The program is now full, and whilst the running order may be subject to change we will only be accepting abstracts for “morsels” from this point forward – to find out more about “morsels” (which are essentially very similar to poster presentations) please refer to the registration form here.
Venue: Armstrong Building Room 2.49 Newcastle University.
Note: the Doreen Massey archive workshop session provisionally scheduled for 13.00 to 14.45 is in-person only and the Teams meeting will pause for this.
11:30-11:40: Welcome
11:40-12:10: The Nautical Turn: The Birth of the Renaissance as found in it’s Cartographic History and it’s Shift to a Maritime Focus. (Seb Willis, University of Hull)
Abstract: The junction between the Mediaeval and Early Modern eras has, frustratingly for some, always been divided by the Renaissance. A period often defined by humanist philosophy, classical romanticism, blossoming republics and mercantilism, the Renaissance is elusive in its origins. A stark juxtaposition between Mediaeval and Renaissance culture is found in the cartographic traditions of both. The mappamundi of mediaeval Europe, characterised by its religious allegory and moral teaching, was pushed abruptly aside by the Portolan Charts of mercantile republics. This shift in cartographic expression coincided with, and this paper will explore if it created, a changing world view that saw the sea not as a border separating the Earth from the rest of the cosmos, but as a vector of opportunity to be explored and exploited. Rejecting its capitalist resolution, this paper will lean into Edgar Zilsel’s thesis on the artisanal origins of modern science. Thus, reframing Renaissance cartography as something born from the personal relationship with, and the many knowledges of, the maritime world as held by the people living and operating upon it.)
12:10-12:30: Cruising the Cut: Lesbian histories of mobility and queer futures of boat-dwelling on the UK’s canals. (Georgia Dimdore-Miles, Royal Holloway)
Abstract: My work takes a multi-methods approach including oral history, mobile interviewing, archival work, ethnography and experimental archiving. In this vignette I will present ideas about this project’s experimental archive, a response to Cvetkovich’s (2003) call to queer historians to create “unusual archives” as “sites of recovery” to record lives that have been too fleeting, or in this case mobile, to exist within traditional collections (Lee, 2021; Orr, 2021). During ‘floating interviews’, which will take place upon queer houseboats cruising through varied landscapes, narrators will donate material culture to the projects’ community mobile archive. I coin this an ‘archive in motion’ – a portable but powerful small-scale collection of material culture that will travel with me on ethnographic fieldtrips on queer houseboats. Temporarily situating this archive on the houseboats will contribute to its unique character, the quotidien fabric of these mobile worlds will be woven into the collection; photographs, letters and licenses, flags, signs, badges and boat tools. In this watery world of flows and freedom, the ‘archive in motion’ will radically contest the archive as a static site that fixes queer identities (Lee, 2021).
12:30-13:00: Lunch and morsel (Jenny Brown, University of Glasgow) My morsel will map archival narratives that challenge a dominant contemporary interpretation of ‘The Highland Society models’. This collection of models of agricultural implements and machines in National Museums Scotland were first acquired by the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland from 1790 and gifted to the Museum in 1855. That association currently dominates current institutional understanding and presentation to the public. Can a visual representation of the original artisans alter this perception?
13:00-14:45: Stories-so-far: Doreen Massey archive (Ben Newman and Colin Lorne, Open University).
Abstract: during this workshop Ben and Colin 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.
14:45-15:00: Refreshments and morsels.
15:00-15:30: Recovering Dialogues: Archival Perspectives on the International Dialogue Project (Colin Fuchs, Open University, William Kutz and Henrik Gutzon Larsen, Lund University)
Abstract: This paper revisits the International Dialogue Project (IDP), a curiously forgotten initiative given the current scholarly interest in ‘dialogue’. Initiated by Anne Buttimer and Torsten Hägerstrand at Lund University in 1978, the IDP produced over 150 video-recorded conversations with researchers, artists and practitioners from across the sciences and humanities. But far from being a success story, the IDP presents a case of unmet expectations, frustrations and misunderstandings arising from a project that on paper could not have been more ideally positioned for impact. Coinciding with the opening of Hägerstrand’s archive at Lund University (Fryksén, forthcoming) and recent work on Buttimer’s archive at University College Dublin (Ferretti, 2019), we use the IDP as a lens through which to examine how knowledge moves and endures through dialogic encounter. In parallel, we reclaim some of the IDP’s lost vocabulary to reconsider the work of stewarding disciplinary ideas and memory for the future.
