About

I have been working as a geographer at the University of Birmingham since 2003.  As with all converts (I started my academic life as an historian) I'm passionate about the discipline.  My work develops novel research methods to examine the cultural geographies of cities.  An unashamed geek, I work with different technologies to look at questions around embodiment, creativity and urban development.  My early work examined the historic fabric of cities and subsequently progressed onto projects on urban sustainability and regeneration, with more recent work examining arts and culture.  I'm currently working with gaming technologies, VR and AR.

I like to work in different media and have been involved with the production of VR environments, videos, a comic book, smartphone and touchtable apps as well as having undertaken a couple of exhibitions working with documentary photographer Dan Burwood.  My Playful Methods Lab is the base for a team of allied researchers interested in developing new approaches to understanding cities.

My latest edited collection A research agenda for digital geographies came out in June 2023.  VR Methods: a guide for researchers in the social sciences and humanities came out in June 2022 and is available free and open access to all.  My monograph Bodies, technologies and methods was published in April 2020 and was submitted to REF2021.  An edited collection from my large AHRC-funded 'Cultural intermediation' project came out in 2019: Cultural intermediaries connecting communities is available from Policy Press.  I've also produced an edited collection with Saskia Warren: Creative economies, creative communities (2015). A fully revised second edition of my 2008 book Urban Regeneration in the UK came out in 2013.  I've also published a fair number of journal articles, some of which are available as open access - see the Publications and Grants page for more details.