Overview
Rebecca is Geography's Academic Lead for Student Support (Racial Equality and Inclusion). Please contact me if you have any experiences effecting you personally you'd like to discuss and I can help you to find ways to receive support.
Short Bio
Dr. Rebecca Sandover is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Exeter with research interests in Sustainable Food Networks, food policy partnerships and Public Participation in Climate Change policy making. Using a knowledge co-production approach, she has in recent years been investigating action toward the formation of sustainable food networks in the South West UK. Her research is particularly focused on building local food partnerships with local authorities, boosting access to sustainable local food, addressing food insecurity and issues of health and wellbeing. Recently, she has also been researching Public Participation in Climate Change policy making, exploring the setting up and running of the Devon Climate Emergency’s Climate Assembly.
Teaching
A Human Geography Lecturer for Geography Undergraduate programmes and The Global Systems Institute MSc in Global Sustainability Solutions. In 2023/24 I am the convenor of GEO2322c and GEOM146 and co-convenor of GEO3149 (The Seville Field Trip). I am teaching on GEO1310, The Bristol Fieldtrip, GEO2322c, The Seville Field Trip, GEOM131, GEOM145 and GEOM146/7. I'm also an undergraduate BA Dissertation advisor and a GEOM146/7 Dissertation Supervisor.
Research Background
In recent years I've conducted research with partners focusing on knowledge co-production and knowledge exchange within community food projects, sustainable food policy change and deliberative democracy.
In 2023 I worked with a community researcher to explore Food Insecurity and Mental ill health in Exeter. This was part of a Devon Community Foundation Devon-wide projectWorking with Dr. Laura Smith and Dr. Paula Crutchlow we researched Migrants attutides to community Seed Saving in Exeter. Collaborating with partners on the Devon Food Partnership led to the release of The Devon Food Strategy in 2023
In 2019 I gave evidence to The House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry on Food, Poverty, Health and The Environment
I was a Co-I on The University of Exeter research project on The Devon Climate Emergency Citizen's Assembly process (2021). In 2020 this project assessed how the Citizens’ Assembly is perceived by participants and project stakeholders, in terms of legitimacy, transparency and effectiveness, through co-created research and evaluation. The project focused on: Generating insights concerning the value of this form of democratic engagement for other topics of interest to Devon County Council -To impact on the use of deliberative engagement on climate change by local authorities across the UK and internationally - To feed into discussions of the national citizens assembly on climate change about the value and outcomes of stakeholder and citizen involvement. The rest of the research team are Prof. Patrick Devine-Wright and Dr. Alice Moseley.
Recently I have carried out research on The Cornwall Food Foundation’s ‘Food for Change’ programme that seeks to support people who are unemployed or economically inactive back into work, training or volunteering through supported food related activities. Working with Professor Katrina Brown, I collaborated with partners to explore how the programme is creating change in participants' lives. I used a range of methods including Focus Groups, Photovoice, Partner interviews, participant observation and more. For more information on the programme see The Cornwall Food Foundation's youtube films.
In recent years I have been investigating the processes shaping the emergence of Food Exeter, a Sustainable Food Places partnership that connects food producers, civil society groups and policy makers. I take a Scholar-Activist approach in exploring Social Food Networks and working alongside Food Exeter to develop food change.
I am a Trustee of Food Exeter, a member of The Devon Food Partnership Interim-Steering Group and on the board of The Devon Food Insecurity Hub
Broad Research Interests:
- Public Participation in Sustainability Governance
- Social Food Networks
- Place based policies
- Coproduction and participatory research
- Visceral Learning
- Relational Materialism
- Alternative Food Networks
- Community Engagement
- Social Media
Qualifications
PhD (University of Exeter)
BA (Hons) (University of Exeter)
Links
Research group links
Research
Research interests
- Public Participation in Sustainability Governance
- Social Food Networks
- Place based policies
- Collaborative and participatory research
- Visceral Learning
- Relational Materialism
- Alternative Food Networks
- Community Engagement
- Social Media
Research projects
2020 Research Fellow on University of Exeter Project:
Local public deliberations on pathways towards net emissions: a collaborative evaluation of the Devon Citizens Assembly. The project will assess how this Citizens’ Assembly is perceived by participants and project stakeholders, in terms of legitimacy, transparency and effectiveness, through co-created research and evaluation.
