Publications by category
Books
Harrison R, Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2012). Making Community Groups Work: a guide to success. Truro, Volunteer Cornwall.
Brace C, Bailey AR, Harvey DC, Thomas N, Carter S (eds)(2011). Emerging Geographies of Belief. UK, Cambridge Scholars.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010).
Process: Landscape and Text. Amsterdam, Rodopi.
Abstract:
Process: Landscape and Text
Abstract.
Journal articles
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (In Press). Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK. Area
Leyshon CS (In Press). Finding the coast: environmental governance and the characterisation of land and sea. Area
Geoghegan H, Leyshon C (In Press). On climate change and cultural geography: farming on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. Climatic Change
Mittal R, Rowse E, Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2023). Improving health and wellbeing through social prescribing. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 84(7), 1-4.
Williams AJ, Menneer T, Sidana M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2021). Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort.
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance,
7(2), e25037-e25037.
Abstract:
Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort
BackgroundPersonas, based on customer or population data, are widely used to inform design decisions in the commercial sector. The variety of methods available means that personas can be produced from projects of different types and scale.ObjectiveThis study aims to experiment with the use of personas that bring together data from a survey, household air measurements and electricity usage sensors, and an interview within a research and innovation project, with the aim of supporting eHealth and eWell-being product, process, and service development through broadening the engagement with and understanding of the data about the local community.MethodsThe project participants were social housing residents (adults only) living in central Cornwall, a rural unitary authority in the United Kingdom. A total of 329 households were recruited between September 2017 and November 2018, with 235 (71.4%) providing complete baseline survey data on demographics, socioeconomic position, household composition, home environment, technology ownership, pet ownership, smoking, social cohesion, volunteering, caring, mental well-being, physical and mental health–related quality of life, and activity. K-prototype cluster analysis was used to identify 8 clusters among the baseline survey responses. The sensor and interview data were subsequently analyzed by cluster and the insights from all 3 data sources were brought together to produce the personas, known as the Smartline Archetypes.ResultsThe Smartline Archetypes proved to be an engaging way of presenting data, accessible to a broader group of stakeholders than those who accessed the raw anonymized data, thereby providing a vehicle for greater research engagement, innovation, and impact.ConclusionsThrough the adoption of a tool widely used in practice, research projects could generate greater policy and practical impact, while also becoming more transparent and open to the public.
Abstract.
Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Walker T, Fish R (2021). More than sweat equity: Young people as volunteers in conservation work. Journal of Rural Studies, 81, 78-88.
Colebrooke L, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Walker T (2021). ‘We’re on the edge’: Cultures of care and Universal Credit. Social & Cultural Geography, 24(1), 86-103.
Esmene DS, Leyshon PC, Leyshon DM (2020). Beyond adherence to social prescriptions: How places, social acquaintances and stories help walking group members to thrive. Health & Place, 64, 102394-102394.
Walker T, Menneer T, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Williams AJ, Mueller M, Taylor T (2020). Determinants of Volunteering Within a Social Housing Community.
VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations,
33(1), 188-200.
Abstract:
Determinants of Volunteering Within a Social Housing Community
AbstractIn general, research demonstrates that deprivation, education, health, and well-being are determinants of volunteering, and that volunteering can play an important role in building stronger communities and provides many benefits for individual health and well-being. This study concentrates on the effects of physical and mental health and well-being as predictors when the aspect of socio-economic impact has been minimised. It utilises a unique data set from a UK Housing Association community with generally high levels of deprivation. Data were analysed using bivariate probit regression. In contrast to previous findings, physical health and mental health were not significantly related to volunteering. The key finding was that mental well-being was significantly related to informal volunteering.
Abstract.
Walker T, Esmene S, Colebrooke L, Leyshon C, Leyshon M (2020). Digital possibilities and social mission in the voluntary sector: the case of a community transport organisation in the UK.
Voluntary Sector Review,
11(1), 59-77.
Abstract:
Digital possibilities and social mission in the voluntary sector: the case of a community transport organisation in the UK
Digital technology is seen as a panacea to meeting the financial and operational challenges faced by voluntary and community sector organisations (VCSOs), through delivering efficiencies and cost-saving, alongside improving quality of service. However, according to recent assessments in the UK, the rate of digital adoption is slow compared with other sectors. This article identifies how a VCSO in a period of austerity prioritises its social mission over functionality and efficiency gains from digital technology. Employing the heuristic of phronesis, we argue that VCSOs seeking to implement digital innovations need to strike a balance between instrumental rationality (that is, what is possible to achieve with technology) and value rationality (that is, what is desirable to pursue by VCSOs). Our key argument is that theories of value rationality provide a new explanation for the slow adoption of digital technology among VCSOs.
Abstract.
Williams AJ, Menneer T, Sidana M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2020). Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort (Preprint).
Abstract:
Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort (Preprint)
. BACKGROUND
. Personas, based on customer or population data, are widely used to inform design decisions in the commercial sector. The variety of methods available means that personas can be produced from projects of different types and scale.
.
.
. OBJECTIVE
. This study aims to experiment with the use of personas that bring together data from a survey, household air measurements and electricity usage sensors, and an interview within a research and innovation project, with the aim of supporting eHealth and eWell-being product, process, and service development through broadening the engagement with and understanding of the data about the local community.
.
.
. METHODS
. The project participants were social housing residents (adults only) living in central Cornwall, a rural unitary authority in the United Kingdom. A total of 329 households were recruited between September 2017 and November 2018, with 235 (71.4%) providing complete baseline survey data on demographics, socioeconomic position, household composition, home environment, technology ownership, pet ownership, smoking, social cohesion, volunteering, caring, mental well-being, physical and mental health–related quality of life, and activity. K-prototype cluster analysis was used to identify 8 clusters among the baseline survey responses. The sensor and interview data were subsequently analyzed by cluster and the insights from all 3 data sources were brought together to produce the personas, known as the Smartline Archetypes.
.
.
. RESULTS
. The Smartline Archetypes proved to be an engaging way of presenting data, accessible to a broader group of stakeholders than those who accessed the raw anonymized data, thereby providing a vehicle for greater research engagement, innovation, and impact.
.
.
. CONCLUSIONS
. Through the adoption of a tool widely used in practice, research projects could generate greater policy and practical impact, while also becoming more transparent and open to the public.
.
Abstract.
Davies T, Cowley A, Bennie J, Leyshon C, Inger R, Carter H, Robinson B, Duffy JP, Casalegno S, Lambert G, et al (2019). Correction: Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
PLoS One,
14(2).
Abstract:
Correction: Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203694.].
Abstract.
Author URL.
Bell SL, Leyshon C, Phoenix C (2019). Negotiating nature’s weather worlds in the context of life with sight impairment. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Harrison RT, Kaesehage K, Leyshon C (2019). Special issue of leadership: Leadership and climate change: Authority, legitimacy and the ‘crisis of governance’. Leadership, 15(6), 768-773.
