Professor Rhys Jones

Professor
n/a Photograph of Professor Rhys Jones.

Contact

Email: raj@aber.ac.uk
Office: J7
Phone: +44 (0)1970 622 594
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622 659

Responsibilities

Departmental Administrative Duties: Director of Learning and Teaching for IGES; Head of New Political Geographies Research Group; Scheme Leader for BA Daearyddiaeth (semester 1)

University Administrative Duties: Member of the School of Welsh-Medium Studies; Member of Aberystwyth University’s Joint Committee on the use of Welsh; Member of Mentro Iaith’s Working Group (the project for widening participation in mid and west Wales).

University of Wales Administrative Duties: Member of the Welsh-medium Environment Network Panel; Member of the Board of Celtic Studies' Publications and Collaborative Research Panel

Other Responsibilties: Book Editor for Space and Polity; Member of the AHRC's Peer Review College; AHRC Panel Member (History in 2009).

Teaching Areas

Modules Taught

Module coordinator for:

  • Pobl, Lle A Chenedl (DA10110)
  • Cyflwyniad I Ddaearyddiaeth Ddynol (DA12610)
  • Amgylchedd Cymru (DA10810)
  • Methodoleg Maes Amgylcheddol (DA10910)
  • Cefn Gwlad A'i Phobl (DA10210)
  • Daearyddiaethau Cyfalafieth Hwyr (DA25720)
  • Daear Y Wlad,cenedlaetholdeb, A Diwilliannau Lleiafrifol (DA35020)
  • Daearyddiaeth Wleidyddol (DA28420)
  • Daearyddiaeth Geltaidd (DA31020)
  • Political Geography (GG28310)
  • Globaleiddio A Chwilfriwiad (DA30820)
  • Positioning Political Geography (GGM1440)

Contributes to:

  • Tiwtorial Daearyddiaeth Lefel 1 (DA11910)
  • Tiwtorial Daearyddiaeth Lefel 3 (DA38110)
  • Traethawd Estynedig Daearyddiaeth (DA39130)

Research

Group Affiliation

Research Interests

Over the past ten years the core of my work has been situated within the geographies of the state and its related group identities.  My Ph.D. thesis first led me into this area of research.  This piece of work focused on the various organisational, territorial and cultural changes associated with the state-making process in medieval Wales.  It charted a far-reaching series of changes to the political geographies of Wales between the sixth and fourteenth centuries and used this empirical study to make broader claims concerning the territorial significance of the state and state power.

Two broader strands have emerged from the research interests that I explored as part of my Ph.D.  The first is a wide-ranging concern with the territorial and functional restructuring of the state in more contemporary periods, especially in the context of devolution in the UK.  The recent changes, which have affected the governance of the UK, make it an ideal test site to examine many issues relating to the political, economic, cultural and territorial constitution of states.  In particular, and as part of an ESRC-funded project, I, along with Mark Goodwin and Martin Jones, have examined the ways in which theories of state transformation and the spatialities of state power can be applied to understand the changing geographies of economic governance in the UK since 1997.

The second area of research that I have developed as a result of my doctoral studies is a broad concern with the geographies of group identity in general and with nationalism in particular.  Over the past three years, I have sought to develop a more nuanced understanding of the geographies of nationalism.  At one level, I have attempted to refocus geographical attention away from the study of the landscapes of the nation to the equally critical geographical concepts of place and scale.  In a similar way, I have sought to encourage geographers to take more seriously the processes that help to reproduce nations and national identites, rather than concentrating, as has been the case, on representations of the nation.  I have examined these broad conceptual concerns in two specific research projects.  The first, using focus groups and interviews, explored the link between students, the discipline of Geography and national identity in the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and was conducted in collaboration with Luke Desforges.  The second project, funded by a research grant from the Board of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales and by the AHRC, examined the significance of the town and University of Aberystwyth for the reproduction of Welsh nationalism since the 1960s.  The monograph arising from the project has been produced in a period of research leave supported by the AHRC, as part of its Research Fellowship scheme.

