Publications by category
Books
Harrison R, Desilvey C, MacDonald S, Holtorf C (2020).
Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. London, UCL Press.
Abstract:
Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices
Abstract.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2017).
Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving., University of Minnesota Press.
Abstract:
Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
Bond, S, DeSilvey, C, Ryan J (2013). Visible mending: everyday repairs in the South West., Uniform Books.
DeSilvey C, Naylor S, Sackett C (2011).
Anticipatory history. Axminster, Uniformbooks.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2002). Butterflies and Railroad Ties: a History of a Montana Homestead. Missoula, Montana.
Journal articles
DeSilvey C, Harrison R (2020). Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures.
International Journal of Heritage Studies,
26(1), 1-7.
Abstract:
Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures
© 2019, © 2019 the Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor. &. Francis Group. Heritage relies, to a large extent, on notions of endangerment and consequential attempts to arrest or reverse processes of loss and change. The papers in this special issue engage critically with this underlying orientation, exploring the social and cultural work which is produced through efforts to avert loss. In doing so, the papers also point towards alternative ways of valuing objects, places and practices which are not solely determined by notions of endangerment and risk. We suggest three general themes which connect critical investigation of these issues across the varied natural and cultural heritage contexts through which these papers work–the inevitability of loss; the politics of loss; and the potential in loss. These themes have significant implications not only for the future of natural and cultural heritage preservation, conservation and management but also in mapping out future research directions for critical heritage studies.
Abstract.
Full text.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Landscape futures: decision-making in uncertain times, a literature review.
Landscape ResearchAbstract:
Landscape futures: decision-making in uncertain times, a literature review
© 2020 Landscape Research Group Ltd. This review considers how rapid environmental change, generated through both inhuman natural forces and human-induced impacts, affects landscape futures and decision-making processes. To do this, we start by defining ‘futures’, and, more specifically, the different kinds of futures at stake in changing landscapes. We discuss how rapid environmental change not only puts immediate pressure on identifying alternative futures for landscapes, but also threatens to unsettle patterns of attachment to the landscape. We then explore different ways of managing tensions and consider strategies that have been used for breaking down binary divisions that may stymie informed and integrated decision-making. We conclude by adapting a five-point framework that incorporates uncertainty and environmental change when making decisions about landscape futures.
Abstract.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall.
Geoforum,
113, 39-49.
Abstract:
Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall
© 2020 the Authors the paper explores the diverse forms of renaturing and reinscription which arise from the materiality of industrial decline and the desire to make space for nature in new peri-urban developments. As productive use is sought for post-operational spaces, remnant industrial objects and ecologies are either removed or incorporated into new landscape narratives and forms. When they are retained, the status of such remnants often remains unstable, as their identities are (re)inscribed through diverse and sometimes competing value frameworks. Instability and ambivalence are particularly pronounced in relation to features that straddle categories of nature and society: nature-culture assemblages produced through both industrial and ecological processes. In this paper, we examine two such assemblages at West Carclaze, Cornwall, in the SW of the UK, a site shaped by the process of china clay extraction and now undergoing redevelopment as a ‘garden village’. The paper considers an artificial hill formed of clay-processing waste and a rare bryophyte species which depends for its survival on ongoing industrial process. Both of these objects represent a category which we describe as ‘industrial heritage naturecultures’ – hybrid entities whose recognition potentially signals a new willingness to accept the blurring of nature-society distinctions in planning and heritage management contexts.
Abstract.
Full text.
Bartolini NLM, DeSilvey C (2019). Recording Loss: film as method and the spirit of Orford Ness.
International Journal of Heritage Studies Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Unbuilding: Process and Preservation. New Geographies, 10, 101-106.
DeSilvey C, Bartolini N (2018). Where horses run free? Autonomy, temporality and rewilding in the Côa Valley, Portugal.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
44(1), 94-109.
Full text.
DeSilvey C (2017). Book Review Forum: Curated Decay, with commentaries by Emma Waterton, Harlan Morehouse, Richard Schein, Tim Cresswell and Caitlin DeSilvey. cultural geographies, 147447401773298-147447401773298.
Harrison R, Bartolini N, DeSilvey C, Holtorf C, Lyons A, Macdonald S, May SF, Morgan J, Penrose S (2016). Heritage Futures.
Archaeology International Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2015). Book Review: Mining Memories: Placing the Anthropocene. Cultural Geographies, 22, 377-378.
DeSilvey C, Ryan J, Bond S (2013). 21 Stories. Cultural Geographies, 21(4), 657-672.
Desilvey C (2013). Photo Essay.
Abstract:
Photo Essay
This illustrated essay presents a series of photographic images documenting the contents of an abandoned cobbler’s workshop in Cornwall, UK. A reflection on the process of encountering and documenting this place accompanies the photographs, and problematizes the impulse to conduct ‘salvage archaeology’ through means of visual representation. The process of photographic mediation is traced through four distinct stages: invitation, intercession, intrusion, and invention. The essay draws on the work of Walter Benjamin and Michael Taussig to explore how the act of representation can be seen to be implicated in both the destruction and production of an object’s aura, particularly in relation to transient and ephemeral material cultures.
