Cultural Geography

At UNSW Canberra, we are committed to producing geographical research capable of apprehending transformative social and cultural processes on the very cusp of their emergence. We see conceptual and methodological innovation as central to the task of articulating tomorrow’s research agendas in ways that push beyond or ‘problematise’ established habits of thinking. Our cultural geography group is currently exploring problematizations in relation to three core research strengths:

Material environments of socio-technical innovation

Contributing to debates within new materialism, science and technology studies, and post-humanism, we explore how techno-scientific advances are transforming the materiality of social and cultural life in ways that ask new questions about what it means to be human. Of key concern are the material transformations made possible in and through the spatiality of computational processes, including the emerging landscapes of automation, algorithmic design, digital fabrication, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

Performance, bodies, and the new science of behaviour

At UNSW Canberra, we ask questions about the performative production of sensation, meaning and knowledge across a variety of intersecting spatial registers, from the micro-gestures of moving bodies to the cultural embodiment of digitally mediated sensations. Our research around bodily training and simulation, improvisation, fashion, and humour are generating significant insights into the new science of behaviour emerging today. The group has a strong background in post-structuralism and Non-Representational Theory (NRT), with expertise in conceptualisations of affect, performativity, habit, embodiment and feminist theory.

Spaces of aesthetic experiment

Geographers at UNSW are generating novel insights into the role of aesthetic practices and techniques in the production of new modes of experience, perception and thought. Specific areas of interest here include the new spaces of aesthetic encounter emerging at the interface of art and science; the processual dynamics of creativity and creative expression; and the impact of new technologies on embodied capacities of sense-making. Work in this area has involved collaborations with practitioners and communities beyond the academy, including bioartists (the Tissue Culture and Art Project; the Alternate Anatomies Lab), architects (ETH Zurich), art-science collectives (danceroom spectroscopy) and arts-based community organisations (Up Our Street; Urban Living Partnership UK).

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Dewsbury J-D, 2019, 'Refrains of Lost Time: Collapse, Refrain, Abstract', in Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge, pp. 88 - 98

Jellis T; Gerlach J; Dewsbury J-D, 2019, 'Introduction: For Better and For Worse', in Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge, pp. 1 - 11

Dewsbury J-D, 2019, 'Foreword: Civic Space and Desire: after Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari', in Civic Spaces and Desire, Routledge, pp. xvii – xxi

Keating TP, 2019, 'Pre-individual affects: Gilbert simondon and the individuation of relation', Cultural Geographies, vol. 26, pp. 211 -226, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474018824090

Keating TP, 2019, 'Imaging', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12326

Lapworth, A, 2019, ‘Gilbert Simondon and the Technical Mentalities and Transindividual Affects of Art-Science, Body & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X19882750

Lapworth A, 2019, 'Guattari and the Micropolitics of Cinema: The Desiring-Machines of Satoshi Kon', in Jellis T; Gerlach J; Dewsbury J-D (ed.), Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge, pp. 187 - 201

Lapworth A, 2019, 'Sensing', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12327

Roberts T, 2019, 'In Pursuit of Necessary Joys: Deleuze, Spinoza, and the Ethics of Becoming Active', GeoHumanities, vol. 5, pp. 124 - 138, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2373566x.2019.1575762

Roberts T, 2019, 'Guattari's incorporeal materialism: from individuation to aesthetics (and back again)', in Jellis T; Gerlach J; Dewsbury JD (ed.), Why Guattari? a Liberation of Politics, Cartography and Ecology, edn. Routledge Studies in Human Geography, Routledge

Roberts T, 2019, 'Writing', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12323

Sharpe S, 2019, 'Untoward laughter and the micropolitical: social action, politics and the will after the sovereign subject', Cultural Geographies, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474019866205

Williams N, 2019, 'Reframing politics in art : from representational subjects to aesthetic subjectification', in Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge

Williams N, 2019, 'Listening', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12324

Williams N; Patchett M; Lapworth A; Roberts T; Keating T, 2019, 'Practising post-humanism in geographical research', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12322