2018-2019 Research Fellow on 3 projects in Devon and Cornwall:
-
Researching The Food for Change programmein Cornwall. A project led by The Cornwall Food Foundation that seeks to help people into work, volunteering or training through food growing, cooking and trading activities. Using an Action researcher approach plus ethnographic methods, this project is exploring the change the programme is creating in participant’s lives.
-
Working with Food Exeter a Sustainable Food City as a scholar-activist working alongside Food Exeter to develop food change. This project uses collaborative methods to co-develop strategies for emerging local food networks that can contribute to a range of sustainability-related environmental, social and economic goals.
-
Investigating the potential for a Devon-wide Sustainable Food Network I am working with local partners and The Sustainable Food Cities network to build capacity in Devon for a sustainable food partnership via funding from The Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health.This project is based on insider, practitioner and academic knowledge of the challenges sustainable food cities face, as well as understanding the potential for bringing together seemingly conflicting food agendas; those focused on food poverty, diet-related ill health and boosting local and sustainable food cultures. The project partners are collaborating to identify opportunities to streamline often competing public health/food poverty/local food agendas, enhancing health, environmental and food cultures across Devon and set strategic visions/agendas in food network research.
2018 - FOOD EXETER FAIR ACCESS TO FOOD PROJECT
Worked with Food Exeter's working group ‘Fair Access to Food’ to carry out research to understand what food poverty and household food insecurity[1]looks like in Exeter. As there was little food poverty data available in Exeter ‘Fair Access to Food’ undertook a year of research to establish some base line evidence and build understandings of the causes of food poverty and potential steps to address these issues in Exeter. This included interviews with clients of Exeter Foodbank and culminated with a 'Food Poverty Summit' in Exeter's Guildhall in November 2018. Rebecca presetned initial findings from the interviews with foodbank clients.
Our co written report is available here: FOOD POVERTY IN EXETER: STEPS FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
[1]Challenges in accessing nutritious food affect those in poverty, crisis and those experiences general hardship. Food Poverty and Food Insecurity are terms used to cover all these circumstances.
2017 - A FOOD STRATEGY FOR EXETER: REDISCOVERING AND REDEVELOPING LOCALISED FOOD SYSTEMS
This project used collaborative and deliberative research methods to co-produce strategies for emerging local food networks that can contribute to a range of sustainability-related environmental, social and economic goals. With a focus on the processes and practices of the network, this ESRC funded project ran a community focused workshop, Feeding Exeter, hosted on a local farm, which served as a mechanism for network members to feedback on the draft Food Exeter strategy and consider key obstacles to building local food and just food capacity. This project used deliberative research methods to co-develop strategies for developing effective local food networks that can contribute to a range of sustainability-related environmental, social and economic goals.
2019 - WELLCOME CENTRE FUNDED PROJECT: DEVON SUSTAINABLE FOOD NETWORKS
I am leading this project that is based on insider, practitioner and academic knowledge of the challenges sustainable food cities face, as well as understanding the potential for bringing together seemingly conflicting food agendas; those focused on food poverty, diet-related ill health and boosting local and sustainable food cultures. Working with a number of key Devon partners, we aim to build capacity in Devon sustainable food networks by mapping food programmes in the city regions of Exeter and Plymouth and rural South Hams, to transform partners’ programmes by identifying and categorising existing activities to transform responses to food poverty, public health issues, sustainable ‘food work’ and research in the region. The project partners will collaborate to identify opportunities to streamline often competing public health/food poverty/local food agendas, enhancing health, environmental and food cultures across Devon and set strategic visions/agendas in food network research.
Previous Postdoctoral Research:
I was an Associate Research Fellow on Prof. Stephen Hinchliffe's Contagion project that investigated the diffusion of ideas and cultural change through the means of social media and explored such diffusions within the financial sector and through the spread of disease.