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Jeffries J (2019). The complex spaces of co-production, volunteering, ageing and care.
Area,
51(3), 433-442.
Abstract:
The complex spaces of co-production, volunteering, ageing and care
The care of older people is being radically reformulated by placing the individual at the centre of care process through the introduction of individual care plans. This marks a significant transition for the care of older people away from acute responsive clinical care towards a greater emphasis on co-produced preventative health and social care and relations of care “with” older people. Geographies of volunteerism are yet to consider the effect of co-production as a dominant rhetoric in UK health and social care. In this paper we show that the Health and Social Care Act (2012) and the Care Act (2014) has the potential to fundamentally alter discourses of care by introducing new spatialities to older people's care. New spatialities of care will not only rely on the reciprocity and interdependence of care between individuals and organisations but also the mobilisation of a voluntary care-force to be attentive to individuals. Spatialising co-production reveals the institutional and professional boundaries that prevent the type of open partnership that sits at the heart of the rhetoric. Our ethnographic and qualitative methodology was developed to understand how our case study of Living Well (Cornwall, UK), as a philosophy of care, is realised in practice and to consider the main collaborators’ views of different methods of co-production involving volunteers. We discuss two principal spaces of co-production, highlighting the opportunities provided for, and barriers to, co-production expressed by volunteers and other partners by attending to the relations of care that are recognised through: (1) formal meetings and coffee mornings, which provide spaces for volunteers to contribute, and (2) multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, in which volunteers are largely absent.
Abstract.
Davies T, Cowley A, Bennie J, Leyshon C, Inger R, Carter H, Robinson B, Duffy J, Casalegno S, Lambert G, et al (2018). Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
PLoS One,
13(9).
Abstract:
Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
The interrelationship between public interest in endangered species and the attention they receive from the conservation community is the 'flywheel' driving much effort to abate global extinction rates. Yet big international conservation non-governmental organisations have typically focused on the plight of a handful of appealing endangered species, while the public remains largely unaware of the majority. We quantified the existence of bias in popular interest towards species, by analysing global internet search interest in 36,873 vertebrate taxa. Web search interest was higher for mammals and birds at greater risk of extinction, but this was not so for fish, reptiles and amphibians. Our analysis reveals a global bias in popular interest towards vertebrates that is undermining incentives to invest financial capital in thousands of species threatened with extinction. Raising the popular profile of these lesser known endangered and critically endangered species will generate clearer political and financial incentives for their protection.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Bell SL, Leyshon C, Foley R, Kearns R (2018). The "healthy dose" of nature: a cautionary tale. Geography Compass
Köpsel V, Walsh C, Leyshon C (2017). Landscape narratives in practice: implications for climate change adaptation.
Geographical Journal,
183(2), 175-186.
Abstract:
Landscape narratives in practice: implications for climate change adaptation
Research on the societal dynamics of climate change adaptation has advanced during recent years from merely focusing on technical and economic factors to taking into consideration people's individual perspectives and personal values. Within this context a growing literature on the relationship between people's place attachment and climate change adaptation has emerged. This literature seeks to explain how individuals’ relationships with the places in which they live influence current and potential future responses to climate change at the local scale. Nevertheless, critical limitations are evident in the conceptualisation of place and people–place relationships within this literature. In particular, differences between individual place constructions and their possible implications for landscape management are given insufficient attention. To address these shortcomings, we mobilise research on the societal construction of landscapes to uncover how actors in landscape management perceive ‘their’ places and changes to them. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key actors in landscape management in Cornwall (UK), we present four contrasting narratives about local landscapes and climate change and highlight their potential implications for climate change adaptation.
Abstract.
Kaesehage K, Leyshon M, Ferns G, Leyshon C (2017). Seriously Personal: the Reasons that Motivate Entrepreneurs to Address Climate Change. Journal of Business Ethics, 157(4), 1091-1109.
Leyshon C (2014). Critical issues in social science climate change research.
Contemporary Social Science,
9(4), 359-373.
Abstract:
Critical issues in social science climate change research
This paper examines the challenges and opportunities for social scientists working on climate change research. Much work is required to expose and destabilise taken-for-granted assumptions about: (i) the nature of climate change, its complex ontology and knowledge-making practices; and (ii) how academic knowledge is made at the expense of other ways of knowing, doing and being in the world. I examine the relationship between the natural and social sciences, the epistemological question of what people are, and the multiple spaces, sites and practices across which and about which social science research on climate change is being produced.
Abstract.
Leyshon C (2014). Cultural ecosystem services and the challenge for cultural geography.
Geography Compass,
8(10), 710-725.
Abstract:
Cultural ecosystem services and the challenge for cultural geography
Cultural ecosystem services are one of four services identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as critical to the support of human life on earth and therefore in need of proper valuation and protection. Cultural services seem to embody the objects of enquiry for cultural geographers interested in landscape, identity and place. However, potentially insurmountable epistemological challenges face the participation of cultural geographers in the following: (i) the identification and evaluation of CES; and (ii) the operationalisation of environmental governance. One challenge for cultural geographers is to make the relevance of their theoretical and conceptual insights felt in a field dominated by the natural sciences and scientific epistemologies. Meanwhile, the problems of defining and identifying cultural services in ways that make them compatible with provision, regulating and supporting services, even threaten the continued inclusion of cultural services in the ecosystem services approach. The concept of landscape seems to provide a shared intellectual terrain over which cultural geographers can work with others interested in cultural ecosystem services.
Abstract.
Leyshon née Brace C, Geoghegan H (2012). Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: Cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK. Area
Geoghegan H, Leyshon C (2012). Erratum to: on climate change and cultural geography: farming on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. Climatic Change, 1-1.
Leyshon CS, Geoghegan H (2012). Shifting Shores: Managing Challenge and Change on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.
Landscape ResearchAbstract:
Shifting Shores: Managing Challenge and Change on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK
In this paper, we look at how landscape and climate change are simultaneously apprehended through institutional strategies and then negotiated through local knowledge and social relations on the ground. We argue that by examining landscapes that are practised, embodied and lived, it is possible to gain an understanding of people's actions, beliefs and values in relation to climate and climate change. This attention to cultural landscapes also enables us to ask how a variety of publics make sense of climate change, and how they are invited to do so by organisations that take responsibility for the management and preservation of landscape, such as the National Trust, Europe's biggest conservation organisation. This paper considers how the Trust makes sense of climate change via the document Shifting Shores and how its strategies are operationalised on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Leyshon CS, Brace C (2010). Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges.