Abstract.
Casalegno S, Inger R, Desilvey C, Gaston KJ (2013). Spatial covariance between aesthetic value & other ecosystem services.
PLoS One,
8(6).
Abstract:
Spatial covariance between aesthetic value & other ecosystem services.
Mapping the spatial distribution of ecosystem goods and services represents a burgeoning field of research, although how different services covary with one another remains poorly understood. This is particularly true for the covariation of supporting, provisioning and regulating services with cultural services (the non-material benefits people gain from nature). This is largely because of challenges associated with the spatially specific quantification of cultural ecosystem services. We propose an innovative approach for evaluating a cultural service, the perceived aesthetic value of ecosystems, by quantifying geo-tagged digital photographs uploaded to social media resources. Our analysis proceeds from the premise that images will be captured by greater numbers of people in areas that are more highly valued for their aesthetic attributes. This approach was applied in Cornwall, UK, to carry out a spatial analysis of the covariation between ecosystem services: soil carbon stocks, agricultural production, and aesthetic value. Our findings suggest that online geo-tagged images provide an effective metric for mapping a key component of cultural ecosystem services. They also highlight the non-stationarity in the spatial relationships between patterns of ecosystem services.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Nettley A, DeSilvey CO, Anderson K, Caseldine C (2013). Visualising sea-level rise at a coastal heritage site: participatory process and creative communication.
Landscape Research, 1-11.
Abstract:
Visualising sea-level rise at a coastal heritage site: participatory process and creative communication
This paper describes a research project that aimed to translate complex spatial and scientific data about coastal change into accessible digital formats for general audiences. The project used fine-scale remote sensing techniques including airborne and terrestrial laser scanning to produce spatially accurate and realistic 3D digital visualisations of projected sea level rise at Cotehele Quay, a site on the River Tamar in Cornwall owned and managed by the National Trust. Area residents and stakeholders were involved in a series of focus groups which provided guidance on the integration of the spatial models into a short film. The paper focuses on how the participatory, iterative process adopted in the project shaped the content and design of the film. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this process enhanced the viability of the film as a communication tool for use in wider engagement activities.
Keywords: : Terrestrial laser scanning , heritage , sea-level rise , community engagement , multi-media
Abstract.
DeSilvey C (2012). Making sense of transience: an anticipatory history. cultural geographies, 19(1), 31-54.
DeSilvey C, Edensor T (2012). Reckoning with ruins. Progress in Human Geography, 37(4), 465-485.
DeSilvey C (2010). Memory in motion: soundings from Milltown, Montana.
Social and Cultural Geography,
11(5), 491-510.
Abstract:
Memory in motion: soundings from Milltown, Montana
Geographers have begun to investigate the link between creative production and cultural memory-work, exploring how art interventions frame and facilitate engagements with the past in place. This paper builds on this emerging area of enquiry to examine the transformation of an industrial river landscape in Western Montana, and the production of a sound artwork which attempted to respond to the landscape’s unmaking with an interactive installation at a local museum. An interest in how cultural remembrance is practiced and performed in relation to processes of material disarticulation guides the analysis. In conclusion, the paper proposes that a form of kinetic memory characterises engagement with ephemeral sites and the cultural productions they catalyse. The researcher’s involvement in the installation process opens up an adjacent discussion about geographical research conducted on, and through, contemporary art practice.
Abstract.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2010). River Axe Crossings.
J HIST GEOGR,
36(1), 119-119.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2010). The comfort of things.
ENVIRON PLANN D,
28(3), 562-563.
Author URL.
Degen M, DeSilvey C, Rose G (2008). Experiencing visualities in designed urban environments: learning from Milton Keynes.
ENVIRON PLANN A,
40(8), 1901-1920.
Abstract:
Experiencing visualities in designed urban environments: learning from Milton Keynes
In many discussions of how cities in the global North are changing, the growing importance of urban design is emphasised: that is, the production of visually and spatially coherent urban buildings and spaces seems to be increasingly central to urban change. To date, most attention has focused on exploring the reasons for this shift. Much less attention has been paid to the experiences of the people inhabiting and using such designed spaces. Although many authors acknowledge that, in theory, such encounters between human subjects and designed urban environments are richly various and unpredictable, few studies have examined this empirically and learnt theoretically from these encounters. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in the British city of Milton Keynes-the centre of which is a shopping mall, a designed environment par excellence-the authors argue that understanding experiences of contemporary urban change requires a relational and performative understanding of environmental encounters, and they suggest three intertwined implications for rethinking research on urban aesthetics: first, a multimodal and sensuously embedded understanding of vision; second, a practice-centred understanding of the environment; and third, a need for self-reflexive understanding of the researchers' position in the fieldwork.