I completed a PhD at The University of Exeter that researched cultural Allotment practices. This was undertaken on two allotment sites in Somerset. I am active within both Geography's Environment and Sustainability research group as well as The RGS-IBG Food Geographies Research Group where I have been Secretary since 2015. Previoulsy I was The Social Cultural Geography Research Group postgraduate rep between 2011-2013 and the Conference Officer 2013-2015.
PhD Project:
Thesis Title: Doing Food-Knowing Food: An exploration of allotment practices and the production of knowledge through visceral engagement-
Funded by Geography, University of Exeter, bursary. This has led to teaching opportunities throughout the Geography department, including achieving a LTHE qualification.
Project Description
This research focused on two case-studies in Somerset which directs the lens of enquiry onto participants growing their own produce, as part of Local Food Projects. Through this I investigated- How practical knowledge is enacted through embodied practices on the plots- How this study extends knowledge of material, visceral encounters -How allotment practices explore alternative food practices through emplaced, visceral methods -How such an investigation extends understandings of agency in nature-society relations -How qualitative research practices can be extended to include cooking methods.
Presentations
RGS Conference 2011 - Community Groups Growing Veg: Re-skilling and Reconnection through Allotments
Download the presentation
Links
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Key publications
Sandover R (2020). Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge.
Sustainability,
12(9), 3548-3548.
Abstract:
Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge
UK food policy assemblages link a broad range of actors in place-based contexts, working to address increasingly distanciated food supply chains, issues of food justice and more. Academic interest in social movements, such as Sustainable Food Cities, has in recent years taken a participatory turn, with academics seeking to foreground the voices of community-based actors and to work alongside them as part of the movement. Bringing together literatures on multiscalar food governance and participatory methods, this paper investigates the intersection of food policy networks via a place-based case study focused on the co-convening of a community acting to co-produce knowledge of household food insecurity in a UK city. By taking a scholar activist approach, this paper sets out how a place-based cross-sectoral food community mobilised collective knowledge and brought together a community of practice to tackle urgent issues of food justice. Drawing from Borras 2016, it will explore how scholar activism requires the blurring of boundaries between thinking and doing in order to both act with, and reflect on, the food movement. The issues of actively driving forward a food network, along with the tensions and challenges that arise, are investigated, whilst also foregrounding the role academics have in linking food policy and praxis via place-based food communities.
Abstract.
Publications by category
Journal articles
Woodley E, Barr S, Stott P, Thomet P, Flint S, Lovell F, O'Malley E, Plews D, Rapley C, Robbins C, et al (2022). Climate Stories: enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication.
Geoscience Communication,
5(4), 339-354.
Abstract:
Climate Stories: enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication
Abstract. The climate science community faces a major challenge with respect to communicating the
risks associated with climate change within a heavily politicised landscape that is
characterised by varying degrees of denial, scepticism, distrust in
scientific enterprise, and an increased prevalence of misinformation (“fake
news”). This issue is particularly significant given the reliance on
conventional “deficit” communication approaches, which are based on the
assumption that scientific information provision will necessarily lead to
desired behavioural changes. Indeed, the constrained orthodoxy of scientific practices in seeking to maintain strict objectivity and political separation imposes very tangible limits on the potential effectiveness of climate
scientists for communicating risk in many contemporary settings. To address
these challenges, this paper uses insights from a collaboration between UK
climate scientists and artist researchers to argue for a more creative and
emotionally attentive approach to climate science engagement and advocacy.
In so doing, the paper highlights innovative ways in which climate change
communication can be reimagined through different art forms to enable
complex concepts to become knowable. We suggest that in learning to express
their work through forms of art, including print-making, theatre and
performance, song-writing, and creative writing, researchers experienced not
only a sense of liberation from the rigid communicative framework operating
in their familiar scientific environment but also a growing self-confidence in their ability and willingness to engage in new ways of expressing their work. As such, we argue that scientific institutions and funding bodies should recognise the potential value of climate scientists engaging in advocacy through art–science collaborations and that these personal investments and contributions to science engagement by individuals should be rewarded and valued alongside conventional scientific outputs.
.
Abstract.
Sandover R, Moseley A, Devine-Wright P (2021). Contrasting Views of Citizens’ Assemblies: Stakeholder Perceptions of Public Deliberation on Climate Change.