Progress in Human GeographyAbstract:
Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges
In this paper we bring together work on landscape, temporality and lay knowledges to propose new ways of understanding climate change. A focus on the familiar landscapes of everyday life offers an opportunity to examine how climate change could be researched as a relational phenomenon, understood on a local level, with distinctive spatialities and temporalities. Climate change can be observed in relation to landscape but also felt, sensed, apprehended emotionally as part of the fabric of everyday life in which acceptance, denial, resignation and action co-exist as personal and social responses to the local manifestations of a global problem.
Abstract.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010). Recovering Inspiration in the Spaces of Creative Writing.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
35(2), 399-413.
Abstract:
Recovering Inspiration in the Spaces of Creative Writing
This paper emerges from a project conducted between academics in literary studies and geography that explored the creative process amongst writers who write for pleasure. It seeks to understand writing as creative process as well as simply representation, recovering process as a part of creative making. Building on a long tradition of theorising process and creativity in literary studies, which has cumulatively discredited the idea of inspiration, this paper asks whether a fresh engagement between geography, literary studies and other work on creative writing can provide new insights into the creative process. Recognising that questions of representation have been pursued with different trajectories in geography and literary studies, this paper attempts to identify our common intellectual concerns as well as asking whether a rapprochement between questions of representation and non-representational theory can provide the stimulus for an enlivened account that recovers the place of inspiration in creative writing.
Abstract.
Bailey A, Brace C, Harvey DC (2009). Three Geographers in an Archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
34(2), 254-269.
Abstract:
Three Geographers in an Archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives
Despite the existence of research conducted by geographers eschewing or professing
religious faith, the influence of researchers and their methods have yet to receive
critical attention within the study of religion. The experience of three geographers
working on a three-year research project suggests that it is vital to reflect upon the
inter-subjective relationships and methodologies used to reconstruct the religious past.
How do different subject positions influence our selections from historical records?
We also consider whether the spatialities of putatively ‘religious’ archives, whether
formally or informally constituted, make a difference to the construction of
historiographical knowledge. In attempting to answer these questions, the paper
argues that developing an awareness of different types of positionality, vis-à-vis
religious faith and practice, combined with reflexivity, vis-à-vis methodology, can
enrich the interpretative reconstruction of the religious past.
Abstract.
Leyshon M, Brace C (2007). Men and the desert: Contested masculinities in Ice Cold in Alex.
GENDER, PLACE AND CULTURE,
14(2), 163-182.
Abstract:
Men and the desert: Contested masculinities in Ice Cold in Alex
This paper explores the relationship between space, identity and film through the war film genre and in particular one film Ice Cold in Alex (1958). Although war films have suffered particular neglect by geographers, their appeal is enduring, helping to shape British national identity and popular constructions of masculinity. Through an analysis and critique of the film, this paper makes two interconnected points. First, it highlights the value of film to geographers as a creative medium in which spaces and identities are imagined, (re)created, contested and negotiated. Second, it brings recent work on masculinites to bear on a detailed examination of Ice Cold in Alex to illustrate how war films have produced and sustained a specific unconventional form of heroic masculine British national identity through the passage of an ‘off-road’ movie. Here we demonstrate that masculinities are forged not only in the maelstrom of power interrelationships between men and other men and between men and women, but also importantly in relation to the landscape, in this example the desert as other. This glimpse allows us to challenge hegemonic norms as well as the construction of the desert as an active agent in the co-construction of the main characters’ identities.
Abstract.
Harvey DC, Bailey AR, Brace C (2007). Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall, c.1830-1930.
Journal of Historical Geography,
33(1), 24-44.
Abstract:
Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall, c.1830-1930
This paper explores the historical relationships between Methodist Sunday school tea treats and parades and the formation of religious identity in west Cornwall between c. 1830 and 1930. Through these ritual activities, people were entrained into the symbolic identity-forming apparatus of Methodist faith and practice. Moving beyond the spaces of school rooms and chapels, the paper focuses on the organisation, the use of public space and the territorial significance of annual tea treats and parades in the nurturing and maintenance of a Methodist constituency. In so doing, the paper draws on work in the history of Nonconformity, geographies of religion and the historical geography of parades to conduct a critical analysis of tea treats and parades as ritual, spectacle and carnival. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract.
Harvey DC, Bailey A, Brace C (2006). Religion, place and space: a framework for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities.
Progress in Human Geography,
30(1), 28-43.
Abstract:
Religion, place and space: a framework for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities
Despite a well-established interest in the relationship between space and identity, geographers still know little about how communal identities in specific places are built around a sense of religious belonging. This paper explores both the theoretical and practical terrain around which such an investigation can proceed. The paper makes space for the exploration of a specific set of religious groups and practices, which reflected the activities of Methodists in Cornwall during the period 1830 - 1930. The paper is concerned to move analysis beyond the 'officially sacred' and to explore the everyday, informal, and often banal, practices of Methodists, thereby providing a blueprint for how work in the geography of religion may move forward.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Leyshon CS (2003). Envisioning England: the Visual in Countryside Writing in the 1930s and 1940s. Landscape Research, 28(4), 365-382.
Brace C (2002). The West Country as a literary invention - putting fiction in its place.
JOURNAL OF RURAL STUDIES,
18(4), 491-492.
Author URL.
Brace C (2001). Introducing human geographies.
JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY,
27(2), 309-310.
Author URL.
Leyshon CS (2001). Publishing and publishers: towards an historical geography of countryside writing, c. 1930 - 1950. Area, 33(3), 287-296.
Brace C (2000). A pleasure ground for the noisy herds? Incompatible encounters with the Cotswolds and England, 1900-1950.
Rural History,
11(1), 75-94.
Abstract:
A pleasure ground for the noisy herds? Incompatible encounters with the Cotswolds and England, 1900-1950
This paper draws on and forms part of the growing body of literature which examines critically the relationships between landscape and Englishness in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this paper develops our understanding of the moral geographies of outdoor recreation and the popular discovery of rural England. It also shows how national identity itself was seen to be threatened by first, the alteration of the English landscape to accommodate new kinds of visitors, and second, by the apparent inability of those visitors to enjoy the English countryside in an appropriate way. These issues are explored through the variety of ways in which the Cotswolds were being discovered and encountered in the first half of the twentieth century. This was occurring at a time when rural England more generally was being 'discovered', explored, constructed and re-created both physically and in print through non fictional rural writing, guide books and topographical works. Discovering the Cotswolds and England was a deeply contested activity fraught with tensions and paradoxes which were themselves informed by ideas of class and culture.
Abstract.
Brace C (2000). Landscape and englishness.
ECUMENE,
7(4), 477-478.
Author URL.
Brace C (1999). Finding England everywhere: Regional identity and the construction of national identity, 1890-1940.
Ecumene,
6(1), 90-109.