Abstract.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2007). Art and archive: memory-work on a Montana homestead. Journal of Historical Geography, 33(4), 878-900.
DeSilvey C (2007). Salvage memory: constellating material histories on a hardscrabble homestead. Cultural Geographies, 14(3), 401-424.
DeSilvey C (2006). Observed decay: telling stories with mutable things.
Journal of Material Culture,
11(3), 318-338.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2003). Cultivated histories in a Scottish allotment garden.
CULT GEOGR,
10(4), 442-468.
Abstract:
Cultivated histories in a Scottish allotment garden
The historical development of Scottish allotment gardens has invested these urban agricultural landscapes with an ambiguous diversity that persists today in both plot-level practice and in political representations. This paper examines how the ambiguity that pervades allotment practice surfaces as a liability in strategic appeals. I juxtapose a pair of narratives - the story of my involvement in a Scottish Parliament Allotments Inquiry and a history of a single Edinburgh allotment site - to draw out the survival of historical forms in contemporary political negotiations. Although a theory of `tactics' and ` strategies', adopted from Michel de Certeau, frames my discussion, I locate my analysis in the gap between these categories.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Chapters
DeSilvey C (2020). Foreword: on Consciousness and Conspiracy. In Mackay R (Ed)
Hydroplutonic Kernow, Urbanomic / Redactions, xxv-xxix.
Abstract:
Foreword: on Consciousness and Conspiracy
Abstract.
DeSilvey C (2020). Ruderal Heritage. In Harrison R, Sterling C (Eds.)
Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage In, of and After the Anthropocene, Open Humanities Press.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Head, Hand, Heart: on Contradiction, Contingency and Repair. In Laviolette P, Martinez F (Eds.) Repair, Breakages, Breakthroughs: Ethnographic Responses, Berghan.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Rewilding Time in the Vale do Côa. In Tamm M, Olivier L (Eds.)
Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism, Bloomsbury Academic.
Full text.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey CO (2019). Rewilding as heritage-making: new natural heritage and renewed memories in Portugal. In de Nardi S, Orange H, Koskinen-Koivisto E, Drozdzewski D, High S (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place.
DeSilvey CO (2018). All Change (exhibition catalogue essay). In Cannon L (Ed)
Liminal Matter, 3-5.
Author URL.
DeSilvey CO, Ryan J (2018). Everyday Kintsukuroi: Mending as Making. In Price L, Hawkins H (Eds.)
Geographies of Making, Craft and Creativity, London: Routledge, 195-212.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2018). The Death of a Lighthouse. In Strang V, Edensor T, Puckering J (Eds.) From the Lighthouse: an Experiment in Interdisciplinarity, Routledge, 157-160.
DeSilvey CO (2017). Life after death: palliative curation and future persistence. In Holtorf C, Hogberg A (Eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future, Routledge.
DeSilvey CO (2015). Elemental Analysis. In Raymond-Barker O (Ed) Natural Alchemy, Falmouth, UK: Two Wood Press.
Paton D, DeSilvey C (2014). Growing granite: the recombinant geologies of sludge. In Hallam E, Ingold T (Eds.) Making and growing: anthropological studies of organisms and artefacts, Ashgate, 221-238.
DeSilvey C (2014). Palliative curation: art and entropy on Orford Ness. In Olsen B, Petursdottir T (Eds.) Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, Routledge, 79-91.
DeSilvey C (2013). Object lessons: from batholith to bookend. In Winders J, Schein RH, Johnson NC (Eds.) Companion to Cultural Geography, Wiley-Blackwell, 146-158.
DeSilvey C, Bond S (2013). On salvage photography. In Piccini A, Harrison R, Graves-Brown P (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, Oxford University Press, 642-656.
DeSilvey C (2012). Copper places: affective circuitries. In Jones O, Garde-Hansen J (Eds.) Geography and memory: explorations in identity, place and becoming, Palgrave Macmillan, 45-57.
DeSilvey CO (2012). Observed decay: telling stories with mutable things (reprint). In Dudley S (Ed) Museum Objects, Routledge.
Desilvey CO (2007). Practical remembrance: material and method in a recycled archive. In Gagen E, Lorimer H, Vasudevan A (Eds.) Practicing the Archive: Reflections on Methods and Practice in Historical Geography, London: RGS Historical Geography Research Group Monograph Series, 37-45.
DeSilvey C, Yusoff K (2006). Art and geography: image and interpretation. In Douglas A, Huggett R, Perkins C (Eds.) Companion Encyclopaedia of Geography: from Local to Global, London: Routledge, 571-586.
Conferences
Nettley A, Anderson K, DeSilvey C, Caseldine C (2011). USING TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING AND LIDAR DATA FOR PHOTO-REALISTIC VISUALISATION OF CLIMATE IMPACTS AT HERITAGE SITES.