Politics and Governance,
9(2), 76-86.
Abstract:
Contrasting Views of Citizens’ Assemblies: Stakeholder Perceptions of Public Deliberation on Climate Change
It has been argued that a ‘new climate politics’ has emerged in recent years, in the wake of global climate change protest movements. One part of the new climate politics entails experimentation with citizen-centric input into policy development, via mechanisms of deliberative democracy such as citizens’ assemblies. Yet relatively little is known about the motivations and aspirations of those commissioning climate assemblies or about general public perceptions of these institutions. Addressing these issues is important for increasing understanding of what these deliberative mechanisms represent in the context of climate change, how legitimate, credible and useful they are perceived to be by those involved, and whether they represent a radical way of doing politics differently or a more incremental change. This article addresses these gaps by presenting findings from mixed method research on prior expectations of the Devon Climate Assembly, proposed following the declaration of a climate emergency in 2019. The research compares and contrasts the views of those commissioning and administering the citizens’ assembly, with those of the wider public. Findings indicate widespread support, yet also considerable risk and uncertainty associated with holding the assembly. Enabling input into policy of a broad array of public voices was seen as necessary for effective climate response, yet there was scepticism about the practical challenges involved in ensuring citizen representation, and about whether politicians, and society more generally, would embrace the ‘hard choices’ required. The assembly was diversely represented as a means to unlock structural change, and as an instrumental tool to achieve behaviour change at scale. The Devon Climate Assembly appears to indicate ‘cautious experimentation’ where democratic innovation is widely embraced yet carefully constrained, offering only a modest example of a ‘new climate politics,’ with minimal challenges to the authority of existing institutions.
Abstract.
Sandover R (2020). Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge.
Sustainability,
12(9), 3548-3548.
Abstract:
Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge
UK food policy assemblages link a broad range of actors in place-based contexts, working to address increasingly distanciated food supply chains, issues of food justice and more. Academic interest in social movements, such as Sustainable Food Cities, has in recent years taken a participatory turn, with academics seeking to foreground the voices of community-based actors and to work alongside them as part of the movement. Bringing together literatures on multiscalar food governance and participatory methods, this paper investigates the intersection of food policy networks via a place-based case study focused on the co-convening of a community acting to co-produce knowledge of household food insecurity in a UK city. By taking a scholar activist approach, this paper sets out how a place-based cross-sectoral food community mobilised collective knowledge and brought together a community of practice to tackle urgent issues of food justice. Drawing from Borras 2016, it will explore how scholar activism requires the blurring of boundaries between thinking and doing in order to both act with, and reflect on, the food movement. The issues of actively driving forward a food network, along with the tensions and challenges that arise, are investigated, whilst also foregrounding the role academics have in linking food policy and praxis via place-based food communities.
Abstract.
Sandover R, Kinsley SP, Hinchliffe S (2018). A very public cull – the anatomy of an online issue public.
Geoforum,
97, 106-118.
Abstract:
A very public cull – the anatomy of an online issue public
Geographers and other social scientists have for some time been interested in how scientific and environmental controversies emerge and become public or collective issues. Social media are now key platforms through which these issues are publically raised and through which groups or publics can organise themselves. As media that generate data and traces of networking activity, these platforms also provide an opportunity for scholars to study the character and constitution of those groupings. In this paper we lay out a method for studying these ‘issue publics’: emergent groupings involved in publicising an issue. We focus on the controversy surrounding the state-sanctioned cull of wild badgers in England as a contested means of disease management in cattle. We analyse two overlapping groupings to demonstrate how online issue publics function in a variety of ways – from the ‘echo chambers’ of online sharing of information, to the marshalling of agreements on strategies for action, to more dialogic patterns of debate. We demonstrate the ways in which digital media platforms are themselves performative in the formation of issue publics and that, while this creates issues, we should not retreat into debates around the ‘proper object’ of research but rather engage with the productive complications of mapping social media data into knowledge (Whatmore, 2009). In turn, we argue that online issue publics are not homogeneous and that the lines of heterogeneity are neither simple or to be expected and merit study as a means to understand the suite of processes and novel contexts involved in the emergence of a public.