Abstract:
Finding England everywhere: Regional identity and the construction of national identity, 1890-1940
This paper examines the relationship between regional and national identity in England in the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the ways in which England was imaginatively constructed through regional identities and their uniqueness. It further argues that this amounted to a powerful myth of regionalism in England which informed a discourse of national unity, particularly in the interwar years. Taking the example of the Cotswolds - a limestone hill region in central southern England - the paper shows how a unique regional identity was constructed through a corpus of local writing which also invoked the Cotswolds as an ideal version of England. The paper also examines more wide-ranging examples found in topographical writing from the first half of the twentieth century which reveal how England's regions were mobilized to represent something of the nation.
Abstract.
Brace C (1999). Gardenesque imagery in the representation of regional and national identity: the Cotswold garden of stone.
Journal of Rural Studies,
15(4), 365-376.
Abstract:
Gardenesque imagery in the representation of regional and national identity: the Cotswold garden of stone
Research which has highlighted the symbolic power of rural landscapes to picture English national identity has tended to homogenise those rural landscapes, eliding the role of regions in the construction of national identity. This paper argues that the construction of a unique regional identity for the Cotswolds was informed by and itself informed the construction of English national identity in the first half of the 20th century. This paper examines one aspect of this relationship; the use of gardenesque imagery to construct both the nation and the region, focusing particularly on the 'garden of stone' metaphor which recurs in non-fictional rural writing, guide books and poetry about the Cotswolds from around 1900, reaching a peak in the interwar years. This paper examines the religious and secular symbolism of the two components of the metaphor; the garden and the stone. The paper is predicated on the notion that gardens are repositories and generators of meaning and value. Using the language of slow growth, seasonal cycles and continuity along with the motifs of composition and creation, the garden of stone describes an organic community in a reciprocal relationship between people, soil and stone. The idea of organic communities is shown to resonate within representations of both the Cotswolds and English national identity and is also explored in some depth.
Abstract.
Brace C (1999). Landscape and englishness.
GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL,
165, 338-339.
Author URL.
Brace C (1999). Looking back: the Cotswolds and English national identity, c. 1890-1950.
Journal of Historical Geography,
25(4), 502-516.
Abstract:
Looking back: the Cotswolds and English national identity, c. 1890-1950
This paper examines how history was appropriated to construct a unique regional identity for the Cotswolds and a national identity for England in the period c. 1890 to 1950. It explores how ideas of the past, tradition, history, longevity and (dis)continuity were woven into representations of the Cotswolds as incontiguous, set apart and remote in time from contemporary England. The analysis examines how the apparently whimsical devise of 'locating' the Cotswolds in specific pasts was mobilized to mount serious criticisms of the condition of England and Englishness. This was achieved through the use of the 'door ajar' motif which was a particularly powerful means of expressing the perceived disruption of historical continuity in both the Cotswolds and England and is therefore examined at length. These themes are explored through non-fictional rural writing, guides and other written representations.
Abstract.
Brace C (1997). A dream of England: landscape, photography and the tourist's imagination - Taylor,J.
ECUMENE,
4(3), 357-359.
Author URL.
Brace C (1997). Corruption, pollution, and the problems of public works provision: the Garrison Creek sewer scandal in late-nineteenth century Toronto. Historical Geography, 25(1-2), 113-123.
Brace C, Roberts J (1996). Young research workers in historical geography.
AREA,
28(2), 283-284.
Author URL.
Brace C (1995). Public works in the Canadian city; the provision of sewers in Toronto 1870-1913.
Urban History Review,
23(2), 33-44.
Abstract:
Public works in the Canadian city; the provision of sewers in Toronto 1870-1913
Until the 1970s Canadian public works had been adequately described, but never extensively studied in the literature of urban history, which has focused on other aspects of the city-building process. Since then, Canadian public works history has been dominated by debates about the public versus private ownership of utilities. This paper aims to show that the historical provision of sewerage in Canadian cities was a fundamental part of the city-building process. It focuses on the provision of sewers in Toronto between 1870 and 1913 and argues that sewerage influenced and was influenced by contemporary debates about public health, local government intervention in the lives of citizens and the role of technology in the urban environment. -from Author
Abstract.
Chapters
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H, Harvey-Scholes C (2018). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, Taylor & Francis, 453-463.
Walker T, Leyshon C (2017). Resilience to what and for whom in landscape management. In (Ed)
Governing for Resilience in Vulnerable Places, 38-56.
Abstract:
Resilience to what and for whom in landscape management
Abstract.
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (2013). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed)
The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, 461-470.
Abstract:
Landscape and climate change
Abstract.
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (2011). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, Taylor & Francis.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010). The Importance of Process. In Brace C, Johns-Putra A (Eds.)
Process: Landscape and Text, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 29-44.
Abstract:
The Importance of Process
Abstract.
Brace C, Leyshon M (2007). Deviant Sexualities and Dark Ruralities in the War Zone’. In Fish R (Ed) Cinematic Countrysides, Manchester University Press.
Leyshon M (2007). Deviant Sexualities and Dark Ruralities in ‘The War Zone’. In Fish R (Ed) Cinematic Countrysides, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 195-210.
Brace C (2006). Landscapes and senses of place. In Kain R (Ed) England's Landscape: the South West, Harper Collins with English Hertiage.
Brace C (2003). Landscapes of Identity. In Robertson I, Richards P (Eds.) Studying Cultural Landscapes, Arnold.
Brace C (2003). Rural Mappings. In Cloke P (Ed) Country Visions, Pearson.
Conferences
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Walker T (In Press). Guided Conversations: Findings and Social Impact.
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Kaesehage K (In Press). Living Well Penwith Pioneer: How does change happen? a qualitative process evaluation.
Walker T, Menneer T, Tu G, Mueller M, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Morrissey K, Bland E, Buckingham S (2022). P44 Smarter social housing: user perspectives on technology adoption for healthy homes. Society for Social Medicine Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts.
Williams A, Menneer T, Sidani M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2020). Using machine learning clustering techniques to support the understanding of populations and inform action. Public Health England Research and Science Conference - Application of scientific methods to improve and protect health.
Abstract:
Using machine learning clustering techniques to support the understanding of populations and inform action
Abstract.
Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2019). Rethinking the platform. Social Innovation: Local Solutions to Global Challenges. 2nd - 4th Sep 2019.
Publications by year
In Press
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (In Press). Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK. Area
Leyshon CS (In Press). Finding the coast: environmental governance and the characterisation of land and sea. Area
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Walker T (In Press). Guided Conversations: Findings and Social Impact.
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Kaesehage K (In Press). Living Well Penwith Pioneer: How does change happen? a qualitative process evaluation.
Geoghegan H, Leyshon C (In Press). On climate change and cultural geography: farming on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. Climatic Change
2023
Mittal R, Rowse E, Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2023). Improving health and wellbeing through social prescribing. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 84(7), 1-4.
