Niamh Nelson-Owens

I am a social and cultural geographer interested in rethinking how political processes and change are understood. My doctoral research, fully funded by the NWSSDTP, examines the role of ordinary encounters with graphic vegan activism in shaping ongoing, plural socio-ecological futures. Drawing on literatures of encounter, post-foundational political geography, affect, and vegan geographies, I explore how engagements with graphic imagery and negotiations of difference(s) may open possibilities for alternatives to dominant socio-political and ecological orderings.

I have been published in, and peer-reviewed for, Progress in Human Geography. The first paper of my PhD, 'Towards an Affective Post-Foundational Political Geography', rethinks how political processes might be understood through an affect-attuned approach to post-foundational political geography. I have also contributed to the volume 'The Promise of Cultural Geography', curated by Dr Ben Anderson and Dr Vickie Zhang.

I am supervised by Dr Aurora Fredriksen and Dr Joe Blakey, and I am a member of the Cities, Politics and Economies (CPEG) and the Society and Environment (SERG) research groups. 

• Affect
• Emotion
• Vegan geographies
• Post-foundational political geographies 

I am an experienced Graduate Teaching Assistant with teaching contributions across a wide range of Geography courses.

This includes:

• Undergraduate
  • GEOG12012 Tutorials and Profile of a Research Geographer (with Dr Ross Jones)
  • GEOG30621 Critical Geographies of Difference (with Dr Nerea Okong'o)

• Postgraduate
  • SEED PGR Training Programme (with Dr Pauline Prevett)
  • Doing Environmental Research (Meet the Veterans, with Dr Mark Usher)

This semester (2024-25), I am looking forward to teaching GEOG30221 Life Course Geographies with Dr Amy Barron.

I am interested in exploring more creative methods, as my doctoral research employs a broader (auto)ethnographic methodology. This has involved using event observations, open interviews, and autoethnographic reflections.