in connecting ideas (conceptually) around Empire, de/coloniality, racialised identities and anti-racist resistance.

Emerging research projects include work on the relationship between football and fashion, and on the dis/connections between football and black sound cultures. I am currently writing my third monograph, Racism and English Football: For Club and Country (Routledge, forthcoming).

My research is in the areas of criminology, violence, policing and insecurity. My previous work has focused on the politics of crime control, justice and human rights, critical theory, theorising social inequalities relating to class, gender and ethnicity in the context of Brazil. My research has been published in academic journals such as Contemporary Social Science, the Bulletin for Latin American Research and the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy.

Professor Andrew Church's research interests cover tourism and leisure geographies, human-nature relations and cultural ecosystem services. Recent funded research projects have included studies of tourism and ecosystem services, the meanings and values of wetlands, water-based sport and recreation, domestic food growing, gardens and gardening.

He has extensive experience of linking his research to policy and impact. In the last 8 years he has been extensively involved in major national and international assessments of the statues of biodiversity and ecosystem services focussing on the cultural and leisure dimensions of human-nature interactions.

In 2011he was appointed as a coordinating lead author on the Defra expert panel for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) with responsibility for the chapter on ‘Cultural Ecosystem Services’. He was also a Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter ‘Shared Values for the Contributions Ecosystem Services make to Human WellBeing‘.

In 2013 Andrew was principal investigator for the research on cultural ecosystem services as part of the UK NEA follow-on research. Most recently from 2014 Andrew  has been a Coordinating Lead Author leading an international team for the chapter on trends and status in ecosystem services for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Regional Assessment for Europe and Central Asia. IPBES is designed to play a role for biodiversity and ecosystem similar to that undertaken for the climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Andrew provides advice and guidance for policy organisations and works with a wide range of stakeholders in all sectors through the innovative use of mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods in ecosystem assessment. He have undertaken research and provided advice for a range of government organisations with environmental policy responsibilities including Defra, Countryside Agency, Countryside Council for Wales, British Waterways, Forestry Commission, Ordnance Survey and local councils.

Donna Close is a senior research fellow in the school of Media specialising in projects, partnerships and research that investigates the role that creativity and cultural production processes have in cultural, social and economic impact and in amplifying value.  Current UoB projects include: CLEVER, Arts DRIVA and XR Circus.  

In practice, Donna is a creative producer and cultural strategist with 25 years’ experience as an arts and culture leader working across the private and public, commercial and cultural sectors. She has held senior roles in local government, higher education, large cultural organisations, creative SMEs and community and voluntary groups.  A festivals specialist working as an associate director at FEI (Festival Events International) Donna develops strategy, co-creation activity and public engagement programmes for cities, regions and countries working in the UK and Europe. Within a portfolio of more than 20 years working directly in festivals and public cultural programmes, she produced the award winning arts festival White Night that presented immersive and experimental new work and novel experiences for ‘one night only’ and which helped to secure ‘purple flag’ status for Brighton & Hove City Council.  One of the commissions she conceived and produced, ‘West Street Story’ working with artist Martyn Ware, body language expert Dr Harry Witchel and the Noise Abatement Society was designed specifically to tackle anti-social behaviour and was awarded a Sir John Connell award for Innovation. Through the curatorial and artist development of White Night, Donna developed an interest in the role that tech can play in creative content for public spaces and in live experience design. White Night also provided the support and context for first commissions for Circa 69, Driftwood, Shared Space & Light and Chroma-Space, who now all make work internationally. Donna continues to investigate the interface of live performance and collective experiences with tech as a creative producer (working with Driftwood 360) and curator (working with Cine City and Frequency Festival Lincoln) and consultant.

Research Income (UoB)

• CLEVER – PI, Manager and Research fellow. An international research project into Creative Leadership developing new understanding and pedagogy about how creative skills and practices can drive economic and social impact.  Led to Donna developing a new L5 module and LLL programme in Creative Leadership  (Erasmus+ funded €67,000)

• Arts DRIVA – PI, Producer  -A research project that forms part of DRIVA arts DRIVA, a £1.2million innovation project designed to provide Creative, Digital & I.T (CDIT) SMEs, creative practitioners and cultural organisations access the full Coast to Capital (C2C) region, unprecedented facilitated access to Gatwick Airport’s big data alongside a mix of creative innovation support including innovation development, R&D grants, expert advice and access to specialist facilities. This is to accelerate innovative Next Gen products, services and experiences for the open market that release value from data through creative tech collaboration or partnership. (Arts DRIVA only ACE funded £266,000)

• XR Circus – Producer, Co-designer. An AHRC funded ‘Next Generation of Immersive Experiences’ project that supported circus artists to develop their ideas working with immersive tech with facilitated access to equipment and expertise and co-curated with industry partners (Freedom Festival, SeaChange Arts, Without Walls).  This project also further developed the LIVE toolkit (developed for Root 1066) seeking to understand more about quality and impact through audience experience. (AHRC funded £73,000)

My research interests focus around understanding the fundamental question of what it means to be human. I am interested in knowing whether certain abilities that we all take for granted such as language, symbolism, and abstract thought are unique to our species (Homo sapiens) or were present in other ancient human species such as Homo heidelbergensis or the Neanderthals. In order to ascertain this I look at a range of evidence strands but I primarily focus on the stone tools left behind by our ancestors for clues to their mental capabilities. I am also interested in what cognitive, behavioural and social thresholds are needed by hominins in order to allow them to successfully disperse across the globe and overcome any environmental constraints. Finally, I am fascinated by how ancient hominins treated their dead, particularly how and why some of them seem to have practiced cannibalism. By understanding the treatment of the dead, we can gain greater insights to the lifeways and social structures of the living.