2022
Walker T, Menneer T, Tu G, Mueller M, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Morrissey K, Bland E, Buckingham S (2022). P44 Smarter social housing: user perspectives on technology adoption for healthy homes. Society for Social Medicine Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts.
Walker T, Menneer T, TU G, Mueller M, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Bland E, Morrissey K (2022). Smarter Social Housing: User Perspectives on Technology Adoption for Healthy Homes.
2021
Williams AJ, Menneer T, Sidana M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2021). Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort.
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance,
7(2), e25037-e25037.
Abstract:
Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort
BackgroundPersonas, based on customer or population data, are widely used to inform design decisions in the commercial sector. The variety of methods available means that personas can be produced from projects of different types and scale.ObjectiveThis study aims to experiment with the use of personas that bring together data from a survey, household air measurements and electricity usage sensors, and an interview within a research and innovation project, with the aim of supporting eHealth and eWell-being product, process, and service development through broadening the engagement with and understanding of the data about the local community.MethodsThe project participants were social housing residents (adults only) living in central Cornwall, a rural unitary authority in the United Kingdom. A total of 329 households were recruited between September 2017 and November 2018, with 235 (71.4%) providing complete baseline survey data on demographics, socioeconomic position, household composition, home environment, technology ownership, pet ownership, smoking, social cohesion, volunteering, caring, mental well-being, physical and mental health–related quality of life, and activity. K-prototype cluster analysis was used to identify 8 clusters among the baseline survey responses. The sensor and interview data were subsequently analyzed by cluster and the insights from all 3 data sources were brought together to produce the personas, known as the Smartline Archetypes.ResultsThe Smartline Archetypes proved to be an engaging way of presenting data, accessible to a broader group of stakeholders than those who accessed the raw anonymized data, thereby providing a vehicle for greater research engagement, innovation, and impact.ConclusionsThrough the adoption of a tool widely used in practice, research projects could generate greater policy and practical impact, while also becoming more transparent and open to the public.
Abstract.
Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Walker T, Fish R (2021). More than sweat equity: Young people as volunteers in conservation work. Journal of Rural Studies, 81, 78-88.
Colebrooke L, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Walker T (2021). ‘We’re on the edge’: Cultures of care and Universal Credit. Social & Cultural Geography, 24(1), 86-103.
2020
Esmene DS, Leyshon PC, Leyshon DM (2020). Beyond adherence to social prescriptions: How places, social acquaintances and stories help walking group members to thrive. Health & Place, 64, 102394-102394.
Walker T, Menneer T, Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Williams AJ, Mueller M, Taylor T (2020). Determinants of Volunteering Within a Social Housing Community.
VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations,
33(1), 188-200.
Abstract:
Determinants of Volunteering Within a Social Housing Community
AbstractIn general, research demonstrates that deprivation, education, health, and well-being are determinants of volunteering, and that volunteering can play an important role in building stronger communities and provides many benefits for individual health and well-being. This study concentrates on the effects of physical and mental health and well-being as predictors when the aspect of socio-economic impact has been minimised. It utilises a unique data set from a UK Housing Association community with generally high levels of deprivation. Data were analysed using bivariate probit regression. In contrast to previous findings, physical health and mental health were not significantly related to volunteering. The key finding was that mental well-being was significantly related to informal volunteering.
Abstract.
Walker T, Esmene S, Colebrooke L, Leyshon C, Leyshon M (2020). Digital possibilities and social mission in the voluntary sector: the case of a community transport organisation in the UK.
Voluntary Sector Review,
11(1), 59-77.
Abstract:
Digital possibilities and social mission in the voluntary sector: the case of a community transport organisation in the UK
Digital technology is seen as a panacea to meeting the financial and operational challenges faced by voluntary and community sector organisations (VCSOs), through delivering efficiencies and cost-saving, alongside improving quality of service. However, according to recent assessments in the UK, the rate of digital adoption is slow compared with other sectors. This article identifies how a VCSO in a period of austerity prioritises its social mission over functionality and efficiency gains from digital technology. Employing the heuristic of phronesis, we argue that VCSOs seeking to implement digital innovations need to strike a balance between instrumental rationality (that is, what is possible to achieve with technology) and value rationality (that is, what is desirable to pursue by VCSOs). Our key argument is that theories of value rationality provide a new explanation for the slow adoption of digital technology among VCSOs.
Abstract.
Williams AJ, Menneer T, Sidana M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2020). Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort (Preprint).
Abstract:
Fostering Engagement with Health and Housing Innovation: Development of Participant Personas in a Social Housing Cohort (Preprint)
. BACKGROUND
. Personas, based on customer or population data, are widely used to inform design decisions in the commercial sector. The variety of methods available means that personas can be produced from projects of different types and scale.
.
.
. OBJECTIVE
. This study aims to experiment with the use of personas that bring together data from a survey, household air measurements and electricity usage sensors, and an interview within a research and innovation project, with the aim of supporting eHealth and eWell-being product, process, and service development through broadening the engagement with and understanding of the data about the local community.
.
.
. METHODS
. The project participants were social housing residents (adults only) living in central Cornwall, a rural unitary authority in the United Kingdom. A total of 329 households were recruited between September 2017 and November 2018, with 235 (71.4%) providing complete baseline survey data on demographics, socioeconomic position, household composition, home environment, technology ownership, pet ownership, smoking, social cohesion, volunteering, caring, mental well-being, physical and mental health–related quality of life, and activity. K-prototype cluster analysis was used to identify 8 clusters among the baseline survey responses. The sensor and interview data were subsequently analyzed by cluster and the insights from all 3 data sources were brought together to produce the personas, known as the Smartline Archetypes.
.
.
. RESULTS
. The Smartline Archetypes proved to be an engaging way of presenting data, accessible to a broader group of stakeholders than those who accessed the raw anonymized data, thereby providing a vehicle for greater research engagement, innovation, and impact.
.
.
. CONCLUSIONS
. Through the adoption of a tool widely used in practice, research projects could generate greater policy and practical impact, while also becoming more transparent and open to the public.
.
Abstract.
Williams A, Menneer T, Sidani M, Walker T, Maguire K, Mueller M, Paterson C, Leyshon M, Leyshon C, Seymour E, et al (2020). Using machine learning clustering techniques to support the understanding of populations and inform action. Public Health England Research and Science Conference - Application of scientific methods to improve and protect health.
Abstract:
Using machine learning clustering techniques to support the understanding of populations and inform action
Abstract.
2019
Davies T, Cowley A, Bennie J, Leyshon C, Inger R, Carter H, Robinson B, Duffy JP, Casalegno S, Lambert G, et al (2019). Correction: Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
PLoS One,
14(2).
Abstract:
Correction: Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203694.].
