Dr Kimberley Peters

Lecturer in Human Geography
BSc (hons) Human Geography and Planning (Cardiff University)
MA Cultural Geography (Royal Holloway, University of London)
PhD (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Photograph of Dr Kimberley Peters.

Contact

Email: kip2@aber.ac.uk
Office: J5
Phone: +44 (0)1970 622 583
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622 659
Personal Web Site:https://sites.google.com/site/drkimberleypeters/home/

Responsibilities

  • Undergraduate admissions tutor for Human Geography (L700)
  • IGES Newsletter coordinator (with Philippa Bevan)

Teaching Areas

Geography is a situated subject – we live our lives in and through space and place – this makes the subject exciting and relevant as we can observe and engage with geographies at work all around us, everyday. As such, I strongly believe teaching should be engaging also, relying not only on lectures, but film, photography and discussion; innovative group projects and workshop sessions, to enable students to critically analyse the world we live in (and provide skills for future employment).

I am especially interested in methods teaching and am involved in skills teaching here at Aberystwyth (as part of GG13000 and GG20130).

Module coordinator for:

  • Place, Culture and Society (GG14410)
  • Researching Human Geography Joint Honours (GG25110)

Contributes to:

  • Key Skills for Geographers (GG13000)
  • Geography Tutorial (GG2210)
  • Researching Human Geography (GG20130)
  • Cultural and Historical Geography (GG28520)
  • Geography Fieldwork -  New York (GG22400)
  • Geography Dissertation (GG34040)
  • Engaging Landscape (GGM3220)

Research

Group Affliation

  • Cultural and Historical Geography

Research Interests

My research interests revolve around several key areas in geography:

  • studies of place and place-making
  • the role of the non-human, material and elemental in assembling place
  • regulative practices in controlling place (particularly practices of law, surveillance and self-governance)

In view of the largely landlocked and land-biased nature of geography, I am interested in the ways in which these human geographical concepts work at sea.

Previous research

My previous research focused this interest on one comprehensive case study: the five ships which belonged to the offshore pirate broadcaster Radio Caroline. Drawing on archival sources, in-depth interviews and through conducting ethnography within surviving fan organisations (and on the vessel itself!), I examined the socio-legal shape of social life onboard, the contested nature of legal geographies at sea, regulative surveillance practices enacted over ships, and the politics of memory surrounding offshore radio operation. I am now developing these interests in several new directions.

Current research

I have become increasingly interested in questions of political control and legal regulation in the context of the hydro world. How are the oceans governed for the purpose of security? What is secured, how and why? Who has the right to govern our seas; how are they governed in practice; and how does this governance ensure security, and the security of what spaces?

These are questions I am attending to in developing a new research project about surveillance as a form of ocean governance and security. Focusing on a number of case studies, I am particularly interested in ‘moral securities’ considering the politics surrounding the use of international sea space for activities deemed unacceptable within specific territorial seas. The project unpacks the relationships between surveillance, mobility, security and governance, drawing out the impacts this has for contemporary life at sea and on land; of how we are governed and govern.

I am furthermore interested in developing studies of more-than-human geographies, materiality and affect by taking these debates to sea (see Staff Publications). Here I am interested in several areas: the shape, colour, movement and material form of the sea.

Biography

I obtained a BSc (Hons) in Human Geography and Planning, before studying for an MA (2007) and PhD (2011) in Cultural Geography, at Royal Holloway, University of London with the support of an ESRC grant. During my PhD I worked as a Teaching Assistant at Royal Holloway (2007-2011). I was previously at the University of Sheffield (2011-2012) as an Associate Teaching Fellow.