Abstract.
Sandover R (2017). Food and Femininity.
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW,
65(3), 557-559.
Author URL.
Sandover R (2017). More than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
26(6), 788-790.
Author URL.
Sandover R (2016). The Working Man's Green Space: Allotment Gardens in England, France, and Germany, 1870-1919.
JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY,
53, 124-125.
Author URL.
Sandover R (2015). Experiential learning and the visceral practice of 'healthy eating'.
GEOGRAPHY,
100, 152-158.
Author URL.
Weeks P, Sandover R, Kaaristo M, Gilbertson A (2015). Reviews.
Hospitality & Society,
5(1), 93-103.
Abstract:
Reviews
Abstract
. Eating Her Curries and Kway: a Cultural History of Food in Singapore, Nicole Tarulevicz (2013) Urbana, University of Illinois Press, xi + 204 pp. ISBN: 97802520389099, p/bk, £34.00
. Food and the Self: Consumption, Production and Material Culture, Isabelle de Solier (2013) London: Bloomsbury, ix+199 pp. ISBN: 9780857854223, p/bk, £19.99
. Tourism and the Power of Otherness: Seductions of Difference, David Picard and Michael A. Di Giovine (eds) (2014) Bristol: Channel View, xii+195 pp. ISBN: 9781845414153, p/bk, £24.95
. Food and Society: Principles and Paradoxes, Amy E. Guptill, Denise A. Copelton and Betsy Lucal (2013) Cambridge: Polity Press, 333 pp. ISBN: 9780745642826, p/bk, £17.99
Abstract.
Sandover R (2014). Book Review: Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice. Environmental Values, 23(2), 230-234.
Rogers A, Bear C, Hunt M, Mills S, Sandover R (2014). Intervention: the impact agenda and human geography in UK higher education. ACME, 13(1), 1-9.
Sandover R (2014). Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
23(2), 230-233.
Author URL.
Chapters
Boehm S, Sandover R, Pascucci S, Colombo L, Jackson S, Lobley M (2022). Circular food systems: a blueprint for regenerative innovations in a regional UK context. In Sage CL (Ed) A Research Agenda for Food Systems, Edward Elgar.
Cook IJ, Jackson P, Hayes-Conroy A, Abrahamsson S, Sandover R, Sheller M, Henderson H, Hallett IV L, Imai S, Maye D, et al (2013). Food’s cultural geographies: texture, creativity & publics. In Johnson N, Schein R, Winders J (Eds.)
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 343-354.
Author URL.
Publications by year
2022
Woodley E, Barr S, Stott P, Thomet P, Flint S, Lovell F, O'Malley E, Plews D, Rapley C, Robbins C, et al (2022). <em>Climate Stories</em>: Enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication. , 2022, 1-47.
Boehm S, Sandover R, Pascucci S, Colombo L, Jackson S, Lobley M (2022). Circular food systems: a blueprint for regenerative innovations in a regional UK context. In Sage CL (Ed) A Research Agenda for Food Systems, Edward Elgar.
Woodley E, Barr S, Stott P, Thomet P, Flint S, Lovell F, O'Malley E, Plews D, Rapley C, Robbins C, et al (2022). Climate Stories: enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication.
Geoscience Communication,
5(4), 339-354.
Abstract:
Climate Stories: enabling and sustaining arts interventions in climate science communication
Abstract. The climate science community faces a major challenge with respect to communicating the
risks associated with climate change within a heavily politicised landscape that is
characterised by varying degrees of denial, scepticism, distrust in
scientific enterprise, and an increased prevalence of misinformation (“fake
news”). This issue is particularly significant given the reliance on
conventional “deficit” communication approaches, which are based on the
assumption that scientific information provision will necessarily lead to
desired behavioural changes. Indeed, the constrained orthodoxy of scientific practices in seeking to maintain strict objectivity and political separation imposes very tangible limits on the potential effectiveness of climate
scientists for communicating risk in many contemporary settings. To address
these challenges, this paper uses insights from a collaboration between UK
climate scientists and artist researchers to argue for a more creative and
emotionally attentive approach to climate science engagement and advocacy.