Abstract.
Author URL.
Bell SL, Leyshon C, Phoenix C (2019). Negotiating nature’s weather worlds in the context of life with sight impairment. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2019). Rethinking the platform. Social Innovation: Local Solutions to Global Challenges. 2nd - 4th Sep 2019.
Harrison RT, Kaesehage K, Leyshon C (2019). Special issue of leadership: Leadership and climate change: Authority, legitimacy and the ‘crisis of governance’. Leadership, 15(6), 768-773.
Leyshon C, Leyshon M, Jeffries J (2019). The complex spaces of co-production, volunteering, ageing and care.
Area,
51(3), 433-442.
Abstract:
The complex spaces of co-production, volunteering, ageing and care
The care of older people is being radically reformulated by placing the individual at the centre of care process through the introduction of individual care plans. This marks a significant transition for the care of older people away from acute responsive clinical care towards a greater emphasis on co-produced preventative health and social care and relations of care “with” older people. Geographies of volunteerism are yet to consider the effect of co-production as a dominant rhetoric in UK health and social care. In this paper we show that the Health and Social Care Act (2012) and the Care Act (2014) has the potential to fundamentally alter discourses of care by introducing new spatialities to older people's care. New spatialities of care will not only rely on the reciprocity and interdependence of care between individuals and organisations but also the mobilisation of a voluntary care-force to be attentive to individuals. Spatialising co-production reveals the institutional and professional boundaries that prevent the type of open partnership that sits at the heart of the rhetoric. Our ethnographic and qualitative methodology was developed to understand how our case study of Living Well (Cornwall, UK), as a philosophy of care, is realised in practice and to consider the main collaborators’ views of different methods of co-production involving volunteers. We discuss two principal spaces of co-production, highlighting the opportunities provided for, and barriers to, co-production expressed by volunteers and other partners by attending to the relations of care that are recognised through: (1) formal meetings and coffee mornings, which provide spaces for volunteers to contribute, and (2) multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, in which volunteers are largely absent.
Abstract.
2018
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H, Harvey-Scholes C (2018). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, Taylor & Francis, 453-463.
Davies T, Cowley A, Bennie J, Leyshon C, Inger R, Carter H, Robinson B, Duffy J, Casalegno S, Lambert G, et al (2018). Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
PLoS One,
13(9).
Abstract:
Popular interest in vertebrates does not reflect extinction risk and is associated with bias in conservation investment.
The interrelationship between public interest in endangered species and the attention they receive from the conservation community is the 'flywheel' driving much effort to abate global extinction rates. Yet big international conservation non-governmental organisations have typically focused on the plight of a handful of appealing endangered species, while the public remains largely unaware of the majority. We quantified the existence of bias in popular interest towards species, by analysing global internet search interest in 36,873 vertebrate taxa. Web search interest was higher for mammals and birds at greater risk of extinction, but this was not so for fish, reptiles and amphibians. Our analysis reveals a global bias in popular interest towards vertebrates that is undermining incentives to invest financial capital in thousands of species threatened with extinction. Raising the popular profile of these lesser known endangered and critically endangered species will generate clearer political and financial incentives for their protection.
Abstract.
Author URL.
Bell SL, Leyshon C, Foley R, Kearns R (2018). The "healthy dose" of nature: a cautionary tale. Geography Compass
2017
Köpsel V, Walsh C, Leyshon C (2017). Landscape narratives in practice: implications for climate change adaptation.
Geographical Journal,
183(2), 175-186.
Abstract:
Landscape narratives in practice: implications for climate change adaptation
Research on the societal dynamics of climate change adaptation has advanced during recent years from merely focusing on technical and economic factors to taking into consideration people's individual perspectives and personal values. Within this context a growing literature on the relationship between people's place attachment and climate change adaptation has emerged. This literature seeks to explain how individuals’ relationships with the places in which they live influence current and potential future responses to climate change at the local scale. Nevertheless, critical limitations are evident in the conceptualisation of place and people–place relationships within this literature. In particular, differences between individual place constructions and their possible implications for landscape management are given insufficient attention. To address these shortcomings, we mobilise research on the societal construction of landscapes to uncover how actors in landscape management perceive ‘their’ places and changes to them. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key actors in landscape management in Cornwall (UK), we present four contrasting narratives about local landscapes and climate change and highlight their potential implications for climate change adaptation.
Abstract.
Walker T, Leyshon C (2017). Resilience to what and for whom in landscape management. In (Ed)
Governing for Resilience in Vulnerable Places, 38-56.
Abstract:
Resilience to what and for whom in landscape management
Abstract.
Kaesehage K, Leyshon M, Ferns G, Leyshon C (2017). Seriously Personal: the Reasons that Motivate Entrepreneurs to Address Climate Change. Journal of Business Ethics, 157(4), 1091-1109.
2014
Leyshon C (2014). Critical issues in social science climate change research.
Contemporary Social Science,
9(4), 359-373.
Abstract:
Critical issues in social science climate change research
This paper examines the challenges and opportunities for social scientists working on climate change research. Much work is required to expose and destabilise taken-for-granted assumptions about: (i) the nature of climate change, its complex ontology and knowledge-making practices; and (ii) how academic knowledge is made at the expense of other ways of knowing, doing and being in the world. I examine the relationship between the natural and social sciences, the epistemological question of what people are, and the multiple spaces, sites and practices across which and about which social science research on climate change is being produced.
Abstract.
Leyshon C (2014). Cultural ecosystem services and the challenge for cultural geography.
Geography Compass,
8(10), 710-725.
Abstract:
Cultural ecosystem services and the challenge for cultural geography
Cultural ecosystem services are one of four services identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as critical to the support of human life on earth and therefore in need of proper valuation and protection. Cultural services seem to embody the objects of enquiry for cultural geographers interested in landscape, identity and place. However, potentially insurmountable epistemological challenges face the participation of cultural geographers in the following: (i) the identification and evaluation of CES; and (ii) the operationalisation of environmental governance. One challenge for cultural geographers is to make the relevance of their theoretical and conceptual insights felt in a field dominated by the natural sciences and scientific epistemologies. Meanwhile, the problems of defining and identifying cultural services in ways that make them compatible with provision, regulating and supporting services, even threaten the continued inclusion of cultural services in the ecosystem services approach. The concept of landscape seems to provide a shared intellectual terrain over which cultural geographers can work with others interested in cultural ecosystem services.
Abstract.
2013
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (2013). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed)
The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, 461-470.
Abstract:
Landscape and climate change
Abstract.
2012
Leyshon née Brace C, Geoghegan H (2012). Anticipatory objects and uncertain imminence: Cattle grids, landscape and the presencing of climate change on the Lizard Peninsula, UK. Area
Geoghegan H, Leyshon C (2012). Erratum to: on climate change and cultural geography: farming on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. Climatic Change, 1-1.
