The Historical Geography Research Group (HGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society warmly invite you to take part in Porous Archives 2, the 2025 Practising Historical Geography conference now in its 31st year. This free, one-day conference takes place at Newcastle University and online on the 12th December.
During this conference, Ben Newman and Colin Lorne (Open University) will present a workshop where they will share a small collection of (scanned) materials from the Stories-so-far: Doreen Massey archive project. This is a significant privilege, and a brilliant opportunity to actively practise some of the emerging tenets of Porous Archives by directly engaging with the papers of a truly public intellectual and deeply political geographical scholar.
Please register here – if you prefer to attend online, please note that the Doreen Massey archive workshop session will be in person only and the Teams meeting will pause for this.
- Cost: free – see registration details for additional support options for postgraduates.
- Date: Friday 12th December, expected to start at 11.00.
- Location: Armstrong Building Room 2.49 (provisional – exact room may change), Newcastle University, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom.
- Registration deadline – in person: 8th December 11.00 (places are limited – be quick!).
- Registration deadline – online: 10th December 23.59 (Teams, places are unlimited).
- The same deadlines apply if presenting – the different presentation options are detailed in the registration form and you are welcome to present in person or over teams.
- For the provisional programme, see here. The conference program will be added to regularly as further abstracts are received. We also propose a lower-key series of events in 2026 here.
HGRG are very pleased to provide this event for free. The conference series has always provided a safe and nurturing space to support the practice of historical geographical research, enquiry and writing, so it’s the perfect place to trial ideas and gain friendly, supportive feedback on (e.g.) methods, theories, findings, collaborations, ethics, draft material, funding proposals and etcetera. It is intended to be especially accessible for students (whilst also welcoming more established scholars).
We ask that established scholars presenting on their work align with the Porous Archives theme (see below): postgraduate attendees are encouraged to do so but have more flexibility and are welcome to present more broadly on their research, although you may be asked more archive-y questions about your work.
What is Porous Archives? In 100 words: Porous Archives is our ongoing critical exploration of approaches which do more than consulting archives, and instead creatively turn archived things to face onto contemporary worlds in porous, unfinished ways. We avoid treating archives as places/collections of immutable, finished, time-stilled things, and seek alternative understandings of how archived things are (or become) porous, so that they affect and are affected by more than the pocket of time they originated in, and are treated as unfinished again. For more on this idea, see here.
For information on visiting Newcastle upon Tyne, see here.
Find out more about Doreen Massey here. The Kilburn Manifesto can be downloaded for free from Lawrence Wishart here.
Find out more about the HGRG and the Practising Historical Geography conference series.