In order to try and understand our hominin ancestors I am involved with a number of archaeological projects here in the UK and in East Africa. My main research project is the Isimila Stone Age Project where I am the Director of a multi-institutional and international research collaboration between academic institutions in the UK and Tanzania.

Spatial planning

Climate change

Coastal change

Dr. Deanna Dadusc is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Applied Social Science. Her research focuses on the criminalisation of social movements in Europe, with a specific focus on the criminalisation of migrants' solidarity and of squatting.

She is co-editor of a special Issue for the journal Citizenship Studies, titled: 'Citizenship as inhabitance? Migrant housing squats versus institutional accommodation' (2019). She also authored multiple articles and chapters, including “Squatting and the undocumented migrants’ struggle in the Netherlands” (2017) and 'Enclosing Autonomy: The politics of Tolerance and Criminalisation of Squatting (2019). Together with Dr. Eleni Dimou and Prof. Pierpaolo Mudu, Deanna is currently co-authoring a book titled ‘’Borders, Repression and Resistance: the criminalisation of migrants’ solidarity’’ (Routledge, forthcoming).

At the University of Brighton she has developed a year-long module titled ‘The Criminology of Borders’ in collaboration with Raphael Schlembach. The module critically addresses issues of migrants’ social exclusion and criminalisation.

Dr. Dadusc coordinates the 'Social Movements and Radical Politics' strand of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE - University of Brighton). Moreover, she contributes to the organisation of the 'Radical Housing Forum' and related reading group.

Professor Julie Doyle researches in media and communication and is an authority on climate communication. Her research examines the ways in which media and culture shape our understandings of, and responses to, climate change. 

With a particular focus upon visual communication, Prof. Doyle has worked collaboratively with visual artists and cultural educators, and provided consultancy for environmental NGOs, government and the sustainability communications sector on best practice for climate and environmental communication.

Professor Doyle is committed to examining the role of media and communication in understanding and addressing climate change, and in working collaboratively to find ways to create more sustainable societies. She is Director of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics, Co-Chair of MeCCSA’s Climate Change Network and was a member of the founding Board of Directors of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA).

Watch Professor Doyle's inaugural lecture, 'Communicating Climate Change in an Age of (Un)Certainty' (May 2017)

Robin Dunford's interdisciplinary research addresses humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect, human rights, decolonial ethics and the politics of resistance.

 1.     ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ and the Responsibility to Protect

With Michael Neu (University of Brighton), Dunford is completing a monograph, forthcoming with Zed Books, entitled Just War and the Responsibility to Protect: A Critique. This book argues that debates on Just War and the Responsibility to Protect fail to consider already existing forms of intervention – including arms trading, attempts to stoke ethnic tension, and measures that destroy the environment – that contribute to the emergence of humanitarian crises including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.

2.     Human Rights and the Politics of Resistance

Dunford has written on social movement claims for human rights, focusing in particular on recent moves towards a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. Through a series of articles and a monograph entitled The Politics of Transnational Peasant Struggle, he has called for greater recognition within the Human Rights Council of the new collective rights demanded by activists. In collaboration with Dr Sumi Madhok (LSE) he has also reflected on how transnational rights claims disrupt West-centric analyses of how human rights travel.

 3.     Decolonial  Ethics

The third project shows how a Decolonial ethics centred on the idea of ‘pluriversality’ – a world in which many worlds fit – offers a persuasive alternative to the cosmopolitan perspective that sits at the centre of contemporary Global Ethics. Having outlined central features of a decolonial global ethics in an article in the Journal of Global Ethics, Dunford is now exploring how a decolonial perspective can reframe debates concerning environmental ethics, food justice, and development ethics.

 4. Law, Ethics and Democracy

With Dr Lara Montesinos Coleman, Dunford co-ordinates the Law, Ethics and Democracy Collective: an action-research initiative between scholars at the Universities of Brighton and Sussex. The Project, which was founded in 2016, aims to bring together work in applied philosophy and political theory with struggles against the increasingly fascistic, anti-democratic and dubiously-legal forms of economy and government we encounter today. 

Dunford is co-lead of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics’ ‘Social Movement and Radical Global Politics’ strand. Together with Professor Professor Bob Brecher and Dr Michael Neu, he also edits a book series with Rowman and Littlefield. Off the Fence: Morality, Politics, Society publishes short, sharply argued texts in applied moral and political philosophy, with an interdisciplinary focus. 

My research career to date has focused on the development of innovative low-cost tools that tackle pressing global disease problems. In Malawi, the re-design and improved management of rural wells have provided low-income communities with safer drinking water. In Europe, new methods have identified human faecal contamination of rivers and established viral removal rates in a wastewater reuse systems. This information is helping water companies and environmental agencies to meet international standards and more effectively protect public health, by detecting, or interrupting the transmission routes of human waterborne diseases.

I undertake research in the broad field of political ecology. My work is informed by intersectional feminist theory, critical development studies and environmental advocacy-activism around resource extraction, with an empirical focus on the gendered ecological politics of displacement, resettlement and dispossession in forest and flood contexts in Indonesia and Thailand. Current projects include work on the ways that gendered processes of mobility and migrant remittances unsettle linear analyses of dispossession associated with oil palm investment. I am also exploring ways to rethink feminist political ecology by linking theories associated with 'material feminisms' to empirical work on mobility, environmental change and gender in Southeast Asia and the practice of feminist political ecology pedagogy and research in diverse professional contexts.