Harrison R, Leyshon M, Leyshon C (2012). Making Community Groups Work: a guide to success. Truro, Volunteer Cornwall.
Leyshon CS, Geoghegan H (2012). Shifting Shores: Managing Challenge and Change on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.
Landscape ResearchAbstract:
Shifting Shores: Managing Challenge and Change on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK
In this paper, we look at how landscape and climate change are simultaneously apprehended through institutional strategies and then negotiated through local knowledge and social relations on the ground. We argue that by examining landscapes that are practised, embodied and lived, it is possible to gain an understanding of people's actions, beliefs and values in relation to climate and climate change. This attention to cultural landscapes also enables us to ask how a variety of publics make sense of climate change, and how they are invited to do so by organisations that take responsibility for the management and preservation of landscape, such as the National Trust, Europe's biggest conservation organisation. This paper considers how the Trust makes sense of climate change via the document Shifting Shores and how its strategies are operationalised on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.
Abstract.
Author URL.
2011
Brace C, Bailey AR, Harvey DC, Thomas N, Carter S (eds)(2011). Emerging Geographies of Belief. UK, Cambridge Scholars.
Leyshon C, Geoghegan H (2011). Landscape and climate change. In (Ed) The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, Taylor & Francis.
2010
Leyshon CS, Brace C (2010). Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges.
Progress in Human GeographyAbstract:
Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges
In this paper we bring together work on landscape, temporality and lay knowledges to propose new ways of understanding climate change. A focus on the familiar landscapes of everyday life offers an opportunity to examine how climate change could be researched as a relational phenomenon, understood on a local level, with distinctive spatialities and temporalities. Climate change can be observed in relation to landscape but also felt, sensed, apprehended emotionally as part of the fabric of everyday life in which acceptance, denial, resignation and action co-exist as personal and social responses to the local manifestations of a global problem.
Abstract.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010).
Process: Landscape and Text. Amsterdam, Rodopi.
Abstract:
Process: Landscape and Text
Abstract.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010). Recovering Inspiration in the Spaces of Creative Writing.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
35(2), 399-413.
Abstract:
Recovering Inspiration in the Spaces of Creative Writing
This paper emerges from a project conducted between academics in literary studies and geography that explored the creative process amongst writers who write for pleasure. It seeks to understand writing as creative process as well as simply representation, recovering process as a part of creative making. Building on a long tradition of theorising process and creativity in literary studies, which has cumulatively discredited the idea of inspiration, this paper asks whether a fresh engagement between geography, literary studies and other work on creative writing can provide new insights into the creative process. Recognising that questions of representation have been pursued with different trajectories in geography and literary studies, this paper attempts to identify our common intellectual concerns as well as asking whether a rapprochement between questions of representation and non-representational theory can provide the stimulus for an enlivened account that recovers the place of inspiration in creative writing.
Abstract.
Brace C, Johns-Putra AG (2010). The Importance of Process. In Brace C, Johns-Putra A (Eds.)
Process: Landscape and Text, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 29-44.
Abstract:
The Importance of Process
Abstract.
2009
Bailey A, Brace C, Harvey DC (2009). Three Geographers in an Archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
34(2), 254-269.
Abstract:
Three Geographers in an Archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives
Despite the existence of research conducted by geographers eschewing or professing
religious faith, the influence of researchers and their methods have yet to receive
critical attention within the study of religion. The experience of three geographers
working on a three-year research project suggests that it is vital to reflect upon the
inter-subjective relationships and methodologies used to reconstruct the religious past.
How do different subject positions influence our selections from historical records?
We also consider whether the spatialities of putatively ‘religious’ archives, whether
formally or informally constituted, make a difference to the construction of
historiographical knowledge. In attempting to answer these questions, the paper
argues that developing an awareness of different types of positionality, vis-à-vis
religious faith and practice, combined with reflexivity, vis-à-vis methodology, can
enrich the interpretative reconstruction of the religious past.
Abstract.
2007
Brace C, Leyshon M (2007). Deviant Sexualities and Dark Ruralities in the War Zone’. In Fish R (Ed) Cinematic Countrysides, Manchester University Press.
Leyshon M (2007). Deviant Sexualities and Dark Ruralities in ‘The War Zone’. In Fish R (Ed) Cinematic Countrysides, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 195-210.
Leyshon M, Brace C (2007). Men and the desert: Contested masculinities in Ice Cold in Alex.
GENDER, PLACE AND CULTURE,
14(2), 163-182.
Abstract:
Men and the desert: Contested masculinities in Ice Cold in Alex
This paper explores the relationship between space, identity and film through the war film genre and in particular one film Ice Cold in Alex (1958). Although war films have suffered particular neglect by geographers, their appeal is enduring, helping to shape British national identity and popular constructions of masculinity. Through an analysis and critique of the film, this paper makes two interconnected points. First, it highlights the value of film to geographers as a creative medium in which spaces and identities are imagined, (re)created, contested and negotiated. Second, it brings recent work on masculinites to bear on a detailed examination of Ice Cold in Alex to illustrate how war films have produced and sustained a specific unconventional form of heroic masculine British national identity through the passage of an ‘off-road’ movie. Here we demonstrate that masculinities are forged not only in the maelstrom of power interrelationships between men and other men and between men and women, but also importantly in relation to the landscape, in this example the desert as other. This glimpse allows us to challenge hegemonic norms as well as the construction of the desert as an active agent in the co-construction of the main characters’ identities.
Abstract.
Harvey DC, Bailey AR, Brace C (2007). Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall, c.1830-1930.
Journal of Historical Geography,
33(1), 24-44.
Abstract:
Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall, c.1830-1930
This paper explores the historical relationships between Methodist Sunday school tea treats and parades and the formation of religious identity in west Cornwall between c. 1830 and 1930. Through these ritual activities, people were entrained into the symbolic identity-forming apparatus of Methodist faith and practice. Moving beyond the spaces of school rooms and chapels, the paper focuses on the organisation, the use of public space and the territorial significance of annual tea treats and parades in the nurturing and maintenance of a Methodist constituency. In so doing, the paper draws on work in the history of Nonconformity, geographies of religion and the historical geography of parades to conduct a critical analysis of tea treats and parades as ritual, spectacle and carnival. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract.
2006
Brace C (2006). Landscapes and senses of place. In Kain R (Ed) England's Landscape: the South West, Harper Collins with English Hertiage.
Harvey DC, Bailey A, Brace C (2006). Religion, place and space: a framework for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities.
Progress in Human Geography,
30(1), 28-43.