15:30-16:00: The evolution of Central Asia’s geospatial structure: interactions between nomads and sedentary populations (Qiran Song, University of Warwick)
Abstract: The evolution of Central Asia’s geospatial structure is closely associated to livelihoods, migration, trade, and political and military affairs. The South-North Tie (S-N Tie), underpinned by interactions between nomads and sedentary populations, played a significant role during the early stages of this evolution. Even as nomads gained military-political dominance, the S-N Tie fostered their trend toward sedentarisation. While the S-N Tie remained influential, the East-West Tie (E-W Tie) emerged as nomadic groups entered Central Asia in succession from the East Eurasian Steppes. The E-W Tie arose from tensions between China (Han-Di) and the steppe-forest regions of Mongolia and the watersheds of the Songhua and Liao Rivers, as well as the conflicts between Sassanian and Byzantine, demonstrating the feature that interdependent rise-and-fall dynamics among Eurasian nomadic groups and reciprocity between nomads and peasants interwove. After the 15th century, Central Asia’s geospatial structure was increasingly shaped by maritime powers, which integrated Central Asia into a new geospatial structure that the influence of the Eurasian Continent and the ocean intersected.
16:00-16:15: Refreshments and morsels.
16:15-16:45: The Scattered Memory of Nigeria’s Independence Speeches across Porous Archives (Olalekan Ojumu, Archivi.ng)
Abstract: Nigeria’s Independence Day speeches should represent some of the most stable and accessible state records in the country’s postcolonial history. Yet when Archivi.ng set out to compile a complete collection for a public storytelling project on governance and national memory, it became clear that no central institution had preserved them in full. This discovery began a nine-month search across Nigeria’s fragmented archival landscape, moving through the National Archives in Ibadan, Kenneth Dike Library, the National Libraries in Yaba and Ibadan, the Oyo State Library Board, Radio Nigeria, NISER, and the Tribune Library. Each site offered only partial remnants, ranging from isolated transcripts to deteriorating documents and unlabelled audio reels. These encounters revealed the degree to which Nigerian state archives operate as porous systems shaped by institutional discontinuity, personal discretion, staff memory, and chronic underfunding. Records that should form a coherent national narrative survive instead as scattered and vulnerable fragments. The Independence speeches, central texts in Nigeria’s annual political ritual, emerge as unfinished objects that continue to be reshaped by loss, recovery, and interpretive labour. By tracing the effort required to reconstruct these materials, this paper explores how porous archives influence public history, digital preservation, and the broader task of rebuilding state memory.
16:45-17:05: Retracing Footsteps: Reanimating Past and Present Encounters with a Mountain (Daniel Bos, University of Chester
Abstract: This paper draws on an interdisciplinary project combining art, photography, and cultural geography to investigate historical and contemporary tourist experiences with the mountain Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), Wales. The project has focused on reanimating archival materials by juxtaposing contemporary artistic practices, using photography and moving images, with excerpts from 19th-century visitor books once held in summit huts atop Yr Wyddfa. By retracing the journeys of 19th-century visitors to the summit of the mountain, the team set out to reimagine the rural mountain landscape as it exists today, reflecting on the broader contemporary environmental, socio-economic, and cultural challenges the mountain faces for a sustainable future due to its ever-growing popularity. By referencing examples from various public exhibitions, the talk will focus on the practices and process of documenting and reanimating such archival materials in ways that creatively engage with the temporalities of rural landscape and show how such creative work can develop and alter public understandings of popular rural geographies.
17:05-17:15: Outline of 2026 events, and close.