Professional Memberships

  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS)
  • Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AHEA)

Staff Publications

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2012

  1. Hasty W and Peters K (forthcoming) The Ship in Geography and the Geographies of Ships Geography Compass (in press).
  2. Peters K (forthcoming) Book Review of Mack J, 2011, The Sea: a cultural history. Reaktion Books: London. Cultural Geographies (in press).
  3. Peters K (2012) Manipulating material hydro-worlds: rethinking human and more-than-human relationality through offshore radio piracy Environment and Planning A 44 (5) pp. 1241-1254 DOI

2011

  1. Peters K (2011) Sinking the radio pirates: exploring British strategies of governance in the North Sea, 1964-1991 Area  43 (3) pp. 281-287 DOI  *Ranked second runner up for the RGS 2011 Area Prize awarded for new research in geography*
  2. Peters K (2011) Negotiating the “Place” and “Placement” of Banal Tourist Souvenirs in the Home Tourism Geographies 13 (2) pp. 234-256 DOI
  3. Peters K (2011) Book Review of Benton L, 2010, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires 1400-1900. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 93 (4) pp. 344-346 DOI

2010

  1. Peters K (2010) Future Promises for Contemporary Social and Cultural Geographies of the Seas, Geography Compass 2 (6) pp. 1260-1272 DOI

2009

  1. Peters K (2009) Book Review of Canzlar W, Kaufmann V and Kesselring S, 2008, Tracing Mobilities: Towards a Cosmopolitan Perspective. Ashgate: Aldershot. International Planning Studies, 14 (1) pp. 103-106 DOI 
  2. Peters K (2009) Book Review of Rediker M, 2007, The Slave Ship: A Human History. John Murray Publishers: London. The Geographical Journal, 2009, 175 (2) pp. 160-161 DOI

 

Conference Proceedings

2011

  1. Research Seminar, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield ‘Surveilling the seas: securing the oceans and air’
  2. Final Frontiers: Oceans, Islands and Coasts, Island Institute, Rockland MA USA, 'Affective oceans: rethinking the human/physical divide in geographies of the sea through the example of offshore broadcasting in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Mediterranean' (Funded by the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society)
  3. Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) Annual International Conference, RGS London. ‘‘Being-in-the-seascape’: dispersed places, natures and weather worlds through the audio broadcasts of Radio Caroline’.
  4. Maritime Roundtable. Royal Holloway University of London. ‘Regulative practices of immobility: the surveillance, interception and resistances of radio pirates in the North Sea, 1974-1985’

2010

  1. Salty Geographies: Subaltern Maritime Networks Conference, University of Glasgow. ‘A Less Than Harmonious Form of Piracy? Exploring the frictions between Dutch and British workers onboard Radio Caroline’s offshore broadcasting ships’.
  2. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, RGS London. ‘‘More-than-human’ geographies of the sea: a case study of Radio Caroline’s ships’
  3. Annual Association of American Geographers (AAG) Conference, Washington D.C. ‘Marginality and place myths: rumour conspiracy and Radio Caroline’s ships’.
  4. Oceanic and Maritime Seminar Series, Kings College, Cambridge University. ‘Law, enforcement and Radio Caroline’s Ships: how offshore broadcasting changed jurisdiction over the High Seas’.

Conference organisation (by year)

2011

  1. Co-convener of Maritime Roundtable (with Anyaa Anim-Addo and William Hasty) Hosted by Royal Holloway, University of London, (Sponsored by the Social and Cultural Research Group of Royal Holloway).

2010

  1. Co-convener and chair of Geographies of Ships session (with William Hasty) at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London. (Sponsored by the Historical Geography Research Group (HGRG) and the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG)).
  2. Co-convener and chair of Theorizing the Sea session (with Jon Anderson) at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, London.

 

Media

Newspaper and fanzine publications: 

  1. Article in Radio Caroline Fanzine ‘Horizon’ October 2011
  2. Article in the Sunday Times, 15th August 2011 ‘Aha, me hearties — pirate radio ship is haunted’
  3. Article in Radio Caroline Fanzine ‘Horizon’ October 2008

Radio Interviews:

  1. Radio Interview BBC Essex 95.3 FM and 103.5FM, 20th August 2011
  2. Radio Interview BBC Essex 95.3 FM and 103.5FM, 7th May 2009
  3. Radio Interview BBC Essex 95.3 FM and 103.5FM, 14th March 2009