Ted Holbrook

Tracing geographies of care under confinement: Examining the everyday micropolitics of (digitally-mediated) care in residential dementia care homes

Ted is a cultural geographer and first-year DPhil researcher at the School of Geography and the Environment, and Brasenose College, University of Oxford.

His doctoral research explores the everyday micropolitics of care and confinement in residential dementia care homes in the UK. Through ethnographic research, he examines how relations of care and control are affectively sustained and negotiated, how residents exercise agency within and against these relations, and how digital technologies – from institutional surveillance systems to residents’ everyday uses of digital media – shape and complicate relations of care, control and confinement.

Grounded in post-structuralist thought, his research sits at the intersection of carceral, care and digital geographies, drawing on insights from medical anthropology and cultural theories of affect to enrich this conceptual constellation. In doing so, he seeks to critically interrogate the possibilities and limits of understanding residential dementia care through the lens of carcerality, attending particularly to how confinement is produced, experienced and transformed through everyday relations of care-control. This project is funded by the ESRC through the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership.

Prior to his doctoral research, Ted completed a BA (First Class, 2nd overall in cohort) in Geography at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, where his dissertation ethnographically examined the quasi-carceral (im)mobilities of people living with dementia in residential care settings. This research was awarded the 2025 RGS-IBG Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Undergraduate Dissertation Prize and the Linda McDowell Prize for the best Critical Human Geography dissertation in his cohort at SoGE.

Ted also holds an MSc (Distinction) in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance (NSEG) from Keble College, University of Oxford, where his ethnographic research examined how therapeutic environments are cultivated within dementia-friendly community allotments through affective atmospheres, expressions of agency and relationships of care, with particular attention to the everyday labour and power relations underpinning their therapeutic potential. This research was awarded the 2026 NSEG Examiner’s Prize for the best Dissertation in his MSc cohort, and the Gordon Wallace Award from Keble College, Oxford for the strongest performance from a candidate in Geography/Environmental Sciences.

Ted’s research has been deeply shaped by his experience caring for his Nan, Cheryl, who lives with dementia in a residential care home. This personal connection underpins his commitment to foregrounding the voices, experiences and agency of older people living with dementia, whose perspectives have too often been marginalised or excluded from academic research, particularly as their cognitive capacities change. Reflecting his wider commitment to care and welfare, Ted also serves as Junior Dean at Brasenose College.

Through his research, Ted seeks to challenge commonly-held assumptions about ageing, dementia and autonomy, recognise the complexity of lived experiences that are frequently overlooked, inform health and social care policy, and contribute to more inclusive, compassionate and person-centred approaches to care.

Awards

• NSEG Examiner’s Prize for Highest Performance in Dissertation, School of Geography and the Environment (2026)
• Gordon Wallace Award for best performance in Geography/Environmental Sciences, Keble College, Oxford (2026)
• ESRC Grand Union DTP Partnership +3.5 Award (2025)
• RGS-IBG Health Geographies Research Group Dissertation Prize (2025)
• Linda McDowell Prize, for best Critical Human Geography Dissertation (2025)
• Academic Scholarship Invitation, St Catherine’s College, Oxford (2025)
• Academic Futures/Crankstart Scholarship (2025) – Full funding for MSc study at the University of Oxford
• Academic Futures–School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography Joint Award (2025) – Full funding for MSc Medical Anthropology, University of Oxford (declined)
   

• Holbrook, T. (2025) Triad. In, V. Zhang and B. Anderson (Eds.) The Promise of Cultural Geography. Cultural Geography (Un)limited Editions. pp. 190-192.

Presentations

• Holbrook, T. (2026). “While There is Tea, There is Hope”: Examining Practices and Temporalities of ‘Hope’ Through the Everyday Life of Care Homes. Paper presented at the Feminist Dialogues of Hope and Research Conference, SoGE, University of Oxford.