The main focus of my research is science; as it is represented in culture, as it is practiced in formal settings, and as a system of knowledge that we deploy in society. My research has been characterised as Science and Technology Studies (STS), but I prefer to think of myself as a sociologist of science, even though I go beyond traditional sociological research methods in my work.

My research uses ethnographic and cultural studies research methods – I have carried out a number of long-term ethnographic studies of science laboratories. My interest in formal science emerged from my earlier work in sociology of work which culminated in a number of books written with my colleagues Professor Harriet Bradley and Dr Steve Williams. After carrying out a large study of shop floor production workers I thought that finding a contrasting group would be interesting. I chose to look at academic scientists as they are a) incredibly productive, producing vast quantities of knowledge in the form of scientific journal articles, b) very highly qualified and c) despite having very low levels of job security are poorly unionised. My initial studies with this group of workers took a labour process approach but I soon focused on attitudes and motivations towards work, revisiting the work of Max Weber from 1918.

My interest in scientists’ work and knowledge production took me into examining climate change as a sociocultural discourse that is related to formal science and discourse. This research is ongoing as part of the Centre for Research in Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics.

My research interests lie in seeking to bridge the disjuncture between climate change science, water resources management practice and local articulations and experiences of changing water environments. My work is critically engaged with understanding how developed economies organize and manage their freshwater resources with regards to transitioning towards sustainable futures in the context of climate change. At heart my research explores why climate change narratives are still failing to resonate with most citizens, and are still not embedded within organisational praxis, and seeks to determine what approaches may close these gaps in order to support transitions towards sustainable futures. Inherent to this line of questioning are explorations of emergent forms of citizenship, discourses of governance and the links between landscape, taskscape and community within the late capitalist era. I draw on the work of Karen Bakker, Noel Castree, Eric Swyngedouw, Neil Adger and Tim Ingold to undertake empirical qualitative fieldwork which interrogates the political, cultural and physical intersections which co-create our sense of place, and our intimate, immediate relationship with our water environments

My research interests cover the geographies of sport and leisure. My doctoral research explored British cultures of adventure and the heroic masculinities associated with mountaineering. My more recent work is interested in the use, governance and regulation of public space for leisure and recreation, addressing issues such as access, property rights, citizenship and self-governance. Theoretically, my work cuts across human geography, sociology, politics, cultural studies, social history, sport studies and leisure theory. I employ a variety of theoretical tools to understand the spatial aspects of sport and leisure cultures - the spatial theories of Mikhail Bakhtin; Victor Turner's writings on liminality; gift theory; theories of affect; and, post-subcultural theories - and have contributed to the application of these approaches to empirical research in sport and leisure studies.

My current research interests include the social regulation of leisure in public space; countercultural sport; connecting people and communities through food and farming; and, the cultural heritage of waterscapes.

Methodologically, I specialise in qualitative and collaborative empirical methods and with Professor Neil Ravenscroft (University of Brighton) and Dr Niamh Moore (Edinburgh University) have developed the concept of ‘collaborative story spirals’ to describe a method of contextualised and situated biographical and narrative research; an approach that has been utilised in European heritage projects.

My research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, British Academy, European Union (Interreg Programme), and Political Studies Association.

My research interests focus on all things “energy” and particularly, on the social justice issues created by its production and use. In the context of the energy transitions, I am interested in knowing how we can make ethically sound energy decisions that: (1) locate energy infrastructure equitably, where possible, (2) recognise the correct people and their needs, and (3) uses appropriate decision-making techniques. I believe that we should ask these questions across the energy system to ensure that no social groups are disadvantaged by our energy choices. To illustrate what I mean, do we acknowledge the rights of uranium mining and the impacts of it on foreign landscapes when we make the decision to proceed with nuclear energy in the UK? And given the comparatively high price for nuclear energy gained from the new Hinkley Point C reactor and others that will follow, have we considered how this will affect consumer affordability?

In order to ascertain the potential answers to these questions, I undertake both empirical and conceptual work looking at a range of case studies, including nuclear energy in the UK, Scottish wind energy and going forward, the implementation of smart technologies.

Olu Jenzen is Principal Lecturer in Media Studies and the Director of the Research Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender. Her research ranges over different themes in Media Studies and Critical Theory with a particular interest in the aesthetics of protest, social media and LGBTQ activism and popular culture. She has published in journals such as Gender, Place and Culture and Social Movement Studies and is the co-editor of The Aesthetics of Protest: Global Visual Culture and Communication, Amsterdam UP, 2019. 

Adam is a Principal Lecturer of Strategy and Marketing within the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton.  Adam has a wealth of commercial knowledge gained from working at a senior strategic level in a FTSE 250 company. He started his career in the travel industry working as a tour guide rising to the position as Head of Marketing. It was during his time as Head of Marketing, Research and Product Development that he developed an expert understanding of the issues around strategic direction and the challenges applying the principles of strategic marketing to an extremely competitive and challenging commercial environment. Adam's work included developing the company's strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and setting industry wide reporting standards on CSR issues with the United Nations Environmental Program's.