Abstract:
Religion, place and space: a framework for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities
Despite a well-established interest in the relationship between space and identity, geographers still know little about how communal identities in specific places are built around a sense of religious belonging. This paper explores both the theoretical and practical terrain around which such an investigation can proceed. The paper makes space for the exploration of a specific set of religious groups and practices, which reflected the activities of Methodists in Cornwall during the period 1830 - 1930. The paper is concerned to move analysis beyond the 'officially sacred' and to explore the everyday, informal, and often banal, practices of Methodists, thereby providing a blueprint for how work in the geography of religion may move forward.
Abstract.
Author URL.
2003
Leyshon CS (2003). Envisioning England: the Visual in Countryside Writing in the 1930s and 1940s. Landscape Research, 28(4), 365-382.
Brace C (2003). Landscapes of Identity. In Robertson I, Richards P (Eds.) Studying Cultural Landscapes, Arnold.
Brace C (2003). Rural Mappings. In Cloke P (Ed) Country Visions, Pearson.
2002
Brace C (2002). The West Country as a literary invention - putting fiction in its place.
JOURNAL OF RURAL STUDIES,
18(4), 491-492.
Author URL.
2001
Brace C (2001). Introducing human geographies.
JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY,
27(2), 309-310.
Author URL.
Leyshon CS (2001). Publishing and publishers: towards an historical geography of countryside writing, c. 1930 - 1950. Area, 33(3), 287-296.
2000
Brace C (2000). A pleasure ground for the noisy herds? Incompatible encounters with the Cotswolds and England, 1900-1950.
Rural History,
11(1), 75-94.
Abstract:
A pleasure ground for the noisy herds? Incompatible encounters with the Cotswolds and England, 1900-1950
This paper draws on and forms part of the growing body of literature which examines critically the relationships between landscape and Englishness in the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this paper develops our understanding of the moral geographies of outdoor recreation and the popular discovery of rural England. It also shows how national identity itself was seen to be threatened by first, the alteration of the English landscape to accommodate new kinds of visitors, and second, by the apparent inability of those visitors to enjoy the English countryside in an appropriate way. These issues are explored through the variety of ways in which the Cotswolds were being discovered and encountered in the first half of the twentieth century. This was occurring at a time when rural England more generally was being 'discovered', explored, constructed and re-created both physically and in print through non fictional rural writing, guide books and topographical works. Discovering the Cotswolds and England was a deeply contested activity fraught with tensions and paradoxes which were themselves informed by ideas of class and culture.
Abstract.
Brace C (2000). Landscape and englishness.
ECUMENE,
7(4), 477-478.
Author URL.
1999
Brace C (1999). Finding England everywhere: Regional identity and the construction of national identity, 1890-1940.
Ecumene,
6(1), 90-109.
Abstract:
Finding England everywhere: Regional identity and the construction of national identity, 1890-1940
This paper examines the relationship between regional and national identity in England in the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the ways in which England was imaginatively constructed through regional identities and their uniqueness. It further argues that this amounted to a powerful myth of regionalism in England which informed a discourse of national unity, particularly in the interwar years. Taking the example of the Cotswolds - a limestone hill region in central southern England - the paper shows how a unique regional identity was constructed through a corpus of local writing which also invoked the Cotswolds as an ideal version of England. The paper also examines more wide-ranging examples found in topographical writing from the first half of the twentieth century which reveal how England's regions were mobilized to represent something of the nation.
Abstract.
Brace C (1999). Gardenesque imagery in the representation of regional and national identity: the Cotswold garden of stone.
Journal of Rural Studies,
15(4), 365-376.
Abstract:
Gardenesque imagery in the representation of regional and national identity: the Cotswold garden of stone
Research which has highlighted the symbolic power of rural landscapes to picture English national identity has tended to homogenise those rural landscapes, eliding the role of regions in the construction of national identity. This paper argues that the construction of a unique regional identity for the Cotswolds was informed by and itself informed the construction of English national identity in the first half of the 20th century. This paper examines one aspect of this relationship; the use of gardenesque imagery to construct both the nation and the region, focusing particularly on the 'garden of stone' metaphor which recurs in non-fictional rural writing, guide books and poetry about the Cotswolds from around 1900, reaching a peak in the interwar years. This paper examines the religious and secular symbolism of the two components of the metaphor; the garden and the stone. The paper is predicated on the notion that gardens are repositories and generators of meaning and value. Using the language of slow growth, seasonal cycles and continuity along with the motifs of composition and creation, the garden of stone describes an organic community in a reciprocal relationship between people, soil and stone. The idea of organic communities is shown to resonate within representations of both the Cotswolds and English national identity and is also explored in some depth.
Abstract.
Brace C (1999). Landscape and englishness.
GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL,
165, 338-339.
Author URL.
Brace C (1999). Looking back: the Cotswolds and English national identity, c. 1890-1950.
Journal of Historical Geography,
25(4), 502-516.
Abstract:
Looking back: the Cotswolds and English national identity, c. 1890-1950
This paper examines how history was appropriated to construct a unique regional identity for the Cotswolds and a national identity for England in the period c. 1890 to 1950. It explores how ideas of the past, tradition, history, longevity and (dis)continuity were woven into representations of the Cotswolds as incontiguous, set apart and remote in time from contemporary England. The analysis examines how the apparently whimsical devise of 'locating' the Cotswolds in specific pasts was mobilized to mount serious criticisms of the condition of England and Englishness. This was achieved through the use of the 'door ajar' motif which was a particularly powerful means of expressing the perceived disruption of historical continuity in both the Cotswolds and England and is therefore examined at length. These themes are explored through non-fictional rural writing, guides and other written representations.
Abstract.
1997
Brace C (1997). A dream of England: landscape, photography and the tourist's imagination - Taylor,J.
ECUMENE,
4(3), 357-359.
Author URL.
Brace C (1997). Corruption, pollution, and the problems of public works provision: the Garrison Creek sewer scandal in late-nineteenth century Toronto. Historical Geography, 25(1-2), 113-123.
1996
Brace C, Roberts J (1996). Young research workers in historical geography.
AREA,
28(2), 283-284.
Author URL.
1995
Brace C (1995). Public works in the Canadian city; the provision of sewers in Toronto 1870-1913.
Urban History Review,
23(2), 33-44.
Abstract:
Public works in the Canadian city; the provision of sewers in Toronto 1870-1913
Until the 1970s Canadian public works had been adequately described, but never extensively studied in the literature of urban history, which has focused on other aspects of the city-building process. Since then, Canadian public works history has been dominated by debates about the public versus private ownership of utilities. This paper aims to show that the historical provision of sewerage in Canadian cities was a fundamental part of the city-building process. It focuses on the provision of sewers in Toronto between 1870 and 1913 and argues that sewerage influenced and was influenced by contemporary debates about public health, local government intervention in the lives of citizens and the role of technology in the urban environment. -from Author
Abstract.
