My name is Hilary Geoghegan.
I am a social and cultural geographer who researches impassioned knowledges and ways of being through an attention to relations between people and the material world. My research interests encompass the cultural, emotional, material and sensual knowledges and practices that make life worth living, specifically attending to geographies of expertise and practice, theories of enthusiasm and cultures of climate change. To date I have investigated the human geographies of technology enthusiasm in groups, museums and the home, as well as climate change in the familiar landscapes of everyday life. My research focuses on questions at the intersection of the social and environmental sciences and I have expertise in qualitative methodologies, including focus groups, in-depth interviews, textual analysis and questionnaires. I am experienced in delivering participant-relevant and impactful research as evidenced by my successful collaborations with the Science Museum (London), Natural England and the National Trust.
Since the completion of my PhD in 2008, I have successfully secured a series of fellowships and research awards. I was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2008/09), for early career academics, which allowed me to develop publications around my work with technology enthusiasts and the Science Museum. Since March 2009, I have worked as Associate Research Fellow on the ESF-funded project ‘From Climate to Landscape: Imagining the Future’ (CLIF), which connects my work on enthusiasm to understanding the local effects of climate change. I have also secured research funds from the RGS, for a study with the British Trust for Ornithology exploring the role, contribution and value of the volunteer to knowledge of the effects of climate change and subsequent conservation policy. Finally, I have a small grant from the British Academy to research ‘Cultures of Architectural Enthusiasm’, investigating how volunteer guides articulate, experience and interpret 20th century architecture.
This page has the following sub pages.
Hilary,
This looks really great! I’m friends with Klaus Dodds and Alasdair Pinkerton and they told me of your arrival. Would love to meet sometime and talk about common research interests!
Hi Hilary!
Great Blog – I ran across it when I was looking for this Vintage Tech radio show on BBC 3.
Oddly enough, I am a new Ph.D. student at Royal Holloway this year!
Let’s meet up for a drink and a chat when you have a chance!
Hi again Hilary,
Thought I should leave you a message on here as well. I found the website after reading your very interesting and thought-provoking paper you very kindly sent me. This is a great website. I especially like the personal touches: e.g. what your desk says about you and your enthusiatic twitterings…
It would be great to meet you in person at somepoint. I may have asked you this before but are you going to the RGS Annual Conference this year? If so it would be great to catch you there especially seeing that I am hoping to do a paper with my supervisor (Dave Matless) in the Geographies of Collections Seminar.
Anyway, take care, speak soon and once again a great website!
Many thanks,
James Fenner x
PhD Research Student (1st Year)
School of Geography
University Nottingham
Hi there Hilary
First, thank you for adding my blog to your list – I was pleasantly surprised to see it linked – it’s fairly new, and I hope to sustain it (as enthusiastically as you!) in time to come.
In scrolling through some of your entries, I’m excited to see that there are many useful leads to help me think through some of my personal ‘enthusiams’ on objects and ‘things’. I’ve added 2 entries to my blog (based on fieldwork reflections of urban ethnography in a Urban Geography class last year). In both entries, I highlighted how my experiences are disrupted and punctuated with (affective?) fascinations with urban materialities in their diverse forms.
I have no better vocabulary to describe my experience, and I must say that your blog has really got me drawn into re-thinking through that ethnographic exercise, again!
Cheers
Yi En