Since joining the University Adam has led the validation of the two new Sport Business Management courses, has taken a lead role as the academic responsible for graduate employability, enterprise and innovaiton. This included presenting tool kit for an online graduate tool kit (skills on tap) at the 12th International Entrepreneurship Educators Conference. Adam has also being central to a number of consultancy projects related to tourism development. In addition to his academic studies his personal research interests focus primarily on leisure mobility, consumer behaviour  and the impact on the environment, he is working on completing his PhD with the School of Applied Social Science at the University of Brighton. He has also developed an innovative method of diary data collection, the email-diary.

Claudia Kappenberg’s research focuses on moving image, live and interdisciplinary performance practices and screendance, as well as the historical and theoretical narratives which underpin these practices. She is concerned with visual literacy, performance philosophy and concepts of body-mind integration, and their exploration within cinematic, choreographic and performative practices. This work is framed by a wider interest in questions of representation, feminist discussions and contemporary debates on neoliberalist politics and their impact on the artist and artistic production.

PhD application for research in related fields are welcome. For further information see TECHNE.

In her visual and performance practice Claudia Kappenberg draws on a background of dance and visual arts to create minimal choreographies which examine patterns of the everyday. The work is often developed for particular sites or reconfigured in their relocation to other sites and exhibited in the form of live interventions, gallery based performances or screen-based installations. The work has been shown in Europe, the United States and the Middle East.

Claudia Kappenberg is a founder-editor of the International Journal of Screendance and peer-reviews for a number of journals, as well as for research councils such as the British AHRC and the Canadian SSHRC. She undertakes consultancy for Screendance initiatives, juries on related film selection panels, and is regularly invited to speak at Screendance festivals such as in Buenos Aires, Limerick, Bordeaux, Brussels, Wuppertal, Basel, Bucharest, Freiburg. She has been guest lecturer at the École des Beaux Arts de Grenoble (France), Akademie der Künste (Munich, Germany) and Hazira Performing Arts (Jerusalem, Israel).

Claudia Kappenberg trained in Modern Dance, Butoh and Movement Analysis and danced professionally in Europe and New Zealand before coming to London in 1991.  She completed an MA Fine Art/Film and Video at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 1998 and taught at Central Saint Martins and London Guildhall University until 2002. She worked freelance as videographer for Tate Modern, Tate Britain and independent arts organisations.

I am a Reader in Anthropology and Psychology in the School of Applied Social Science. The cornerstone of my research has been the production of monographs and publications in three related fields: violence and conflict in Pakistan’s megacity of Karachi; transnational Afghan refugee migration and mobility in urban Britain; mental disorder and psychosocial intervention. My books include ‘Mohajir Militancy in Pakistan’ (2010, 2012, Routledge), ‘Cityscapes of Violence in Karachi’ (2017, Oxford University Press; Hurst & Co.); and ‘Mental Disorder: Anthropological Insights’ (2017, University of Toronto Press). I am currently completing a fourth monograph entitled ‘Arc of the Journeymen: Afghan Migrants in England’. I am also conducting ANRS funded research on illegal Pakistani migrants’ with HIV and Hepatitis in Paris. I am actively looking for Phd students in the broad areas of refugee and irregular migration, mobility, and mental distress and disorder, spanning the geography of South and South-East Asia, and Europe.

I am interested in media theory and post-1850s literary history and theory, with a focus on politics, feminism, and the philosophy of media (media ethics, digital ontology). I am also interested in the intellectual and socio-cultural reception of Ancient Greek texts (mainly philosophy and drama). 

My research focus is the formation of classed identities. I am interested in the everyday experiences of people who live on council estates and the material and social conditions which produce and legitimate knowledges of these people and this place. My research explores the connections between place and identity through an analysis of the material and social production of the estate as a classed position. I am interested in the role of affect in the formation and reformation of classed selves. Specifically, developing Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of the habitus to explore the visceral sensation through which the body is disciplined in moments of difference.

Dr. Vasileios (Vas) Leontitsis is a lecturer in Globalisation Studies at the University of Brighton. He has previously worked at the University of Sheffield and the London School of Economics (LSE). He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Sheffield (2010), an MA in International Political Economy from Warwick University (2001), and a BA in International and European Economic Studies from the Athens University of Economics and Business (2000). His predominant research interests lie in the spheres of post-development, the EU and Greek politics. He has published on decentralisation in Greece, the EU environmental policy and the process of Europeanisation. 

Within the broad context of space, place and culture I have a particular interest in the embodied and performative dynamics of human experience and behaviour.  Underpinned by a longstanding interest and intellectual engagement with the ‘architecture’ of space, my focus encompasses the material, virtual and simulate spaces associated with everyday life. For example, the sea and the coast, cruise ships, popular film, photography, art, tourism and leisure.  I am interested in how people engage with, imagine and adapt to such landscapes and spaces.  

Prior to entering academia, I gained considerable industry experience in tour operating and working on cruise ships. This underpins my continued interest in the cruise sector and cruise ships as bounded and transient spaces for work and leisure.

My own PhD investigated the architecture of cruise ship space through the medium of popular film. In so doing it acknowledged the multisensory nature of film and how the liminal realm of film space is experienced in and through the imagination, memory and emotion.

In addition to the above I continue to be interested in the power of discourse generally and specifically, the critical discourse highlighting the consequential socio-cultural impacts of cruise ships and their associated activities on coastal regions and destinations.

