Niamh Nelson-Owens

I am a cultural geographer interested in the (ordinary) affective politics of climate change and the role of disagreement and conflict within the construction of expansive socio-ecological futures. I am currently a NWSSDTP +3 funded postgraduate researcher, researching the affective politics of encounters with urban vegan visceral activism through a post-foundational theoretical approach. Mobilising a conflict-attuned approach to research, I aim to understand the political potentialities embedded within affective responses to graphic activism and how such difference(s) may allow for challenges to current dominant orderings and hold space for radical alterity. I am supervised by Dr Aurora Fredriksen and Dr Joe Blakey.

My research interests include: affect, encounter, relationality, more-than-human geographies, negative geographies and post-foundational political geography.

Previous research is as follows:

Postgraduate Taught Thesis: Climate (Dis) Assembly? A Critical Post-Foundational Political Analysis of Manchester’s Climate Community Assembly.

Undergraduate Thesis: Pipe Dreams? A Critical Analysis of Citizen Support for Large-Scale Energy Infrastructure in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

I am an active member of the Cities, Politics and Economies (CPE) and the Society and Environment Research Group (SERG).

I am also currently a Graduate Teaching Assistant on the third-year undergraduate module GEOG30621 Critical Geographies of Difference. Previous teaching experience includes the first-year undergraduate module GEOG 12012 Tutorials and Profile of a Research Geographer.