Author URL.
Nettley A, Anderson K, DeSilvey CO, Caseldine CJ (2011). Using terrestrial laser scanning and LiDAR data for photo-realistic visualisation of climate impacts at heritage sites. 4th ISPRS International Workshop 3D-ARCH 2011 “3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures”. 2nd - 5th Mar 2011.
Abstract:
Using terrestrial laser scanning and LiDAR data for photo-realistic visualisation of climate impacts at heritage sites
Abstract.
Reports
Church A, Fish R, Haines-Young R, Mourato S, Tratalos J (2014). Work Package 5: Cultural Ecosystem Services and Indicators. DEFRA.
Desilvey CO (2006). Coloma, Montana: Cultural Resource Management Plan. Bureau of Land Management, Missoula: BLM Missoula Field Office.
Desilvey CO (2006). Update to the Joint Northside/Westside Neighborhood Plan. Missoula City/County Office of Planning and Grants, Missoula, Montana.
Internet publications
DeSilvey CO (2017). The Art of Losing.
Web link.
DeSilvey C (2008). Watershed moment: the death of a Montana dam, Slate Magazine.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2006). Dammed memories: a Montana river, transformed, Slate Magazine.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2005). Rot in peace: putting old buildings and settlements to rest, Slate Magazine.
Author URL.
Publications by year
2020
DeSilvey C, Harrison R (2020). Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures.
International Journal of Heritage Studies,
26(1), 1-7.
Abstract:
Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures
© 2019, © 2019 the Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor. &. Francis Group. Heritage relies, to a large extent, on notions of endangerment and consequential attempts to arrest or reverse processes of loss and change. The papers in this special issue engage critically with this underlying orientation, exploring the social and cultural work which is produced through efforts to avert loss. In doing so, the papers also point towards alternative ways of valuing objects, places and practices which are not solely determined by notions of endangerment and risk. We suggest three general themes which connect critical investigation of these issues across the varied natural and cultural heritage contexts through which these papers work–the inevitability of loss; the politics of loss; and the potential in loss. These themes have significant implications not only for the future of natural and cultural heritage preservation, conservation and management but also in mapping out future research directions for critical heritage studies.
Abstract.
Full text.
DeSilvey C (2020). Foreword: on Consciousness and Conspiracy. In Mackay R (Ed)
Hydroplutonic Kernow, Urbanomic / Redactions, xxv-xxix.
Abstract:
Foreword: on Consciousness and Conspiracy
Abstract.
Harrison R, Desilvey C, MacDonald S, Holtorf C (2020).
Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. London, UCL Press.
Abstract:
Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices
Abstract.
Full text.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Landscape futures: decision-making in uncertain times, a literature review.
Landscape ResearchAbstract:
Landscape futures: decision-making in uncertain times, a literature review
© 2020 Landscape Research Group Ltd. This review considers how rapid environmental change, generated through both inhuman natural forces and human-induced impacts, affects landscape futures and decision-making processes. To do this, we start by defining ‘futures’, and, more specifically, the different kinds of futures at stake in changing landscapes. We discuss how rapid environmental change not only puts immediate pressure on identifying alternative futures for landscapes, but also threatens to unsettle patterns of attachment to the landscape. We then explore different ways of managing tensions and consider strategies that have been used for breaking down binary divisions that may stymie informed and integrated decision-making. We conclude by adapting a five-point framework that incorporates uncertainty and environmental change when making decisions about landscape futures.
Abstract.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall.
Geoforum,
113, 39-49.
Abstract:
Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall
© 2020 the Authors the paper explores the diverse forms of renaturing and reinscription which arise from the materiality of industrial decline and the desire to make space for nature in new peri-urban developments. As productive use is sought for post-operational spaces, remnant industrial objects and ecologies are either removed or incorporated into new landscape narratives and forms. When they are retained, the status of such remnants often remains unstable, as their identities are (re)inscribed through diverse and sometimes competing value frameworks. Instability and ambivalence are particularly pronounced in relation to features that straddle categories of nature and society: nature-culture assemblages produced through both industrial and ecological processes. In this paper, we examine two such assemblages at West Carclaze, Cornwall, in the SW of the UK, a site shaped by the process of china clay extraction and now undergoing redevelopment as a ‘garden village’. The paper considers an artificial hill formed of clay-processing waste and a rare bryophyte species which depends for its survival on ongoing industrial process. Both of these objects represent a category which we describe as ‘industrial heritage naturecultures’ – hybrid entities whose recognition potentially signals a new willingness to accept the blurring of nature-society distinctions in planning and heritage management contexts.
Abstract.
Full text.
DeSilvey C (2020). Ruderal Heritage. In Harrison R, Sterling C (Eds.)
Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage In, of and After the Anthropocene, Open Humanities Press.
Full text.
2019
Raxworthy R (2019). Excavating the Archive: Heritage-making Practices in Cornwall’s Clay Country.
