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Committee Elections – DARG needs you!

As noted in the last newsletter, this AGM will see a significant change in our committee membership, as we will have space for up to four full committee positions, including that of Chair. If you are interested in standing for a place on the committee as a regular committee member or as a PG representative and wish to discuss this, please get in touch with Glyn Williams (glyn.williams@sheffield.ac.uk) or Nina Laurie (nina.laurie@newcastle.ac.uk) to find out more about the roles involved.
Anyone standing for Chair should be a Fellow of the RGS: non-RGS members may stand as committee members, but may not hold the post of Treasurer or Secretary. Nominations must be proposed and seconded by members of the Group and must receive the assent of the nominee before submission to Nina as DARG Secretar (nina.laurie@newcastle.ac.uk). This year, we’re asking all people standing for committee/Chair to write a short statement (maximum 250 words) on what they would bring to the role – and we aim to circulate these to all members ahead of the AGM.
All nominations should be sent to Nina on/before 11th August.  
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Developing Areas Research Group AGM

The DARG AGM will be held during the RGS-IBG Annual Conference, on Thursday 28th August from 13:10-14.25, in the Sunley Room of the RGS.
Any DARG members (or other interested people) who are not registered to attend the conference but who wish to attend the AGM can gain a free visitor pass for the meeting by emailing AC2014@rgs.org and providing their name, affiliation, email address and the meeting(s) they wish to attend.  The RGS will confirm receipt and arrange a visitor pass for them to collect from the registration desk on the day.
Items for the AGM agenda will include our new Constitution, discussion of DARG’s prize to remember the work of David Drakakis-Smith, and importantly the election of new committee members.
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DARG PG Travel Award

This year’s prize winner is Felicity Butler (RHUL), for her research in Northern Nicaragua on Including Unpaid Labour in Community Fair Trade Products.  Congratulations to her: this year’s competition saw a very high-quality list of applications.

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One year lectureship in Development Geography

The Department of Geography at the University of Portsmouth wishes to appoint to a one-year lectureship in Geography (Development Studies). The successful candidate will be expected to contribute to our established teaching programmes and in particular deliver two units in ‘Geography and Development Studies’ (2nd year undergraduate unit) and ‘Gender and Development’ (3rd year undergraduate unit – some flexibility of specialist area within the realm of development studies may be possible for this unit). Further details of our current teaching and research activities are available through the Department of Geography webpages on the University website (www.port.ac.uk).
Applicants should have a PhD and have teaching experience and be research active commensurate with career stage. You will be encouraged and supported in the development of your personal teaching and research agenda and encouraged to collaborate with colleagues in developing and enhancing your existing career profile.
You will be required to demonstrate experience of teaching and be willing to contribute to our geography teaching programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including tutorials, fieldwork, dissertation supervision and core teaching within the geography curriculum. Existing experience of delivering specialist option teaching would be an additional advantage as detailed above and within the realm of geography and development studies.
Interview Date: 7 August 2014!
Salary: £32,590 to £35,597
Start date: no later than the 1st September 2014.
Candidates are welcome to discuss this post further with:
Dr Simon Leonard (Head of Department)
tel: 023 9284 2501/2507
For detailed information about this vacancy, please select this link: 10012288 – Lecturer in Geography.docx

 

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Professor Rob Potter (1950-2014)

As many members may already know, Rob Potter, Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading, and a leading academic in the areas of urban and development geographies, has died. Rob was an active member of DARG, serving on its committee, and co-editing The Contemporary Caribbean (Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2004) within the Group’s series of regional geography books. Previously Professor of Geography and Head of Department (1994-1999) at Royal Holloway, University of London, he joined Reading in 2003 and later became Head of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences. An elected Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, Rob was awarded the higher doctorate degree of DSc by the University of Reading for his contributions to the fields of geographies of development and urban geography, with particular reference to Caribbean development studies.

