Research
Technological Natures: Materials, Cities, Politics
The work of the Technological Natures research cluster is unified by a set of theoretical concerns with materiality and knowledge, technological politics/political technologies, affect and performance.
The research cluster has an international reputation for methodological and theoretical innovation and a clear and distinct profile. One important feature of the research cluster's work has been in its commitment to field research, as well as to the development of new research methods and the generation of new kinds of research material. A further distinctive feature of the group is in the range of connections it has established with researchers and other disciplines, across the natural and social sciences, the humanities, as well as the visual and performing arts. Indeed, part of the research cluster's reputation derives from recognition of the way that it has sought to rethink Geography's relation to other disciplines including, the biological and physical sciences, and the arts and humanities.
Future research is likely to develop in relation to four broad themes:
- studies of the geography of evidence, mapping, measurement, classification, modelling and abstraction;
- the development of new ethnographic, internet and visual research methods involving interdisciplinary collaborations with environmental scientists and practitioners, public experiments and participation, and performing arts;
- studies of geographical topics (nature, health, affect, atmosphere, materiality, pollution, futures, agency, species) which cut across the borders between the natural and social sciences; and
- geographical and policy research on time, speed and mobility, and the experience of travel.
The Technological Natures research cluster has active links with the Transport Studies Unit.