Abstract:
Excavating the Archive: Heritage-making Practices in Cornwall’s Clay Country.
In 1999 English China Clays (the then principal china clay producer in Cornwall and west Devon) was acquired by the multinational industrial minerals company Imerys. Shortly after, a group of concerned clay workers and local historians came together in a salvage mission to recover historical documents which had been deemed expendable during the business takeover. Together they ransacked offices and emptied filing cabinets collecting historic documentation about the industry. In the eighteen years that have followed, the china clay industry and its associated landscape have undergone immense change and transformation. Meanwhile, that small band of individuals has grown into the China Clay History Society (CCHS). CCHS is now in the process of formalising their salvaged collection, with curatorial expertise from the Wheal Martyn Museum (of which the CCHS is a component part). In this thesis, the CCHS archive and its associated community relationships are examined in relation to experiences of past loss, present instability, and the hope of future renewal.
Over an extended period of participant observation working alongside the caretakers of the archive, I explored the different practices of collecting, sorting, and valuing which are making and remaking china clay heritage in mid-Cornwall. Drawing on heritage studies and past studies of collecting, as well as professional museum and archival scholarship, this thesis emphasises the role that practice and material relationships play in the assembling of heritage (Macdonald 2009). Two distinct modes of ordering (Law 1994; 2004) – ‘Passion’ and ‘Purpose’ – are identified as central to this research, which aims to show how different practices of collecting and valuing have profound implications for the ways china clay heritage may be performed in the future.
Abstract.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Head, Hand, Heart: on Contradiction, Contingency and Repair. In Laviolette P, Martinez F (Eds.) Repair, Breakages, Breakthroughs: Ethnographic Responses, Berghan.
Bartolini NLM, DeSilvey C (2019). Recording Loss: film as method and the spirit of Orford Ness.
International Journal of Heritage Studies Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Rewilding Time in the Vale do Côa. In Tamm M, Olivier L (Eds.)
Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism, Bloomsbury Academic.
Full text.
Bartolini N, DeSilvey CO (2019). Rewilding as heritage-making: new natural heritage and renewed memories in Portugal. In de Nardi S, Orange H, Koskinen-Koivisto E, Drozdzewski D, High S (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place.
Sainsbury K (2019). The Recovery of the Polecat Mustela putorius in Great Britain.
Abstract:
The Recovery of the Polecat Mustela putorius in Great Britain
Many carnivore species are experiencing declines due to anthropogenic factors such as direct killing, habitat loss, secondary exposure to chemical control agents, and depletion of prey resources. Due to their top-down effects on the structure and function of ecosystems, carnivores are, however, increasingly the focus of efforts towards ecological restoration. To enable such restoration to take place, wildlife managers need to understand both the ecological processes and the social-ecological factors that may affect carnivore recovery and establishment.
In this thesis, I use the European polecat Mustela putorius, which is currently recolonising Great Britain following near extirpation in the nineteenth century, as a case study through which to explore the processes of carnivore recovery. I investigate social and ecological risks to the polecat’s continuing range and population expansion, which may also be pertinent to the wider challenges of carnivore conservation.
In my introduction, I outline the importance of carnivores to ecosystem function and review the wide-ranging and cascading effects their reinstatement can have. I provide an overview of human-carnivore interactions and the anthropogenic processes that directly or indirectly lead to carnivore declines. I give a historical context to human-carnivore relations in Great Britain, introduce polecats, their biology and changing status and provide an overview of my research objectives and thesis structure.
I then carry out a detailed literature review of the changing status of the eight terrestrial mammalian carnivores native to Great Britain. I summarise the anthropogenic processes that have influenced their status. I find that polecats have recolonised Great Britain less quickly than otters Lutra lutra but more quickly than pine martens Martes martes. Badgers Meles meles have increased in abundance. Foxes Vulpes vulpes are experiencing a decline and wildcat are imperilled by hybridisation with domestic cats. Stoats Mustela erminea and weasels Mustela nivalis are data deficient, but evidence suggests that stoats may be increasing in number relative to weasels.
Next, I explore polecat resource use during a period of ecological change by analysing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen from a museum collection of polecat whiskers. I find that variation in isotope ratios and isotopic niches indicate differences in resource use between polecats collected from the leading edge of the range compared to the established parts of the range and that this effect was greatest in the 1960s when rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus—an important prey for polecats—were in low abundance. I also find that female polecats show greater variation in resource use than males, indicating that they may have different needs as part of conservation efforts.
Next, I carry out a study of polecat diets to assess responses to fluctuating abundance of rabbits. I analyse the stomach contents from polecat carcasses collected between 2013 and 2016. I compare my results with those from earlier polecat dietary studies and find that the proportion of lagomorphs increased in polecat diet between the 1960s and 1990s. Although rabbit populations have been declining since the 1990s, I find no difference in the proportion of lagomorphs in polecat diet between the 1990s and 2010s.