Core areas of activity, including the areas for PhD supervision are:

The visual and visuality

Embodiment and the senses

Architecture and materiality

The coast / seascapes

Maritime heritage

Cruise ships and cruise liners

My research addresses the implicit background to political and ethical practices. The kinds of implicit backgrounds I focus on are, on the one hand, ontological claims and assumptions in political imaginaries, and, on the other hand, historically- and geographically-specific modes of embodiment and affect. I have pursued this research interest in four main areas:

The Implicit Background of the Politics of Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Gender

My current research in this area interrogates the privileging of the ontological as a theoretical register in a range of humanities and social science thinking. I explore the implications for current theorising of the historical emergence of ontology as a field distinct from metaphysics, and how this emergence was connected to new ways of understanding the human that developed during the expansion of European colonialism and the emergence of ‘race’ as a principle for dividing up the human.

In some of my earlier work in this area, I developed innovative theorisations of the affective, bodily and ‘machinic’ background to the micro-politics of everyday life. This research built on my doctoral study to examine how racialised, ethnicised, sexualised and gendered power relations are enacted and embodied in everyday practice. Theoretically, this work was informed by Deleuzoguattarian theories of ‘affect’ and ‘machinism’ to explore new ways of thinking about the relationship between the capabilities bodies have to affect and be affected by one another in specific events and broader historically-specific social and political formations.

Sexual Politics in the SlutWalk

Based on empirical work conducted at SlutWalk marches in 2011 and 2012, this project – a collaboration with Alexandra Fanghanel (University of Greenwich, UK) – considered how anti-rape discourses variously contest, negotiate and reproduce dominant constructions of female sexual subjectivity and embodiment and of gendered inequalities in access to urban public space.

Political Imaginaries in Feminist Activism in London and Brighton

This research collaboration with Erin Sanders-McDonagh (University of Kent, UK) considers the ontological assumptions implicit in how feminist activists formulate and conceptualise the political problems they wish to address. We investigate these political imaginaries in the context of the dominance of neoliberal values of individualism and responsibility, on the one hand, and intersectional critiques of how different modes of oppression (e.g. sexism, racism, class, homophobia, transphobia) interact, on the other hand. In this context, we ask who can become a subject of feminism, and who or what become the objects of feminist critique. The importance of these questions concerns the ability of feminists who are, for instance, also sex workers, trans women, working-class women, Muslim women, or practitioners of BDSM to challenge and rework feminist critiques that have constructed them as problems or objects requiring intervention.

What is Happiness in 'The Happiness Project'?

This research arises from my involvement in a Wellcome-Trust funded arts-science collaboration with the Roundhouse Theatre, London and Glas(s) Performance, Glasgow that devised a theatrical production – ‘The Happiness Project’. This theatrical production brought together academics from different disciplines with a group of young people from London to explore ideas of happiness and well-being. The research attends to what happened in the devising of the theatrical production when academic understandings from different disciplines came together with stories of personal experiences of happiness: how do these understandings and experiences articulate; are there forms of authority that privilege some understandings and some experiences over others? This project – a collaboration with Dawn Rose (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland) – explores historically-specific ontological assumptions about happiness and well-being. The knowledge generated by this study will contribute to debates about the articulation of culture, technique and neurophysiology in the production of subjectivity and affect – and the political and ethical implications thereof.

My research interests focus around social and cultural geographies of sex and sexualities; public sector LGBT equalities work; LGBT communities beyond the urban; and associated spatial inclusions/exclusions at a variety of scales. I’m interested in LGBTQ lives and politics in areas outside of cities, in new ways of understanding queerness, and in how to move past discourses of gay assimilation vs queer transgression. Uniting these interests, in 2014 I completed my PhD thesis on partnerships between public services and LGBT communities to improve LGBT equalities in rural/non-urban areas surrounding Brighton.

After completing my doctorate I have worked on a variety of international and transnational projects with and for LGBTQ people. These have involved both policy- and legislative-led change, and trying to understand the specific barriers and inequalities faced by sexual and gender minorities. A common theme of these projects, as with others, is how to improve LGBTQ lives through partnership working.

More recently I have begun to work on the complexities of the Bear community of big and hairy queer men. In a society which valorises thin and abhors fat, I ask what happens when a space is created by and for fat queer men; for ‘masculine’ queer men; for older queer men; and how are such spaces permeated and affected by wider embodied power relations.

My research interests span geomorphology, climatology, history and archaeology. My current projects fall into two main areas - analyses of duricrusts in landscape and archaeological contexts, and reconstructing historical climate.

Duricrusts in landscape and archaeological contexts

My main area of research concerns the development and environmental significance of silcrete and calcrete duricrusts. The primary goals of this research are to (a) characterise the micromorphology and geochemistry of duricrusts developed in different landscape settings, (b) assess the extent to which duricrusts may be used as indicators of past environments, and (c) apply this fundamental knowledge for use in archaeological contexts. To date, my research has focused mainly upon non-pedogenic silcretes and calcretes in the Kalahari Desert, central Australia, southeast Spain and the UK.

Reconstructing historical climatic change using documentary sources

My second research focus is the reconstruction of past climate variability through analyses of historical documents, particularly missionary and other colonial sources. Working with collaborators in Europe and southern Africa, I have developed novel methodologies to establish chronologies of hydroclimatic variability in the Kalahari Desert, Lesotho, KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), Madagascar and western India using these materials.

