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Field Notes From Calais

A blog by Freya Peters, Geography student My first experience upon arriving in Calais was feeling the bitter wind whip across my face the moment I stepped out of my car. I was there, with the support of the School of Geography Graduate Research Fund, to conduct research with those living in informal refugee camps. …

A quest for sustainable solutions: Reflections on the HUMANE Sustainability Summit

This is a blog on a sustainability conference attended in May 2023 by one of our academics, Chris Ives, and a third year Geography student, Bryony Jarman. We (Chris and Bryony) met on a sunny spring morning ready to depart on our long journey from Nottingham to the HUMANE Sustainability Summit, to be held in …

Climate Change and Agriculture in tropical countries: Integrated ClimAte Resilience UnderStanding (ICARUS), Belize

Sofia Márdero, Betsabé de la Barreda, Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah Metcalfe and Franziska Schrodt Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing the world today, presenting particular challenges to developing countries, where a large part of the population lives in physically exposed places and in precarious economic conditions. Moreover, a significant percentage of these …

INQUA Roma 2023

Michela Mariani and Matthew Jones In July 2023, we attended the 21st INQUA Conference in beautiful Rome, Italy. For Michela, it felt a bit like going home, as she is originally from Italy (though she’s from Milan!). It goes without saying, Rome is a truly stunning setting for a conference. The INQUA Conference is held …

‘Core Blimey!’– A PhD fieldwork trip to India

Hamish Duncalf-Youngson, PhD student Arriving in Manipur jolts your senses to life, from the heat and dust to the chaotic driving practices (which heavily require dodging cows in the middle of four-lane roads). None of this should have surprised me, perhaps, given I’d just arrived in India for the first time. Yet, I soon learnt …

Crayfish in the Time of COVID: When a pandemic interrupts your fieldwork-based PhD

César Rodríguez Valido, PhD student Now that I’m nearing the final months of my PhD experience, I wanted to reflect on what has been, to put it lightly, an eventful experience. Whilst I was still an undergraduate (in this very department), I caught the ‘crayfish bug’ – a keen interest in invasive signal crayfish (Pascifastacus …

Counter-histories of urban renewal from Tunis

Participation in a BRISMES panel on ‘Cities: Materiality, Temporality, and Affect’ Katharina Grüneisl is a Research Fellow in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham and currently conducts research on the used clothing economy in Tunisia and on garment manufacturing in industrial zones in Jordan. The Annual BRISMES (British Society for Middle Eastern …

PhD Blog: Oral Interviews About Life Experience in Changchun

By Yiming Xu, Geography PhD Student My PhD project considers the colonial and postcolonial urbanism of Changchun, known previously as Hsinking when the city was the capital of the the Japanese colonial empire in Manchuria from 1932. . The project is focusing on how material geography and social experience intersected as the Japanese enacted their …

What are the risks to the UK’s essential buildings during the heatwave?

Simon Gosling, Professor of Climate Risks, School of Geography, University of Nottingham With some parts of the UK currently experiencing a heatwave, there have been large increases in water use in some areas, and some schools have shut this week due to water shortages. Is this a sign of what we can expect to become …

Geography Alumni Post – John Pearson, Class of 1990

John Pearson, June 2023 I studied Geography at Nottingham from 1987 to 1990, and after graduating I went straight to work at the Foreign Office. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, which gives you an idea of how long ago that was! At the moment I am the British Ambassador to Laos, and overall I have …