Secondary exposure to second generation anticoagulant rodenticides is a contemporary risk to polecat recovery that is also related to their diet, as polecats are likely exposed to rodenticides by eating contaminated rodents. In Chapter 5, I analyse the livers from polecat carcasses collected between 2013 and 2016 to measure current levels of secondary exposure and explore factors that may affect exposure. I find that the frequency of exposure to rodenticides was 79% in polecats and that this represents a 1.7 fold increase in exposure frequency over 25 years. I find that the probability of exposure increases with age and with increasing values of ẟ15N, suggesting that resource use influences polecat exposure to rodenticides.
I then explore the principles underpinning modern gamekeeping practices, by carrying out interviews with gamekeepers to find out what they do and why. In this qualitative study, I analyse gamekeepers’ conception of the Balance, which is an overarching narrative that they have adopted to explain their approach to wildlife management. Although the Balance includes echoes of the heuristic of the ‘balance-of-nature’, it is most often employed in the context of maximising shootable game surpluses while providing opportunities to other wildlife that do not conflict with this objective. I find that keeping the Balance requires a ritualised, highly interventionist approach to producing game that presents both risks and rewards to predators. The multiplicity of the Balance—in which gamekeepers are stewards of both game and the countryside—creates an ambiguity that, when associated with the regular culling of predators and negative perceptions of sport shooting, may cause misunderstandings between gamekeepers and other publics.
In conclusion, I find that polecats have been able to recolonise most of southern Britain despite the risks of fluctuating rabbit populations, increasing exposure to rodenticides and predator controls. Polecat recovery has occurred with minimal direct conservation effort. It has also taken a long time: one hundred years after their population nadir, polecats are yet to fully recolonise their former range. More broadly, a low-intervention approach is unlikely to succeed, or be desirable, for all carnivores. In particular, those that are slower to mature, have lower reproductive rates, more specialised resource requirements and greater impact on anthropogenic practices, or where the potential ecological benefits that may be derived from a species’ restoration necessitate an expedited recovery.
Abstract.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2019). Unbuilding: Process and Preservation. New Geographies, 10, 101-106.
2018
DeSilvey CO (2018). All Change (exhibition catalogue essay). In Cannon L (Ed)
Liminal Matter, 3-5.
Author URL.
DeSilvey CO, Ryan J (2018). Everyday Kintsukuroi: Mending as Making. In Price L, Hawkins H (Eds.)
Geographies of Making, Craft and Creativity, London: Routledge, 195-212.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2018). The Death of a Lighthouse. In Strang V, Edensor T, Puckering J (Eds.) From the Lighthouse: an Experiment in Interdisciplinarity, Routledge, 157-160.
DeSilvey C, Bartolini N (2018). Where horses run free? Autonomy, temporality and rewilding in the Côa Valley, Portugal.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
44(1), 94-109.
Full text.
2017
DeSilvey C (2017). Book Review Forum: Curated Decay, with commentaries by Emma Waterton, Harlan Morehouse, Richard Schein, Tim Cresswell and Caitlin DeSilvey. cultural geographies, 147447401773298-147447401773298.
DeSilvey CO (2017).
Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving., University of Minnesota Press.
Abstract:
Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving
Abstract.
Author URL.
Full text.
DeSilvey CO (2017). Life after death: palliative curation and future persistence. In Holtorf C, Hogberg A (Eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future, Routledge.
DeSilvey CO (2017). Mud.
Uniformannual(2018), 90-91.
Author URL.
DeSilvey CO (2017). The Art of Losing.
Web link.
DeSilvey CO (2017). When Loss is More.
Views(54), 76-77.
Author URL.
2016
Harrison R, Bartolini N, DeSilvey C, Holtorf C, Lyons A, Macdonald S, May SF, Morgan J, Penrose S (2016). Heritage Futures.
Archaeology International Full text.
2015
DeSilvey CO (2015). Book Review: Mining Memories: Placing the Anthropocene. Cultural Geographies, 22, 377-378.
DeSilvey CO (2015). Elemental Analysis. In Raymond-Barker O (Ed) Natural Alchemy, Falmouth, UK: Two Wood Press.
2014
Paton D, DeSilvey C (2014). Growing granite: the recombinant geologies of sludge. In Hallam E, Ingold T (Eds.) Making and growing: anthropological studies of organisms and artefacts, Ashgate, 221-238.
DeSilvey C (2014). Palliative curation: art and entropy on Orford Ness. In Olsen B, Petursdottir T (Eds.) Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past, Routledge, 79-91.
Church A, Fish R, Haines-Young R, Mourato S, Tratalos J (2014). Work Package 5: Cultural Ecosystem Services and Indicators. DEFRA.
2013
DeSilvey C, Ryan J, Bond S (2013). 21 Stories. Cultural Geographies, 21(4), 657-672.