Darren Newbury’s principal research interests lie in the relationship between photography, history, politics and cultural memory, with a particular concentration on Africa, and South Africa specifically. Significant publications include: Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa (2009), a major monograph on photography during the apartheid period and its place in post-apartheid memorialisation; People Apart: 1950s Cape Town Revisited (2013), a photobook based on the recently rediscovered collection of photographer Bryan Heseltine; and The African Photographic Archive: Research and Curatorial Strategies (2015), co-edited with Christopher Morton, a volume exploring new methodological approaches to researching and curating the photographic archive, in addition to its specifically African concerns. He has also recently co-edited a Special Issue of Visual Studies on ‘Photography and African Futures’ (2018) with Richard Vokes, which through a series of case studies examines how and why, from early colonial times onwards, states, institutions, political parties, civil society organizations and individual citizens used photography as a means for representing various kinds of imagined futures. In addition to academic publications, he has curated exhibitions at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (2011-12) and District Six Museum, Cape Town (2013-14), based on his photographic research.

He has also researched and published on the history of British documentary photography, photographic education and community photography practices. He has a long-standing interest in visual research methods and was editor of the international journal Visual Studies from 2003 to 2015.

Current projects include an edited volume on Women and Photography in Africa, with Lorena Rizzo and Kylie Thomas; and a major study of the role of photography in US public diplomacy in Africa during the period of the Cold War and African decolonisation.

My research examines the ways humans relate to the environment, and the universe more generally, and the ways in which these relationships are challenged by social movements.

My work on the sociology of outer space covers historical cosmologies, contemporary space technologies and science fiction. I am particularly interested at the moment in the way in which outer space is being conceived as an ‘environment’ and what that means for our future interaction with it. This includes issues around the use of space resources, orbital debris, and the protection of wilderness sites. In 2007 I co-authored the first overview text on the sociology of outer space, Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe, with Peter Dickens. In 2016 we edited the Palgrave International Handbook of Society, Culture and Outer Space. I have recently completed a chapter on outer space for the Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology.

My work on social movements draws on psychoanalytic theory, and argues for the centrality of fantasy to activism, culminating in my 2014 book, Fantasy and Social Movements. I have published illustrative case studies of the pro-space movement, the outer space protection movement and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

I have also recently edited a book, Changing our Environment, Changing Ourselves: Nature, Labour, Knowledge and Alienation, which examines themes emerging from the environmental sociology of Peter Dickens.

My research interests align along two related axes, which are my subject specialisms in nineteenth-century British art and culture, and the history of art museums and art collections. In both trajectories my key concern is how gender and related social formations (sexuality, the nation, the modern) organize the production and circulation of visual images. A key focus for me is portraiture, which proves a particularly rich seam of material in British and related visual culture, but I have also enjoyed working outside my period specialization in collaborations on feminist-informed projects relating to art exhibitions, collections and museums.

Judy Rabinowitz Price lives and works in London. Her art practice is research-based and includes photography, moving image and sound, composed as single-screen works and multiscreen installations.

A focus of her work is how art can produce different ways of thinking about contested landscapes and sites of geopolitical struggle, to make visible the different layers of representation, economy, history and subjectivity. Informed by the dialogue between art and ethnography her practice necessarily involves extensive field research often drawing on images and sounds from archival sources as well as the sustained study of a place or space. She often involves works collaboratively where the role of the artist as activist and ethnographer comes under scrutiny. Palestine has been an enduring focus of her work over the last 10 years.

In her long-form film and installation Quarries of Wondering Stone (2014-2017), Judy explored the quarries in the Occupied Palestine Territories as a both a physical, metaphorical and subjective space focusing on a culture's edges, endings, displacements and disappearances. The quarries are drawn on not just as industrial spaces where labour and excavation of stone take place, but also as the disruptive spaces of colonialism and globalization. In her film, White Oil Price elucidates our understanding and experience of the quarries and the spatial dynamics of the West Bank by weaving together complex layers of history, time and space through spoken texts, images and sound. This is performed through the owners, workers and security guard and the various complexities of interweaved communities. In this way, loss and absence come to bear with regard to personal histories and experiences as well as the changing landscape and conditions of the quarries. In this work relationships and community become as much part of Price’s métier as the image.

Her current research Architecture of the Bush explores the overwritten histories and redrawn boundaries of the Kruger National Park (KNP) in the Limpopo province, South Africa and Limpopo National Park which extends into Mozambique. Established under the 1926 National Parks Act, the KNP stretches for over 220 miles alongside South Africa's eastern perimeter and Mozambique and is a deeply contested landscape. Engaging with the spatial politics of the regions her research explores the complex political ecologies and entanglements of the KNP through the militarization of the area and its borders with Mozambique during the apartheid regime and today in post-apartheid South Africa. The research seeks to address the social and spatial inequalities within the Limpopo Province and bordering Mozambique and to what extent different social groups and peoples are defining the political ecology of the space and ancestral rights granted to displaced peoples from the KNP, as well as the ecology of human and non-human relations. The research traverses a number of disciplines bringing together artists, filmmakers, critical theorists, geographers, sociologists and lawyers.

Concurrently Judy is also working on new film and artwork that engages with the former site of the of Holloway Women's Prison in London that was decommissioned in 2016. Her research is embedded in the architecture of the prison (archival research, architectural, objects, sculptures, interiors and exteriors) and engages with the lived experiences of people and the history of the immediate vicinity of the area, including Penderyn Way that backs onto the existing site of Holloway, and where she has lived since 2006. The End of a Sentence draws on individual and collective stories of prison to make visible issues around gender, class, race and economy as well as reflecting on Holloway’s legacy spatially and ideologically as a site of remembrance and absence.