Roberts T, 2018, 'Resituating post-phenomenological geographies: Deleuze, relations and the limits of objects', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tran.12280

Nelson JK; Hynes M; Sharpe S; Paradies Y; Dunn K, 2018, 'Witnessing Anti-White ‘Racism’: White Victimhood and ‘Reverse Racism’ in Australia', Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 39, pp. 339 - 358, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2018.1459516

Sharpe S, 2018, 'Pluralising affect: Encountering Ben Anderson's Encountering Affect', DIALOGUES IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, vol. 8, pp. 225 - 228, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2043820617748270

Lapworth A, 2017, 'For a Transversal Art-Science', in Scientist-in-Residence Program: A New Approach to Art-Science, Gluon, Brussels, pp. 9 - 13

Roberts T, 2017, 'Thinking technology for the Anthropocene: Encountering 3D printing through the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon', Cultural Geographies, vol. 24, pp. 539 - 554, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474017704204

Dewsbury JD, 2016, 'Engaging an infinity in actuality: Exposing political space in the authority of experience itself', in Authority, Experience and the Life of Power, pp. 139 - 145

Lapworth A, 2016, 'Cinema, thought, immanence: Contemplating signs and empty spaces in the films of Ozu', Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, vol. 3, pp. 13 - 31, http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jucs.3.1.13_1

Williams N, 2016, 'Creative processes: From interventions in art to intervallic experiments through Bergson', Environment and Planning A, vol. 48, pp. 1549 - 1564, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X16642769

Cook S; Davidson A; Stratford E; Middleton J; Plyushteva A; Fitt H; Cranston S; Simpson P; Delaney H; Williams N; Evans K, 2016, 'Co-Producing Mobilities: negotiating geographical knowledge in a conference session on the move', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, vol. 40, pp. 340 - 374, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2016.1141397

Dewsbury JD, 2015, 'Guattari’s resingularization of existence: Pooling uncertainties', Dialogues in Human Geography, vol. 5, pp. 155 - 161, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2043820615587791

Dewsbury JD, 2015, 'Non-representational landscapes and the performative affective forces of habit: from ‘Live’ to ‘Blank’', Cultural Geographies, vol. 22, pp. 29 - 47, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474014561575

Dewsbury JD; Bissell D, 2015, 'Habit geographies: the perilous zones in the life of the individual', Cultural Geographies, vol. 22, pp. 21 - 28, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474014561172

Lapworth A, 2015, 'Theorizing Bioart Encounters after Gilbert Simondon', Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 33, pp. 123 - 150, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0263276415580173

Lapworth A, 2015, 'Habit, art, and the plasticity of the subject: the ontogenetic shock of the bioart encounter', Cultural Geographies, vol. 22, pp. 85 - 102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474013491926

Lapworth A, 2015, 'Beyond Bifurcation: Thinking the Abstractions of Art-Science after A. N. Whitehead', Transformations: Journal of Media, Culture and Technology, http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Lapworth_Transformations26.pdf

Hynes M; Sharpe S, 2015, 'Habits, style and how to wear them lightly', cultural geographies, vol. 22, pp. 67 - 83, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474014560682

Hynes M; Sharpe S, 2015, 'Affect', Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, vol. 20, pp. 115 - 129, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2015.1065129

Sharpe S; Hynes M, 2015, 'Black-faced, red faces: the potentials of humour for anti-racist action', Ethnic and Racial Studies, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1096405

Dewsbury JD, 2014, 'Inscribing thoughts: The animation of an adventure', Cultural Geographies, vol. 21, pp. 147 - 152, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474474012469005

Roberts T, 2014, 'From things to events: Whitehead and the materiality of process', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 32, pp. 968 - 983, http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/d13195p

Sharpe S; Dewsbury JD; Hynes M, 2014, 'The minute interventions of Stewart Lee', Performance Research, vol. 19, pp. 116 - 125, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2014.928527

Sharpe S, 2014, 'Potentiality and Impotentiality in J. K. Gibson-Graham', Rethinking Marxism, vol. 26, pp. 27 - 43, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2014.857842