DeSilvey C (2013). Object lessons: from batholith to bookend. In Winders J, Schein RH, Johnson NC (Eds.) Companion to Cultural Geography, Wiley-Blackwell, 146-158.
DeSilvey C, Bond S (2013). On salvage photography. In Piccini A, Harrison R, Graves-Brown P (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, Oxford University Press, 642-656.
Desilvey C (2013). Photo Essay.
Abstract:
Photo Essay
This illustrated essay presents a series of photographic images documenting the contents of an abandoned cobbler’s workshop in Cornwall, UK. A reflection on the process of encountering and documenting this place accompanies the photographs, and problematizes the impulse to conduct ‘salvage archaeology’ through means of visual representation. The process of photographic mediation is traced through four distinct stages: invitation, intercession, intrusion, and invention. The essay draws on the work of Walter Benjamin and Michael Taussig to explore how the act of representation can be seen to be implicated in both the destruction and production of an object’s aura, particularly in relation to transient and ephemeral material cultures.
Abstract.
Casalegno S, Inger R, Desilvey C, Gaston KJ (2013). Spatial covariance between aesthetic value & other ecosystem services.
PLoS One,
8(6).
Abstract:
Spatial covariance between aesthetic value & other ecosystem services.
Mapping the spatial distribution of ecosystem goods and services represents a burgeoning field of research, although how different services covary with one another remains poorly understood. This is particularly true for the covariation of supporting, provisioning and regulating services with cultural services (the non-material benefits people gain from nature). This is largely because of challenges associated with the spatially specific quantification of cultural ecosystem services. We propose an innovative approach for evaluating a cultural service, the perceived aesthetic value of ecosystems, by quantifying geo-tagged digital photographs uploaded to social media resources. Our analysis proceeds from the premise that images will be captured by greater numbers of people in areas that are more highly valued for their aesthetic attributes. This approach was applied in Cornwall, UK, to carry out a spatial analysis of the covariation between ecosystem services: soil carbon stocks, agricultural production, and aesthetic value. Our findings suggest that online geo-tagged images provide an effective metric for mapping a key component of cultural ecosystem services. They also highlight the non-stationarity in the spatial relationships between patterns of ecosystem services.
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Bond, S, DeSilvey, C, Ryan J (2013). Visible mending: everyday repairs in the South West., Uniform Books.
Nettley A, DeSilvey CO, Anderson K, Caseldine C (2013). Visualising sea-level rise at a coastal heritage site: participatory process and creative communication.
Landscape Research, 1-11.
Abstract:
Visualising sea-level rise at a coastal heritage site: participatory process and creative communication
This paper describes a research project that aimed to translate complex spatial and scientific data about coastal change into accessible digital formats for general audiences. The project used fine-scale remote sensing techniques including airborne and terrestrial laser scanning to produce spatially accurate and realistic 3D digital visualisations of projected sea level rise at Cotehele Quay, a site on the River Tamar in Cornwall owned and managed by the National Trust. Area residents and stakeholders were involved in a series of focus groups which provided guidance on the integration of the spatial models into a short film. The paper focuses on how the participatory, iterative process adopted in the project shaped the content and design of the film. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this process enhanced the viability of the film as a communication tool for use in wider engagement activities.
Keywords: : Terrestrial laser scanning , heritage , sea-level rise , community engagement , multi-media
Abstract.
2012
DeSilvey C (2012). Copper places: affective circuitries. In Jones O, Garde-Hansen J (Eds.) Geography and memory: explorations in identity, place and becoming, Palgrave Macmillan, 45-57.
DeSilvey C (2012). Making sense of transience: an anticipatory history. cultural geographies, 19(1), 31-54.
DeSilvey CO (2012). Observed decay: telling stories with mutable things (reprint). In Dudley S (Ed) Museum Objects, Routledge.
DeSilvey C, Edensor T (2012). Reckoning with ruins. Progress in Human Geography, 37(4), 465-485.
2011
DeSilvey C, Naylor S, Sackett C (2011).
Anticipatory history. Axminster, Uniformbooks.
Author URL.
Nettley A, Anderson K, DeSilvey C, Caseldine C (2011). USING TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING AND LIDAR DATA FOR PHOTO-REALISTIC VISUALISATION OF CLIMATE IMPACTS AT HERITAGE SITES.
Author URL.
Nettley A, Anderson K, DeSilvey CO, Caseldine CJ (2011). Using terrestrial laser scanning and LiDAR data for photo-realistic visualisation of climate impacts at heritage sites. 4th ISPRS International Workshop 3D-ARCH 2011 “3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures”. 2nd - 5th Mar 2011.
Abstract:
Using terrestrial laser scanning and LiDAR data for photo-realistic visualisation of climate impacts at heritage sites
Abstract.
2010
DeSilvey C (2010). Memory in motion: soundings from Milltown, Montana.
Social and Cultural Geography,
11(5), 491-510.
Abstract:
Memory in motion: soundings from Milltown, Montana
Geographers have begun to investigate the link between creative production and cultural memory-work, exploring how art interventions frame and facilitate engagements with the past in place. This paper builds on this emerging area of enquiry to examine the transformation of an industrial river landscape in Western Montana, and the production of a sound artwork which attempted to respond to the landscape’s unmaking with an interactive installation at a local museum. An interest in how cultural remembrance is practiced and performed in relation to processes of material disarticulation guides the analysis. In conclusion, the paper proposes that a form of kinetic memory characterises engagement with ephemeral sites and the cultural productions they catalyse. The researcher’s involvement in the installation process opens up an adjacent discussion about geographical research conducted on, and through, contemporary art practice.
Abstract.
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DeSilvey C (2010). River Axe Crossings.
J HIST GEOGR,
36(1), 119-119.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2010). The comfort of things.
ENVIRON PLANN D,
28(3), 562-563.
Author URL.
2008
Degen M, DeSilvey C, Rose G (2008). Experiencing visualities in designed urban environments: learning from Milton Keynes.
ENVIRON PLANN A,
40(8), 1901-1920.
Abstract:
Experiencing visualities in designed urban environments: learning from Milton Keynes
In many discussions of how cities in the global North are changing, the growing importance of urban design is emphasised: that is, the production of visually and spatially coherent urban buildings and spaces seems to be increasingly central to urban change. To date, most attention has focused on exploring the reasons for this shift. Much less attention has been paid to the experiences of the people inhabiting and using such designed spaces. Although many authors acknowledge that, in theory, such encounters between human subjects and designed urban environments are richly various and unpredictable, few studies have examined this empirically and learnt theoretically from these encounters. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in the British city of Milton Keynes-the centre of which is a shopping mall, a designed environment par excellence-the authors argue that understanding experiences of contemporary urban change requires a relational and performative understanding of environmental encounters, and they suggest three intertwined implications for rethinking research on urban aesthetics: first, a multimodal and sensuously embedded understanding of vision; second, a practice-centred understanding of the environment; and third, a need for self-reflexive understanding of the researchers' position in the fieldwork.
Abstract.
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DeSilvey C (2008). Watershed moment: the death of a Montana dam, Slate Magazine.
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2007
DeSilvey C (2007). Art and archive: memory-work on a Montana homestead. Journal of Historical Geography, 33(4), 878-900.
Desilvey CO (2007). Practical remembrance: material and method in a recycled archive. In Gagen E, Lorimer H, Vasudevan A (Eds.) Practicing the Archive: Reflections on Methods and Practice in Historical Geography, London: RGS Historical Geography Research Group Monograph Series, 37-45.
DeSilvey C (2007). Salvage memory: constellating material histories on a hardscrabble homestead. Cultural Geographies, 14(3), 401-424.
Finlay A (2007). two fields of wheat seeded with a poppy-poem.
Author URL.
2006
DeSilvey C, Yusoff K (2006). Art and geography: image and interpretation. In Douglas A, Huggett R, Perkins C (Eds.) Companion Encyclopaedia of Geography: from Local to Global, London: Routledge, 571-586.
Desilvey CO (2006). Coloma, Montana: Cultural Resource Management Plan. Bureau of Land Management, Missoula: BLM Missoula Field Office.
DeSilvey C (2006). Dammed memories: a Montana river, transformed, Slate Magazine.
Author URL.
DeSilvey C (2006). Observed decay: telling stories with mutable things.
Journal of Material Culture,
11(3), 318-338.
Author URL.
Desilvey CO (2006). Update to the Joint Northside/Westside Neighborhood Plan. Missoula City/County Office of Planning and Grants, Missoula, Montana.
2005
DeSilvey C (2005). Rot in peace: putting old buildings and settlements to rest, Slate Magazine.
Author URL.
2004
DeSilvey CO (2004). A Landscape Event.
Verse Chain Author URL.
2003
DeSilvey C (2003). Cultivated histories in a Scottish allotment garden.
CULT GEOGR,
10(4), 442-468.
Abstract:
Cultivated histories in a Scottish allotment garden
The historical development of Scottish allotment gardens has invested these urban agricultural landscapes with an ambiguous diversity that persists today in both plot-level practice and in political representations. This paper examines how the ambiguity that pervades allotment practice surfaces as a liability in strategic appeals. I juxtapose a pair of narratives - the story of my involvement in a Scottish Parliament Allotments Inquiry and a history of a single Edinburgh allotment site - to draw out the survival of historical forms in contemporary political negotiations. Although a theory of `tactics' and ` strategies', adopted from Michel de Certeau, frames my discussion, I locate my analysis in the gap between these categories.
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2002
DeSilvey C (2002). Butterflies and Railroad Ties: a History of a Montana Homestead. Missoula, Montana.