Judy studied Critical Fine Art Practice (BA), Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design London, Photography, Royal College of Art (MA), London and Media Arts Philosophy & Practice at Greenwich University, London as Associate Post-Grad Researcher. From 2008-9 she was Cocheme Fellow at the University of the Arts, London and associate artist from 2009-2010.  In 2014 she was awarded a PhD from the University of Creative Arts for her film White Oil and thesis, ‘White Oil and the Disappearance of the West Bank’ that focuses on the quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

She is currently a senior lecturer in Moving Image (BA), University of Brighton and course leader Photography (MA), Kingston University. From 2008–2014 she was a visiting lecturer at the International Academy of Art, Palestine and initiated a series of student exchange programs between Palestine and UK institutions. In 2013 she was a guest professor at Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg and associate Professor at Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Bergen, Norway from 2007-2008. Judy was a mentor for artists working with digital media on the Electric Green House residency, B3 Media, London and lead artist for a number of digital photography educational projects in London, including Southwark Somali Refugee Council, Deesha Community, Toynbee Hall and Shacklewell Primary School, London, commissioned by HS Projects and Insight Community Arts Programme (ICAP).

Solo exhibitions include Mosaic Rooms, London, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London, Wingsford Arts, Suffolk, Stiftelsen 3,14 and USF Centre, Bergen, Norway. Group exhibitions and screenings include: Qattan foundation, Ramallah, Palestinian Film Week, Cinema Akil, Dubai, Delfina Foundation, Imperial War Museum, Barbican, Curzon Cinema Soho, Curzon Cinema Goldsmiths, ICA, Whitechapel Gallery, City Hall, Purcell Rooms at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, Tatton Biennale, Manchester, Cambridge Film festival and Tent Gallery, Edinburgh, Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, Kunshaus Cinema, Nürnberg, Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Birzeit University Museum, Riwaq, Centre for Architectural Conservation Ramallah, Campus in Camps, Dheisheh Refugee Camp and Dar Annadwa Cultural Centre, Bethlehem and Al- Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem amongst others.

Judy is available to supervise students for MRes and PhD research.

Raphael’s research is in the areas of protest and social movements, criminology and criminal justice, and social and political theory. He is the author of a book on European social movements (Against Old Europe, Routledge) and he has published widely on protest, policing and critical theory. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as Citizenship Studies, Critical Social Policy, Social Movement Studies, Environmental Politics, Sociology Compass and the European Journal of Social Theory.

He currently leads a research project that scrutinises the public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales, with initial funds coming from Brighton University's Rising Stars Award. Raphael was interviewed about the research on the European TV network ARTE and has provided expert commentary on the delays and secrecy clouding the inquiry in the Independent, the Conversation and a range of blogs.

Previously he has received the Colin Seymour-Ure prize for his undergraduate thesis from the University of Kent, a four-year studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for his doctoral research at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Nottingham.

Raphael currently serves on the Editorial Board of Sociology Research Online (since 2015) and on the Management Board of the university's Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics. He is a member of the British Society of Criminology, the Socio-Legal Studies Association, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Dr Dawn Scott is a mammalian biologist with an interest in applied conservation biology. 

Her principal areas of research are focused on the interactions between humans and wildlife, such as, the consequences of anthropogenic change of the environment on mammalian communities, genetics, biodiversity and their ecology. This information is then integrated into developments of conservation biology theory and practice. She is also passionate about science communication and citizen science based research approaches. 

There are four main themes Dawn is currently expanding and developing in conservation biology. These fundamentally address some of the long term consequences of our current approaches to conservation.

Species responses to anthropogenic landscape change and management: Investigating the ecological response of species and biodiversity to habitat change, for example, urbanisation, coastal flooding, anthropogenic activities and management.

Human-carnivore conflict: Investigating the ecological and socio-economic issues surrounding human-carnivore conflict in South Africa and urban carnivores in the UK.

Landscape conservation genetics: The genetic consequences of landscape structure and permeability on wildlife population genetics, using jackal and brown hyena populations in South Africa, and, hazel dormice and water voles in the UK as models to investigate this.

Behavioural responses to management to inform conservation: As part of an interdisciplinary team, we are investigating the impact of landscape and animal managment on animal beahviour focusing on species of conservation concern including the white rhino in South Africa and hedgehogs in the UK.

Scholarly biography

Dr Kirsty Smallbone is Head of School of the Environment and Technology.  Her day to day work concentrates on the leadership and management of the School, and in contributing to the wider leadership of the University.  Kirsty is a member of the IT Strategic Governance group and the TEF development group, and recently led the school to a Bronze Athena SWAN award. She has over 20 years of research experience with interests in the spatial and temporal distribution of tropospheric air pollution, strategies for its mitigation and, more recently, the perception of air quality and the environment.

Dr Smallbone has attracted funds of over £1.5 million for her research, including grants from Local Government, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the European Union.  She has successfully supervised two Doctorate (PhD) research degrees and one MPhil research degree.  She has also developed an enterprise stream of funding, and has been awarded £25,000 for a University innovation project to develop low cost but accurate particulate matter sensors.

Dr Smallbone has authored over 12 peer-reviewed publications and more than 14 conference papers. She has presented her work to academics, practitioners, health professionals, politicians, school children and the general public. She has been invited to give keynote lectures throughout the UK and Europe.  Dr Smallbone passionately believes that research should be accessible and therefore has also written an education ‘pack’ for key stage 2 school children aimed at increasing awareness of the issues surrounding air pollution. She has also developed a toolkit for those with chronic respiratory illnesses and the elderly, widely used in the UK and in Europe.

