by
Dr Julian Dobson
Place After a Pandemic:
Love, Loss, and Uncertain Futures
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash
Abstract:
Place can be understood as habit, habitat and habitus: patterns of being in the world that create individual and collective meanings. These meanings are relational rather than rational: attachments that grow over time and structure our lives. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted and accelerated awareness that places are in constant flux, teasing out and tearing at our attachments. The loss of place is always already entangled in our attachments to place: the loss of place as experienced by each of us individually, collective losses of networks of community-making, and wider losses that flow from economic restructuring, climate and biodiversity crisis, and systemic injustices.
In this talk I consider some of the loves and losses that have become salient during 18 months of pandemic, and how these mesh with a wider set of loves and losses of place. I question whether current political policies based on collective nostalgia can equip us for the losses we will continue to experience, or nurture the new loves we will need to discover. I ask whether, and how, we might generate new forms of attachment that enable us to embrace and respond to change in places.
I address these questions through the lens of some of the place-based impacts of the pandemic. I consider two types of everyday places that have come to prominence over the last 18 months: high streets and parks. Drawing on current and recent research at Sheffield Hallam University and beyond, I explore some of the opportunities that now exist to create places that, with luck, we might love again.
Julian Dobson is a researcher and writer with a broad interest in place and society, and a particular focus on the complex systemic changes required to achieve environmentally and socially just approaches to urban life. His research expertise is in social and economic regeneration, urban greenspace, town and city centres and the role of the voluntary and community sector. He is especially interested in how and why change happens and the role of evidence in shaping policy and practice.
Julian joined CRESR as senior research fellow in 2020. With a previous career in journalism and consultancy before moving into academia, he has given evidence to parliamentary inquiries, written for a wide range of academic and general audiences, and spoken at national and international conferences. He is author of How to Save Our Town Centres (Policy Press, 2015) and was the founding editor of the regeneration magazine New Start. His PhD at CRESR focused on institutional change and sustainability transitions.
Read more from our blog:
A month on from Earth(ly) Matters 2021
We can’t believe it’s been over a month since Earth(ly) Matters 2021 came to a close. In that time, we have been asking our speakers and delegates to let us know what they thought of the conference and help us ensure that we can make improvements to future editions. As a committee, we’ve also been…
Congratulations Joanna Rucklidge & Dr Elizabeth Freeman!
Big congratulations to Joanna Rucklidge & Dr. Elizabeth Freeman! Their poster titled: “How to connect to nature and yourself” won the popular vote of this year’s Earth(ly) Matters’ Academic Poster Competition. Joanna and Elizabeth’s poster outlines their cross-disciplinary and transformative educational research project Ego to Eco that explores experiences and attitudes towards the natural environment…
Earth(ly) Matters Academic Poster Competition
This year’s poster competition is now completed. Check out the winning poster here.Thank you to all our contestants and everyone voting! We are excited to host our first Academic Poster Competition and open up the conference for more postgrads and ECRs to present their work this year. The posters are available for viewing throughout the…
Why Earth(ly) Matters (for Elin & Rose)
Rose’s story: I used to think that ‘environment stuff’ was just what you ate and making sure you turned off the lights when you left the room. I didn’t really think further because I thought I already knew three key things: Sustainability was important Climate change was something I was worried about It all felt…
SHU Postgrad Humanities Social Sciences Conference 2021 