In so doing, the paper highlights innovative ways in which climate change
communication can be reimagined through different art forms to enable
complex concepts to become knowable. We suggest that in learning to express
their work through forms of art, including print-making, theatre and
performance, song-writing, and creative writing, researchers experienced not
only a sense of liberation from the rigid communicative framework operating
in their familiar scientific environment but also a growing self-confidence in their ability and willingness to engage in new ways of expressing their work. As such, we argue that scientific institutions and funding bodies should recognise the potential value of climate scientists engaging in advocacy through art–science collaborations and that these personal investments and contributions to science engagement by individuals should be rewarded and valued alongside conventional scientific outputs.
.
Abstract.
2021
Sandover R, Moseley A, Devine-Wright P (2021). Contrasting Views of Citizens’ Assemblies: Stakeholder Perceptions of Public Deliberation on Climate Change.
Politics and Governance,
9(2), 76-86.
Abstract:
Contrasting Views of Citizens’ Assemblies: Stakeholder Perceptions of Public Deliberation on Climate Change
It has been argued that a ‘new climate politics’ has emerged in recent years, in the wake of global climate change protest movements. One part of the new climate politics entails experimentation with citizen-centric input into policy development, via mechanisms of deliberative democracy such as citizens’ assemblies. Yet relatively little is known about the motivations and aspirations of those commissioning climate assemblies or about general public perceptions of these institutions. Addressing these issues is important for increasing understanding of what these deliberative mechanisms represent in the context of climate change, how legitimate, credible and useful they are perceived to be by those involved, and whether they represent a radical way of doing politics differently or a more incremental change. This article addresses these gaps by presenting findings from mixed method research on prior expectations of the Devon Climate Assembly, proposed following the declaration of a climate emergency in 2019. The research compares and contrasts the views of those commissioning and administering the citizens’ assembly, with those of the wider public. Findings indicate widespread support, yet also considerable risk and uncertainty associated with holding the assembly. Enabling input into policy of a broad array of public voices was seen as necessary for effective climate response, yet there was scepticism about the practical challenges involved in ensuring citizen representation, and about whether politicians, and society more generally, would embrace the ‘hard choices’ required. The assembly was diversely represented as a means to unlock structural change, and as an instrumental tool to achieve behaviour change at scale. The Devon Climate Assembly appears to indicate ‘cautious experimentation’ where democratic innovation is widely embraced yet carefully constrained, offering only a modest example of a ‘new climate politics,’ with minimal challenges to the authority of existing institutions.
Abstract.
2020
Sandover R (2020). Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge.
Sustainability,
12(9), 3548-3548.
Abstract:
Participatory Food Cities: Scholar Activism and the Co-Production of Food Knowledge
UK food policy assemblages link a broad range of actors in place-based contexts, working to address increasingly distanciated food supply chains, issues of food justice and more. Academic interest in social movements, such as Sustainable Food Cities, has in recent years taken a participatory turn, with academics seeking to foreground the voices of community-based actors and to work alongside them as part of the movement. Bringing together literatures on multiscalar food governance and participatory methods, this paper investigates the intersection of food policy networks via a place-based case study focused on the co-convening of a community acting to co-produce knowledge of household food insecurity in a UK city. By taking a scholar activist approach, this paper sets out how a place-based cross-sectoral food community mobilised collective knowledge and brought together a community of practice to tackle urgent issues of food justice. Drawing from Borras 2016, it will explore how scholar activism requires the blurring of boundaries between thinking and doing in order to both act with, and reflect on, the food movement. The issues of actively driving forward a food network, along with the tensions and challenges that arise, are investigated, whilst also foregrounding the role academics have in linking food policy and praxis via place-based food communities.
Abstract.
2018
Sandover R, Kinsley SP, Hinchliffe S (2018). A very public cull – the anatomy of an online issue public.
Geoforum,
97, 106-118.
