JD Dewsbury is Professor in Human Geography at the School of Science at UNSW Canberra. His research focuses upon the performative and non-representational nature of social life, in particular, on how we view space, environment, affects, human behaviour and subjectivity. Using post-continental philosophy his research looks at understandings of habit, agency and technology, understanding politics and identity through the relationship between...view more
JD Dewsbury is Professor in Human Geography at the School of Science at UNSW Canberra. His research focuses upon the performative and non-representational nature of social life, in particular, on how we view space, environment, affects, human behaviour and subjectivity. Using post-continental philosophy his research looks at understandings of habit, agency and technology, understanding politics and identity through the relationship between ontology and events, and the impacts of assemblage theory and affect in research practice. Although situated in human geography, he has produced successful collaborations with performance studies, political theory, sociology and environmental studies.
He is currently leading research capacity and expertise in the areas of Cultural and Environmental Geography at UNSW Canberra and developing research in the interdisciplinary field of Behavioural Science in the Age of Social-Technical Innovation, specifically looking at this in the context of Australia’s policy, defence and emergency service infrastructures.
His research has previously appeared in the journals Environment & Planning D, Cultural Geographies, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Social and Cultural Geographies, Area, and Performance Research.
My Grants
2016 Bristol-Kyoto Symposium/The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation £9’000 w/ Andrew Lapworth and Jenifer Coates Deterritorialising Visual Theory and Culture: Anglo-Japanese Encounters
2013-14 ESRC - Seminar Series, £23,870.28 w/ Jessica Pykett (PI), Ben Anderson, Maria Fannin, Rhys Jones, Joe Painter, Mark Whitehead: Behaviour Change and Psychological Governance.
2013-14 University Research Fellowship, University of Bristol £10,000.
2013 Visiting Fellowship UNSW AUS $12,080.
2012-13 University of Bristol Cabot Institute, £5,000, co-PI w/ Chris Priest and Malcolm Fairbrother: ICT4 Adaption;
2012 AHRC: Follow-up Impact Grant, £100,000, Beyond the Flood: performance events in Eastville, Bristol & Shipley, Leeds core participant;
2011-12 BRITISH COUNCIL - UK/US Connect Partnerships, £14,000, PI w/ Maria Fannin, Keith Woodward: The Politics of Affect;
2010-11 AHRC - Researching Environmental Change Programme: Reflecting on Environmental Change through Site-based Performancecore participant;
2011 WUN/IAS - Research Initiative Fund, £5,000, co-PI w/ Maria Fannin: Political Events and Spaces of Affect
2010 WUN Research Mobility Programme, £1,277 w/ University of Wisconsin-Madison: Emerging Localized Politics in the Event Based Philosophy of Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy & Jacques Ranciere.
2009-10 University of Bristol Global Change Initiative, £5,000, co-PI w/ Bronwen Morgan, Mark Jackson, and Eldin Fahmy: Affecting Concern in Climate Change and Social Policy.
2009 AHRC - Beyond Text Research Programme: named participant in two network workshops.De-placing Future Memory.
2007-08 AHRC – Landscape and Environment Research Programme: named participant in three network workshops and site research Living in a Material World.
My Research Activities
In transposing key philosophical concepts into social scientific thinking, I have been at the forefront of research in non-representational theory in geography, gaining distinction for taking this work into the 3 main directions: (1) in the application of post-continental philosophical conceptualizations of politics; (2) in performative understandings of the social, focusing on affect, embodiment, materiality and technology; and (3) in the dissemination of techniques and methodologies from performance studies.
Post-Continental Philosophical Conceptualizations of Politics
I have recently published a book Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics (2019: Routledge) with colleagues that pushes the agenda of philosophy in the social sciences and am completing a draft of a monograph entitled Performative Spaces: events, materiality and subjectivity.
PhD Theses
2003-2007 Charlie Rolfe Breaking Promises: for a community that works on the world of assumption
2004-2008 Lucy Hood Rethinking Urban Geographies of Architectural Form and Experience
2008- 2012 Naomi Millner Habits of Emancipation: critical relationships with undocumented migration in the EU security regime
2009-2013 Georgie Urry Immaterial Labour: between life and death
2014-2018 Stephanie Denning Faith Based Social Action and Affective Communities
Performative Understandings of the Social: Affect, Embodiment and Technology
PhD Theses
2002-2006 Jennifer Lea Enacting Somatic Technologies: geographies of complimentary and alternative medicines
2003-2007 Gunnpora Olafsdottir Relating to Nature: the performative spaces of Icelandic Tourism
2005-2009 James Ash Intensive Worlds of the Image: practices and processes of video game design and use
2006-2010 James Clarke Governmental Practices in People Centred Planning with Learning Disabled Subjects
2006-2010 Sam Kinsley Practising Tomorrows? Ubiquitous computing and the politics of anticipation
2010-2014 Andrew Lapworth Ontogenetic Art: rethinking the politics of art-technoscience
2011- 2015 Thomas Roberts Ecologies of Non-organic Life
2011-2015 Stacey Smith The Neural Event: plasticity through practice
2013-2017 Thomas Keating An Ethology of Technics: concepts and experiments with technological affects
Performance Studies and Methodologies of Expression
PhD Theses
2001-2005 Francis MortonThe Music of What Happens: spaces of performance of Irish traditional music Galway, Ireland
2005-2009 Pepe RomanillosExperiences of Finitude: communication as spatiality after Georges Bataille and Alain Robbe-Grillet
2006-2009 Paul SimpsonEcologies of Street Performance: bodies, affects, politics
2006-2010 Julian BrigstockeThe Life of the City: aesthetics of existence in fin-de-siecle Montmartre
2012 –2016 Nina Williams The Art of Walking, An Aesthetic Gait, Aesthetic Ambulation
2015- Jethro Brice Vulnerability and Non-Representational Landscapes
2018 - George Burdon Sound and the Production of Worlds
2019- Carlota De La Herran Iriarte Art and the Non-Representational Unconscious
My Teaching
Current Teaching
Cultural Geography [Unit Convenor and Lecturer] ~ 25 Students, lectures & tutorials, 100% of 39hrs; 2 assignments and examination]
Social Geography [Lecturer] ~ 30 Students, lectures & tutorials & field school, 30% of 50 hrs; 1 assignment and 1/3 of examination]
Previous Teaching
Human Geography [Unit Convenor and Lecturer ~150 students; 1st Year; lectures & practicals; 1/5 of 55 hrs; summer examination]
Philosophy and Social Theory [Unit Convenor and Lecturer ~75 students; 2nd Year; lectures & seminars; 1/3 of 24hrs; 3000 word essay assignment]
Experiencing Cities: Barcelona Field Trip [Unit Convenor and Lecturer: ~35 students; 2nd Year; lectures, seminars & fieldwork; 1/3 of 130hrs; fieldwork and notebook assignment]
Nature, Culture, Power [Lecturer: ~70 students; 3rd Year; lectures, 1/5 of 20hrs; summer examination]
Affect, Biopolitics, Technology [Unit Convenor and Lecturer: ~10 students; MSc; lectures & seminars; 1/2 of 20hrs; 4500 word essay assignment]
Theorizing Society and Space [Unit Convenor and Lecturer :~15 students; MSc; lectures & seminars; 3/5 of 20hrs; 4500 word essay assignment]
Dissertations [Unit Convenor:~150 students; lectures and office hours, 13’000 words thesis].