Approach to teaching

I am passionate about education and life long learning.  I believe in allowing students to develop their skills by the practical application of knowledge.  I also encourage students to read extensively and take a critical approach to peer-reviewed and grey literature.  For example, in my Environmental Management module I ensure that students have the opportunity to undertake an environmental audit. In my Air Quality Management module, students get to design a mini research project to look, as a class, into an aspect of air pollution that they have identified as important and interesting. This then forms the basis of their assessment task.  Being able to assess your own progress in learning is something I see as crucial in encouraging students to grow in confidence in their own abilities. I’m also keen on data analysis and enjoy teaching students to enjoy, or at least understand, the how and the why of multivariate statistical analysis (regression being my favourite).

Research interests

Crossing the divide between the natural and the social sciences, my main research interests focus on the impact of tropospheric air pollution:

1. Air quality science

Air pollution is responsible for an estimated 310,000 premature deaths per year in Europe alone (WHO 2015), with associated societal, economic and environmental costs. My research uses cutting edge monitoring equipment to explore what is in the air that we breathe, and thus what we can do to reduce air pollution and improve health.  In particular, my research examines the reactive trace species of atmospheric pollutants, including 'ultrafine particles' (UFP), for which there is emerging evidence regarding their hazardous nature to human health.

2. Perceptions of Air Quality

In order to reduce local air pollution, it is important to understand how people perceive air pollution, and how to disentangle it in people’s minds from climate change.  Air pollution disproportionately affects the elderly, the young and those with pre-existing cardio-respiratory conditions.  My research examines the most effective ways to communicate information on air pollution, how this information is perceived, and what makes people listen.

I have always been interested in the way a society punishes its criminals, and there is no greater penalty than the penalty of death. While many countries still execute offenders, in the westernised world the USA stands alone. More specifically though it is the Southern states which continue to give death sentences, with Texas being responsible for around one third of all executions. As such, my own research has focused on the ‘Lone Star State’, exploring the myths and memories which underpin the Texan self-identity. In addition, I am also interested in the use of qualitative and interpretative methodologies with a focus on narrative analysis, and have recently published on the use of museums as storied spaces of narrativity.

My research is centred very broadly around the psychological side of migration.

Using a variety of methodologies, the majority of my research focuses on ways to improve relationships between people of different backgrounds, and on improving health and well-being of ethnic and religious minority groups, particularly refugees. I like to explore these topics from a multidisciplinary and policy-focused perspective, for example by investigating how refugee resettlement policies can optimise integration and well-being of refugees. I am also investigating possibilities of using digital mental health interventions to improve refugee well-being. I have conducted research with a variety of majority and minority groups in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, and Chile.

• Social inequality and mental distress
• Critical community psychology
• Informal therapeutic spaces and settings
• Statactivism and academic activism
• Multi-stakeholder capacity building action-research in communities
• Care and young people with complex needs

I am a social psychologist. This means I am fascinated by people and their behaviour – particularly the ethical choices they make in life and how these connect with their personal values. While this interest is mostly explored in the context of tourism, for example, understanding responsible tourist behaviour I believe it is also important to challenge business to make ethical and responsible decisions.  This latter research tends to focus on the cruise industry, where I look into the impact of cruise tourism on destinations, and the environment, the industry’s human resource policies, and its strategic priorities. Underpinning my research is a strong sense of personal agency, and I especially enjoy working on projects that enable me to advocate for people, animals, and organisations that seek outcomes in support of social justice.

My research expertise encompasses avian ecology & conservation science, urban ecology, human-nature interactions, trait biogeography, and patterns & drivers of extinction risk. I'm passionate about sharing my sense of wonder and excitement about the natural world, with academics, practitioners and the general public alike. Collectively, my research aims to better understand the impacts of both threatening processes and conservation actions on wildlife and people. I enjoy finding effective way to engage members of the public (particularly children) with nature, and I enjoy the challenges and benefits from utilising citizen science based research approaches. I am a strong proponent of evidence-informed conservation, research transparency, and for reducing the current research-implementation gap.

My research focuses on community voices in town planning in New Towns Harlow and Hatfield. I am exploring the main players in the planning system in both towns, and the social, historical, political, economic or physical background to the towns which results in certain voices being more prominent than others in local planning matters. 

Alex's research interests lie across and between the disciplines of architecture, archaeology, and anthropology, but also with notions of 'the commons' broadly understood. Particular areas of research expertise in these interdisciplinary fields include:

Commons
With a team from Newcastle University Alex is a Co-Investigator on the 3-year AHRC-funded project, Wastes and Strays: The Past, Present and Future of English Urban Commons.
Last year he organised a conference at the University of Brighton titled Tangible and Intangible Commons to explore other strands of commons thinking.

The Structure of Architectural Interdisciplinarity
The visual and analogical foundations of design-centred disciplines. In particular understanding disciplines as borderless centres of practice which, for design, proceed through the making of, often, visual artefacts, afforded meaning through analogical interconnectedness.

Drawing between Architecture and Archaeology
Alex makes work – drawings and texts – between the historically interconnected disciplines of architecture, archaeology and anthropology. A recent chapter in Architecture and Anthropology edited by Adam Jasper explores some of these parallels

The Theory of Architectural Practice
Within architecture itself Alex's research, as well as his lecturing at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, seeks to understand both architectural history and theory, and the professional practice of architecture, as differences of emphasis rather than differences of category; that architecture is the product of a constant shuttling between practice and theory.

Alex is a Board member of the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics.