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Professor Caitlin DeSilvey

Professor of Cultural Geography

01326 254161

Environment and Sustainability Institute 1.36

Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9FE, UK

Office hours:

During term time students can book a slot on this Sharepoint worksheet to meet with me during my scheduled office hours.

Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving (2017)

Overview

I am a geographer whose research explores the cultural significance of material change and transformation, with a particular focus on heritage landscapes. I’ve worked with artists, archaeologists, environmental scientists and heritage practitioners on a range of interdisciplinary projects, supported by funding from UK research councils (AHRC, EPSRC, NERC), the Royal Geographical Society, the Norwegian Research Council and the European Social Fund. I often use visual imagery and story-telling to engage people in imagining changing environments and places, and look to patterns from the past to try to understand what the future might bring. Although much of my research is about how things (and places) fall apart, I am also interested in practices of repair and maintenance that hold things together.

My monograph, Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving (UMP 2017), received the 2018 Historic Preservation Book Prize. Recent publications include After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics (Routledge 2020), an edited collection stemming from a 2016-17 fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Study in Olso, and Heritage Futures: Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices (UCL 2020), a co-authored volume arising from work on the Heritage Futures research project.

I am Associate Director for Transdisciplinary Research in the Environment and Sustainability Institute, where I coordinate the ESI Creative Exchange Programme. I am also a member of the Centre for Geography and Environmental Science in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, an academic lead on the National Trust/University of Exeter research partnership and an affilate of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health.

You can find my Google Scholar account here and my LinkedIn account here.

Qualifications

2005 PhD Cultural Geography (Open University)
2001 MSc Cultural Geography (University of Edinburgh)
1994 BA Religious Studies and Environmental Studies (Yale University)

Career

2020-present Professor, University of Exeter

2015-2019 Associate Professor, University of Exeter
2012-2015 Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter
2007-2011 Lecturer, University of Exeter

Research group links

Cultural and Historical Geographies

Butte, Montana

Mullion, Cornwall

Grain binder in box elder

Research

Research interests

My main research interest involves exploring how cultural value and significance can be generated by working with ecological processes of change and decay, rather than working against them, particularly in heritage contexts. This focus on process, rather than preservation, has been articulated through collaborative development of a series of novel concepts, including ‘curated decay’ and 'adaptive release'. My research has evidenced how, in certain sites, accommodation of material transformation can produce new opportunities for engagement, interpretation and care. Current projects extend and apply these ideas through collaborations with heritage practitioners and policy-makers, museum conservators and conservation architects.

My research (and my PhD supervision) also touches on a range of related themes beyond this core focus, including: narratives of climate and environmental change; materiality and memory; transdisciplinary methdologies and epistemological equity; post-industrial ecologies and aesthetics; locative media and landscape; waste and value; micro-sustainable practices of repair and reuse; digital storytelling and interactive documentary practices.

Research projects

Current projects

Principal investigator, Landscape Futures and the Challenge of Change (with the National Trust and Historic England) (AHRC/NERC Landscape Decisions Impact and Engagement Grant)
Collaborator and advisor, The Living Room, University of Copenhagen Medical Museion.
Lead academic, ESI Trelowarren Project (in development)
Lead supervisor, Archaeological Loss and Coastal Change (AHRC CDP with Historic England)
External scholar, Unruly Heritage: An Archaeology of the Anthropocene (Norwegian Research Council)
Network member, Aqueous Territory (AHRC)

Mentoring and advisory roles

Expert panel, Relics of Nature: An Archaelogy of Natural Heritage in the High North (Norwegian Research Council, PI Þóra Pétursdóttir)
Steering group member, Sustainable Development and Resilience of UK Coastal Communities (ROCC) (UKRI, PI Louisa Evans).
Mentor, Renewing Relations: Indigenous Heritage Rights and (Re)conciliation in Northwest Coast Canada (AHRC, PI Bryony Onciul).
Advisory group member, AALERT 4DM (UKRI/NERC Landscape Decisions Programme, PI Eirini Saratsi)

Previous projects

Co-investigator, Repair Acts (AHRC International Research Network Grant)
Co-investigator, Assembling Alternative Futures for Heritage (AHRC Care for the Future Large Grant)
Co-investigator, Drought Risk and You (RCUK Droughts and Water Scarcity Programme)
Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, in After Discourse: Things, Archaeology, and Heritage in the 21st Century research group (2016-17)
Principal investigator, Small is Beautiful? Visual and Material Cultures of Making and Mending and Celebration of Repair (2010-2012)

Research networks

Climate Heritage Network, ICOMOS

Specialist Advsiory Network, National Trust

Publications

Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year

Key publications

DeSilvey C, Fredheim H, Fluck H, Hails R, Harrison R, Samuel I, Blundell A (2021). When Loss is More: from Managed Decline to Adaptive Release. Historic Environment: Policy and Practice, 12(3-4), 418-433. Abstract.

Olsen B, Burström M, DeSilvey C, Pétursdóttir Þ (eds)(2020). After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics., Routledge. Abstract. Author URL.

DeSilvey C, Harrison R (2020). Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26(1), 1-7. Abstract.

Harrison R, Desilvey C, MacDonald S, Holtorf C (2020). Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. London, UCL Press. Abstract. Author URL.

Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall. Geoforum, 113, 39-49. Abstract.

DeSilvey CO, Bartolini N (2019). Where horses run free? Autonomy, temporality and rewilding in the Côa Valley, Portugal. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Publications by category

Books

Olsen B, Burström M, DeSilvey C, Pétursdóttir Þ (eds)(2020). After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics., Routledge. Abstract. Author URL.

Harrison R, Desilvey C, MacDonald S, Holtorf C (2020). Heritage Futures Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. London, UCL Press. Abstract. Author URL.

DeSilvey CO (2017). Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving., University of Minnesota Press. Abstract. Author URL.

Bond, S, DeSilvey, C, Ryan J (2013). Visible mending: everyday repairs in the South West., Uniform Books. Author URL.

DeSilvey C (eds)(2011). Anticipatory history. Axminster, Uniformbooks. Author URL.

DeSilvey C (2002). Butterflies and Railroad Ties: a History of a Montana Homestead. Missoula, Montana.

Journal articles

Kadhim I, Abed FM, DeSilvey C (In Press). Combining remote sensing approaches for detecting marks of archaeological and demolished constructions in Cahokia’s Grand Plaza, South-Western Illinois. Remote Sensing

Venture T, DeSilvey C, Onciul B, Fluck H (2021). Articulating Loss: a Thematic Framework for Understanding Coastal Heritage Transformations. Historic Environment: Policy and Practice, 12(3-4), 395-417. Abstract.

Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2021). Landscape futures: decision-making in uncertain times, a literature review. Landscape Research, 46(1), 8-24. Abstract.

DeSilvey C, Harrison R (2020). Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26(1), 1-7. Abstract.

Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Making space for hybridity: Industrial heritage naturecultures at West Carclaze Garden Village, Cornwall. Geoforum, 113, 39-49. Abstract.

Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2020). Recording Loss: film as method and the spirit of Orford Ness. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26(1), 19-36. Abstract.

DeSilvey CO (2019). Unbuilding: Process and Preservation. New Geographies, 10(10), 101-106. Abstract.

DeSilvey CO, Bartolini N (2019). Where horses run free? Autonomy, temporality and rewilding in the Côa Valley, Portugal. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

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 S, Morgan J, Penrose S (2016). Heritage Futures. Archaeology International, 19(1).

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.

Casalegno S, Inger R, Desilvey C, Gaston KJ (2013). Spatial covariance between aesthetic value & other ecosystem services. PLoS One, 8(6). 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.

DeSilvey C (2012). Making sense of transience: an anticipatory history. cultural geographies, 19(1), 31-54. Abstract.

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. 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. 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. Author URL.

Chapters

DeSilvey C (2022). Becoming Apple. In Rouleau C (Ed) Woven in Vegetal Fabric: on Plant Becomings, Luxembourg: Casino Luxembourg, 222-241.

Grünfeld M, DeSilvey C (2022). Fringe Objects: Cultivating Residues at the Museum. In (Ed) MUSEALE RESTE, 35-44.

DeSilvey C (2022). Placing Time. In (Ed) Re-Creating Anthropology, 34-44.

DeSilvey C (2021). A Tale of Two Slates: on Collapse and Complicity. In Grossman V, Miguel C (Eds.) Everyday Matters: Contemporary Approaches to Architecture, Ruby Press, 142-155. Abstract.

DeSilvey C (2021). A positive passivity: Entropy and ecology in the ruins. In (Ed) Heritage Ecologies, 285-305.

Olsen BJ, Burström M, DeSilvey C, Pétursdóttir Þ (2020). After discourse. In (Ed) After Discourse, 1-17.

DeSilvey C (2020). Ethics: Caring for things. In (Ed) After Discourse, 205-206.

DeSilvey C (2020). Foreword: on Consciousness and Conspiracy. In Mackay R (Ed) Hydroplutonic Kernow, MIT Press, xxv-xxix. Abstract. Author URL.

DeSilvey C (2020). Foundered: other objects and the ethics of indifference. In Olsen B, Burström M, DeSilvey C, Pétursdóttir Þ (Eds.) After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics, Routledge, 219-231. Abstract.

DeSilvey C (2020). Palliative curation and future persistence: life after death. In Holtorf C, Högberg A (Eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future, Key Issues in Cultural Heritage, 217-229. Abstract. Author URL.

DeSilvey C (2020). Ruderal Heritage. In Harrison R, Sterling C (Eds.) Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage In, of and After the Anthropocene, Open Humanities Press, 289-310. Author URL.

DeSilvey CO (2019). Head, Hand, Heart: on Contradiction, Contingency and Repair. In Laviolette P, Martinez F (Eds.) Repair, Breakages, Breakthroughs: Ethnographic Responses, Berghan, 17-23. Author URL.

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, 193-206. Author URL.

Bartolini N, DeSilvey C (2019). Rewilding as heritage-making: New natural heritage and renewed memories in Portugal. In (Ed) The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place, 305-314.

DeSilvey CO (2018). All Change (exhibition catalogue essay). In Cannon L (Ed) Liminal Matter, 3-5. Author URL.

DeSilvey C, Yusoff K (2018). Art and geography. In (Ed) companion encyclopedia of geography, 571-586.

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.

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.

Paton DA, DeSilvey C (2016). Growing granite: the recombinant geologies of sludge. In (Ed) Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, 221-237. Abstract.

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). Photo essay: 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. Abstract. Author URL.

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.

Reports

DeSilvey C, Fredheim H, Blundell A, Harrison R (2022). Identifying Opportunities for Integrated Adaptive Management of Heritage Change and Transformation in England: a Review of Relevant Policy and Current Practice. Historic England, Historic England. Abstract.

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.

Publications by year

In Press

2022