Professor Robert Dodgshon

Emeritus Professor
BA and PhD degrees from the University of Liverpool. Photograph of Professor Robert Dodgshon.

Contact

Email: rad@aber.ac.uk
Office: L2
Phone: 01970 622606

Research

Group Affiliation

Research Interests

Recent and current work by Professor Dodgshon has focussed on two research themes.

First, he has long worked on the long-term history of rural communities and their economy in theScottishHighlandsandIslands. A summary of this work has been written up in a book on the long-term evolution ofHighlandcultural landscapes, that is currently being prepared for publication.

Second, he is currently working on a book-length study that looks at the history of Alpine communities since 1500, including changes in their strategies of resource use, property rights and the use of common resources, inheritance practices, how they coped with risk, and their environmental/ecological impact. This work has been supported by a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship.


Biography

Professor Robert Dodgshon holds BA and PhD degrees from the University of Liverpool.  First joining the department in 1970 as a lecturer, he was promoted to a professorship in 1988, held the Gregynog Chair of Human Geography, 2000-07, and served as Director of the Institute 1998-03, before taking full retirement at the end of 2007. 

In addition to holding the Murchison Award from the RGS and the Scottish Geographical Medal from the RSGS, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academyin 2002 and a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2010.

Between 1997-2004, he served as a member of the Countryside Council for Walesand, for a time, was their appointed member on the UK Government’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).  Between 2000-08, he has been a council member of the National Trust for England and Wales.  Between 1998-2008, he was President of the Society for Landscape Studies.


Staff Publications

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters & Journal Articles

In Press

  1. Dodgshon, R.A., 2012, ‘Clearances and the transformation of the Scottish countryside’, in T. Devine and J. Wormald (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History, Oxford University Press, due February, 2012.

2011

  1. Dodgshon, R.A., ‘Highland Townships Before the Clearances’. Scottish Life and Society: the Countryside. Compendium of Scottish Ethnology, in press, 2011.
  2. Dodgshon, R.A., ‘Traditional Livestock Farming in the Highlands and Islands Before and After the Clearances. Scottish Life and Society: the Countryside'. Compendium of Scottish Ethnology, in press. 2011.

2010

  1. Dodgshon, R.A. 2010, ‘Everyday Structures, Rhythms and Spaces of the Scottish Countryside, 1600-1800’, in E. A. Foyster and C. Whatley (eds.), History of Everyday Life in Scotland, vol 2, 1600-1800, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-1964-1, hardback, pp.27-50.
  2. Abrahams, P.W., Entwistle, J.A. and Dodgshon, R.A. 2010. ‘The Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project: the simultaneous multi-element analysis of former settlement and arable soils by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 17, no. 3, 231-48. DOI: 10.1007/s10816-010-9086-8

2009

  1. Dodgshon, R. A., 2009, ‘The environmental history of mountain regions’, in P. Warde and S. Sörlin (eds.), Nature’s End. History and the Environment, Palgrave-MacMillan, ISBN 978-0-230-20346-4, hardback, 141-161

2008

  1. Dodgshon RA. 2008. In what way is the world really flat: debates over geographies of the moment. Environment and Planning: D Society and Space, 26(2): 300-14.
  2. Dodgshon RA. 2008. Geography’s place in time. Geografiska Annaler, B90: 1-15.
  3. Dodgshon RA. 2008. The longhouse and the housing of stock in the Scottish Highlands and Islands prior to 1900. Les Maisons Paysannes en Europe Occidentale De La Fin Du Moyen Âge au XXe Siècle, : 303-16.
  4. Dodgshon RA. 2008. Writing the environmental history of mountains areas. Nature’s End,
  5. Dodgshon RA. 2008. Bones, Bows and Byres: The Nature of Early Dairying in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Monuments in the Landscape, Forthcomin

2007

  1. Entwistle JA, McCaffrey KJW, Dodgshon RA. 2007. Geostatistical and multi-elemental analysis of soils to interpret land-use history in the Hebrides, Scotland. Geoarchaeology-an International Journal, 22: 391-415.
  2. Dodgshon RA. 2007. Comment on K. Birth’s ‘Time and the Biological Consequences of Globalization’. Current Anthropology, 48: 228-9.
  3. Entwistle JA, McCaffrey KJW, Dodgshon RA. 2007. A pedological approach to reconstructing land-use and settlement form in the Hebrides: Lessons for the future. Going over Old Ground: Perspectives on Archaeological, Geophysical and Geochemical Survey in Scotland, British Archaeological Reports, 416: 128-42.

2006

  1. Dodgshon RA, Olsson GA. 2006. Heather moorland in the Scottish Highlands: the history of a cultural landscape, 1600-1880. Journal of Historical Geography, 32: 21-37.
  2. Dodgshon RA, Olsson EGA. 2006. Seasonality in European mountain areas: a study in human ecology. Seasonal Landscapes, Springer-Verlag, 7: 85-101.

2005

  1. Dodgshon RA. 2005. The Little Ice Age in the Scottish Highlands and Islands: Documenting its human impact. Scottish Geographical Journal, 121: 321-337.
  2. Dodgshon RA. 2005. The Scottish Highlands Before and After the Clearances: An Ecological Perspective. Society, Landscape and Environment in Upland Britain, , : 67-78.

Miscellaneous

2007

  1. Butlin RA, Dodgshon RA. 2007. Európa Történeti Földrajza.