Rob had a long and distinguished research career, with more than 30 books and monographs and over 250 journal articles and book chapters, and was founding editor of the journal Progress in Development Studies from 2001.  He also supervised over 30 PhD students, and was in constant demand as PhD examiner, journal manuscript referee and as external assessor for senior appointments both in the UK and overseas. He particularly enjoyed being in the field, whether on undergraduate fieldtrips or in the Caribbean.  He had over 30 years’ research association with the Eastern Caribbean, researching principally on urbanisation, housing  and planning, but also on, among others,  tourism, gender, returning migrants and human aspects of environmental hazard.   Rob always insisted on publishing not only in ‘high impact’ international journals, but also in Caribbean journals and other locally-accessible outlets.  Even during his illness, he continued working on the third edition of the Companion to Development Studies, which arrived just two days before he passed away.  This last publication was a fitting tribute to his contribution to scholarship in, and of, developing countries.

Rob was always very supportive of junior colleagues and especially of women in academia.  He maintained high moral standards and was a person with great integrity. He was very fond of his text books and worked very hard in getting them published and they were very successful.  He privately and bravely battled with cancer since 2009.  He will be greatly missed. If anyone is wishing to make a donation in memory of Rob can do so by sending a cheque made payable to either ‘The Pilgrims Hospice’ Canterbury or the Royal Free Trustees Grant (311) “The Quiet Cancer Appeal” at the Royal Free Hospital, London.

 (with thanks to the RGS and Vandana Desai)

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Generating Research Impact: Ethics, Politics and Practices

Tuesday 26th August 2014

Venue: Education Centre, Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR

Organised by RGS Research Groups: EGRG, DARG, SCGRG and PolGRG

This workshop will take place on the day before the annual international conference of the RGS (with IBG). It brings together academics, including postgraduates, from across human geography to facilitate a critical focus and debate on the nature and implications of research impact, from research group perspectives across the discipline, including thinking more broadly and critically about what research impact means to us, and how it affects our work. The event includes group and roundtable debate, facilitated by five keynote talks.

Programme:

10:00-10:30     Registration & coffee

10:30-10:45     Welcome from Alex Hughes & introductions

10:45-12:00     Session 1: Tracking & Embedding Impact (Chair: Steve Musson)

Dr Martin Walsh (Global Research Adviser, Oxfam GB, & Member of REF Main Panel C): Researching impacts: emerging lessons from the development sector

Group discussion: How do we embed & track impact? How might we work with organisations to do this, and what are the challenges?

12:00-13:00     Lunch

13:00-14:30     Session 2: Politics, Consequences & Communication of Impact (Chair: Rebecca Sandover)

Professor Kevin Morgan (Cardiff School of Planning & Geography): The politics of sustainable school food reform (project recognised in ESRC Impact Annual Awards 2013)

Hazel Edwards (Senior Engagement Manager – Arts & Humanities, Durham University): Research impact through partnership: the case of a Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum project

Group discussion: How do we conduct research that shapes public policy/engagement? How do we address the political challenges associated with the generation & consequences of research impact? How do we communicate research impact?

14:30-15:00     Tea/coffee

15:00-16:30     Session 3: Conceptualising Impact & its Pathways (Chair: Karen Lai)

Eloise Mellor (ESRC): Overview of ESRC’s current visions of impact

Professor Nina Laurie (Newcastle University): Conceptualising impact in the global South: the case of a trafficking project

Group discussion: How do we conceptualise and create pathways to impact? What kinds of skills are required to foster impact?

16:30               Workshop closes

18:15               Annual conference opens

The event is free to students (current, registered graduate or doctoral studies), and £16 for all others.

To register for the event, you can book in one of two ways: (i) through the RGS website and online booking system (to add the workshop to your RGS annual conference booking) at  www.rgs.org/AC2014Workshops or, if you are not attending the annual conference, (ii) by e-mailing Alex.Hughes@ncl.ac.uk and sending a cheque (if you are paying) for £16 made payable to ‘EGRG’ to Alex Hughes, School of Geography, Politics & Sociology, 5th Floor Claremont Tower, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU by 6th August.

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Reminder: DARG Committee Elections

At this year’s AGM we will be voting for a new Chair of DARG and for up to three committee members to replace members of the current committee who are coming to the end of their terms of office. Anyone standing for Chair should be a Fellow of the RGS: non-RGS members may stand as committee members, but may not hold the post of Treasurer or Secretary.

