Research Interests

My research is broadly concerned with the role of food and farming in the economy, and how food systems are both influenced by, and influence, economic thought. I'm interested in understanding what kind of economic organisation we need for flourishing agroecological systems, and I engage with this through the study of two research areas.

First, I am interested in understanding how capitalism evolved from agrarian roots in England, and what agricultural history tells us both about British society (and British colonialism) and British economic theory. Here, I use postcolonial theory to understand the origins of our agrarian economy, and the way land relations were fundamental to the development of the British class system, and political and economic thought.

As part of this, I am interested in how changing agricultural technologies, particularly the use of organic chemicals for fertilisation, have influenced theories of political economy in Britain. My research aims to understand how our relationships with, and access to, nitrogen and phosphorous are built into both heterodox and orthodox economic theory.

My earlier research in this field explored the ecological, economic and social consequences of the application of economic models in fisheries policy, and the political struggle of the UK's small-scale fleet in the face of scientific management that did not recognise their heterodox forms of economic organization, and the myriad benefits these brought.

I'm keen to see how we can imagine and engage otherwise with agriculture, land and the economy through radical approaches to pedagogy. To this end, I am actively engaged in land-based and alternative approaches to education, both within and beyond the university.

I'm interested in what sub-altern and post-colonial theory can tell us about the 'colonial core'. As such, I conduct research primarily in the UK, but work closely with Majority World academics, theories and movements, particularly in Brazil (the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) and Mexico (La Via Campesina).

I am a member of the LEC Political Ecology rearch cluster and a founding member of the Political Ecology of Agrarian Transitions (PEAT) research group.

Current Teaching

I am convenor of the undergraduate Economic Geography module in LEC, which teaches economic geography from feminist and postcolonial standpoints, and lead the dissertation projects for Economics and Geography BA students. I co-convene Food and Agriculture in the 21st Century with Kai Heron.

I am particuarly interested in the expansion of education and creative educational methods. As such, I have also contributed to the Sustainable Agriculture and Responding to Environmental Challenges modules of the JWL BA in Sustainable Development: this is a free online degree designed for and delivered to students in refugee camps across the world. I have delivered pedagogic sessions at Black Mountains College, The MST's Florestan Fernandes National School, The Apricot Centre, Food Futures' The Plot, The Kindling Trust, the Land Skills Fair, the Land Justice Gathering, and have collaborated with Universidad de la Tierra in Oaxaca. I am currently working with the Landworkers' Alliance to develop socioeconomic and political education for agroecology.

Career Details

I joined Lancaster Environment Centre in 2022 as a Lecturer in Economic Geography. Before this, I was a Lecturer in Human Geography in Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences at Nottingham Trent University from 2020 to 2022, where I led the human geography content of the geography degrees, and a Lecturer in Environmental Geography at the University of Glasgow from 2018 to 2020, where I led teaching on food systems and natural resource management, and designed and co-convened the Earth Futures MSc.

I studied a DPhil in Economic Geography at the University of Oxford. I have an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy, also from Oxford (for which I won the MSc prize for best disseration), and a BSc in Environmental Policy at the London School of Economics (for which I won the George and Hilda Ormsby prizes for best disseration and best overall performance in Geography and Environment, and the Reynes prize for best final year performance university-wide).

I grew up on a small livestock farm in Yorkshire. Before joining academia, I had a number of jobs that have influenced my academic trajectory, including as a farm labour, in horse care, and for the public library system. I am a qualified Playworker, and have worked with children in a range of play settings. This includes out of school clubs for 5-16 year-olds in South and East Yorkshire; free youth schemes in Edmonton, North London; the family-run Love Kids children's home in Nkoranza, Ghana; the Toybox charity for children of inmates at Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow; and Global Link in Lancaster, working with the children of refugees and asylum seekers. I am very interested in haptic, experiential and non-traditional learning, for both children and adults, particularly in outdoor settings.

PhD Supervision Interests

I am available to supervise PhD students interested in working on land, economics, farming and food production from feminist or postcolonial standpoints.