Abstract:
A very public cull – the anatomy of an online issue public
Geographers and other social scientists have for some time been interested in how scientific and environmental controversies emerge and become public or collective issues. Social media are now key platforms through which these issues are publically raised and through which groups or publics can organise themselves. As media that generate data and traces of networking activity, these platforms also provide an opportunity for scholars to study the character and constitution of those groupings. In this paper we lay out a method for studying these ‘issue publics’: emergent groupings involved in publicising an issue. We focus on the controversy surrounding the state-sanctioned cull of wild badgers in England as a contested means of disease management in cattle. We analyse two overlapping groupings to demonstrate how online issue publics function in a variety of ways – from the ‘echo chambers’ of online sharing of information, to the marshalling of agreements on strategies for action, to more dialogic patterns of debate. We demonstrate the ways in which digital media platforms are themselves performative in the formation of issue publics and that, while this creates issues, we should not retreat into debates around the ‘proper object’ of research but rather engage with the productive complications of mapping social media data into knowledge (Whatmore, 2009). In turn, we argue that online issue publics are not homogeneous and that the lines of heterogeneity are neither simple or to be expected and merit study as a means to understand the suite of processes and novel contexts involved in the emergence of a public.
Abstract.
2017
Sandover R (2017). Food and Femininity.
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW,
65(3), 557-559.
Author URL.
Sandover R (2017). More than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
26(6), 788-790.
Author URL.
2016
Sandover R (2016). The Working Man's Green Space: Allotment Gardens in England, France, and Germany, 1870-1919.
JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY,
53, 124-125.
Author URL.
2015
Sandover R (2015). Experiential learning and the visceral practice of 'healthy eating'.
GEOGRAPHY,
100, 152-158.
Author URL.
Weeks P, Sandover R, Kaaristo M, Gilbertson A (2015). Reviews.
Hospitality & Society,
5(1), 93-103.
Abstract:
Reviews
Abstract
. Eating Her Curries and Kway: a Cultural History of Food in Singapore, Nicole Tarulevicz (2013) Urbana, University of Illinois Press, xi + 204 pp. ISBN: 97802520389099, p/bk, £34.00
. Food and the Self: Consumption, Production and Material Culture, Isabelle de Solier (2013) London: Bloomsbury, ix+199 pp. ISBN: 9780857854223, p/bk, £19.99
. Tourism and the Power of Otherness: Seductions of Difference, David Picard and Michael A. Di Giovine (eds) (2014) Bristol: Channel View, xii+195 pp. ISBN: 9781845414153, p/bk, £24.95
. Food and Society: Principles and Paradoxes, Amy E. Guptill, Denise A. Copelton and Betsy Lucal (2013) Cambridge: Polity Press, 333 pp. ISBN: 9780745642826, p/bk, £17.99
Abstract.
2014
Sandover R (2014). Book Review: Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice. Environmental Values, 23(2), 230-234.
Rogers A, Bear C, Hunt M, Mills S, Sandover R (2014). Intervention: the impact agenda and human geography in UK higher education. ACME, 13(1), 1-9.
Sandover R (2014). Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
23(2), 230-233.
Author URL.
2013
Cook IJ, Jackson P, Hayes-Conroy A, Abrahamsson S, Sandover R, Sheller M, Henderson H, Hallett IV L, Imai S, Maye D, et al (2013). Food’s cultural geographies: texture, creativity & publics. In Johnson N, Schein R, Winders J (Eds.)
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 343-354.
Author URL.
Rebecca_Sandover Details from cache as at 2023-12-09 05:05:44
Refresh publications
Teaching
- Environment and Sustainability
- Just Sustainabilities, including Food Justice
- Experiential Learning, including field classes
- Place, Identity and Difference
- Local Food Networks
- Sustainablity Governance
- Public Participation in Decision Making
- Food, Consumption and Identities
- Participatory Action Research methods
In 2020/21 I am a lecturer on GEO1310, GEO1105, GEO1313, GEO2322c, GEOM131 and GEOM145.
In 2021/22 I am the convenor for GEO1309, GEO2322c and GEOM146. I am lecturering on GEO1309, GEO1310, The Bristol Fieldtrip, GEO2322c, The Seville Field Trip, GEOM131, GEOM145 and GEOM146
Modules
2023/24