Anyone interested in standing for these posts can get in touch with a member of the current committee to find out more about the roles involved. Nominations must be proposed and seconded by members of the Group and must receive the assent of the nominee before submission to the Secretary, Nina Laurie (nina.laurie@newcastle.ac.uk). This year, we’re asking all people standing for committee/Chair to write a short statement (maximum 250 words) on what they would bring to the role – and we aim to circulate these to all members ahead of the AGM.

All nominations should be sent to Nina on/before 11th August.

 

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Undergraduate dissertation prize

The Developing Areas Research Group in conjunction with Earthscan offers an annual prize for the most promising dissertation concerning ‘The Geography of Developing Areas’. The author of the winning dissertation receives £100 worth of Earthscan books of their choice, and 25% discount on any further Earthscan books ordered.

The prize is open to any student taking a first degree in Geography. Students taking joint degrees are eligible to enter for the prize, provided that at least half their course is in Geography. It is suggested that no Department of Geography submits more than one dissertation for this prize. Dissertations will be evaluated by three members of the DARG Committee.

Dissertations, along with a copy of the instructions given to students, should be sent by email as a PDF to the DARG Undergraduate Prize Committee at: S.L.Parker at livjm.ac.uk

Emails should include “DARG UG dissertation sumbission” as the email subject. Please also include student details, and who to contact to announce the winner.

Deadline: 14th July 2014

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Cultural Geographies of Development: Politics, Approaches and Methods for Teaching Geography Undergraduates

Date: Monday 30th June 2014, 9.45-1.00

Venue: Room 311, Geography Building, School of School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT

This half-day event is organised by Dr Pat Noxolo, University of Birmingham, and is funded by the University of Birmingham Excellence in Teaching Fund, with postgraduate travel bursaries funded by the Developing Areas Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society

Description: There was a time in development theory and practice when ‘culture’ was seen as a collection of inconvenient local traditions that would be swept away by modernisation.  But culture has proved remarkably adaptable, so that globalisation has only increased cultural diversity and the awareness of difference.

This half-day event is for established, new and potential lecturers in development geography.  It is an opportunity to explore, through discussion, why, what and how we can teach students about what is meant by culture, its geographies, and its changing relationships with the spaces and places of development.  How can students understand processes of cultural change in relation to a range of development practices, and the challenges of living and working with cultural difference in an increasingly interconnected but still highly unequal world?  And what are the possible implications of the increasingly diverse cultures of development practitioners, organisations and institutions, for students’ future roles and responsibilities in addressing global inequality?

The timetable for the event is as follows:

9.45 Welcome and opening thoughts (Dr Pat Noxolo, University of Birmingham)

10.00 Discussions and experiences 1 (facilitator: Pat Noxolo): Cultural geographies of development: opportunities and dangers?

10.45 Break

11.00 Discussions and experiences 2 (facilitators: Drs Clare Madge and Jen Dickinson, University of Leicester): Curricular movements: whose geographies, what culture, which developments?

11.45 Discussions and experiences 3 (facilitators: Dr Susan Mains, University of Dundee, and Clare Newstead, Nottingham Trent University): Changing teaching and learning methods: changing geographers?

12.45 Closing thoughts (facilitator: Pat Noxolo)

1.00 Close and buffet lunch

The event is intended as an informal opportunity for discussion based on teaching and learning experiences, so please come prepared to share your thoughts and practices.

Participation is free, but please email Dr Pat Noxolo by Monday 23rd June for catering purposes.  To apply for a postgraduate travel bursary to contribute to travel within the UK only, please email Dr Pat Noxolo by Monday 23rd June, giving details of your postgraduate research, and with a short statement (up to 150 words) saying why your research and teaching/future career make this a relevant event for you.

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DWS Prize Winner 2014

The results of the 2014 DWS essay competition run by DARG and sponsored by Routledge publishers are:

Winner:  William Nicolle  Exeter School

Highly Commended:  Noah Lipschitz, St Albans School and Tom Blackshaw  Exeter School

The essay title was: ‘Examine the view that levels of inequality are increasing within cities in the Global South’

Well done!