My current work develops these previous interests.  I am currently working on a British Academy funded project, which examines the significance of the Citizens' Advice Bureau as an enabled of British citizenship in the post-SWW period.  The research uses documentary and interview material to evaluate significant geographies of this organisation; in terms of regional and local identities, rurality and the internationalisation of the organisation.  My second current research project examines the notion of soft paternalism (along with Mark Whitehead).  Recent policy initiatives in the UK - and elsewhere - have sought to encourage citizens to act in particular ways, whether in the case of health (e.g. 5-a-day, sexual health campaigns), money (e.g. responsible gambling, default pensions) and the environment (e.g. carbon management, using public transport).  In each of these cases, policies seek to re-define the relationship between the individual and the state and allude to significant isses relating to temporality and spatiality. In temporal terms, these policies seek to ensure that individuals' current proclivities - to spend money, to drink irresponsibly - do not proceed to the extent that they harm the future individuals' health.  At the same time, such policies are also based upon particular spatial and scalar imaginations - with regard, for instance, to the relationship between an embodied individual and a broader national community and a global environment.  Examining these themes enables us to think about broader notions of citizenship and governmentality.

Biography

My work lies at the intersection between political, historical and cultural geography and focuses in particular on the various geographies of the state and its related group identities.  I have addressed the geographies of the state in a variety of contexts, ranging from the various organisational, territorial and cultural changes associated with the state-making process in medieval Wales to the more contemporary processes of territorial and functional restructuring affecting the UK state.  My work on these themes has appeared in a variety of different journal articles as well as a monograph - People/States/Territories - published by Blackwell as part of the RGS-IBG Book Series. I have also examined the geographies of group identity in a number of different contexts.  Work here includes my research on the emergence of ethnic identities in medieval Wales and my more current research on the geographies of Welsh identity in the late twentieth century.  This latter work has recently appeared in a book entitled Placing the Nation (with Carwyn Fowler).  My research, to date, has been supported by funding from the ESRC, the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy and the University of Wales' Board of Celtic Studies.

I teach on a number of these research themes at undergraduate and postgraduate level.  Most of teaching is done through the medium of Welsh but I also teach on some English-medium modules in the field of political geography.  I have also sought to consolidate my competence in teaching through publishing a textbook entitled An Introduction to Political Geography (with Martin Jones and Mike Woods).  My competence in teaching was confirmed when I received an Aberystwyth University Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.

Staff Publications

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters & Journal Articles

2009

  1. Merriman P, Jones R. 2009. “Symbols of Justice”: the Welsh Language Society’s campaign for bilingual road signs in Wales, 1967-1980. Journal of Historical Geography, 35(2): 350-375. DOI
  2. Jones R, Merriman P. 2009. Hot, banal and everyday nationalism: bilingual road signs in Wales. Political Geography, 28(3): 164-173. DOI

2007

  1. Jones R, Fowler C. 2007. Placing and scaling the nation. Environment and Planning D-Society & Space, 25: 332-354.
  2. Jones R, Fowler C. 2007. Where is Wales? Narrating the territories and borders of the Welsh linguistic nation. Regional Studies, 41: 89-101.
  3. Jones R. 2007. The political geographies of the Welsh nation. Encyclopedia of National Identity, Forthcomin

2006

  1. Whitehead M, Jones M, Jones R. 2006. Spatializing the ecological Leviathan: Territorial strategies and the production of regional natures. Geografiska Annaler Series B-Human Geography, 88B: 49-65.
  2. Goodwin M, Jones M, Jones R. 2006. The theoretical challenge of devolution and constitutional change in the United Kingdom. Territory, Identity and Spatial Planning, Forthcomin

2005

  1. Jones R, Phillips R. 2005. Unsettling geographical horizons: Exporing pre-modern and non-European imperialism. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95
  2. Desforges L, Jones R, Woods M. 2005. New geographies of citizenship. Citizenship Studies,
  3. Jones R, Goodwin M, Jones M, Pett K. 2005. "Filling in" the state: Economic governance and the evolution of devolution in Wales. Environment and Planning, C: Governm: 337-60. DOI
    'Filling in' the state: economic governance and the evolution of devolution in Wales
  4. Jones R, Fowler C. 2005. Aberystwyth: Cryd cenedlaetholeb Cymreig. Barn
  5. Jones M, Goodwin M, Jones R. 2005. Economic governance and devolution. Regional Studies, 39
  6. Jones M, Goodwin M, Jones R. 2005. State modernization, devolution and economic governance: An introduction and guide to debate. Regional Studies, 39: 397-403.
  7. Fowler C, Jones R. 2005. Environmentalism and nationalism in the UK. Environmental Politics, 14: 541-545.
  8. Goodwin M, Jones M, Jones R. 2005. Devolution, constitutional change and economic development: Explaining and understanding the new institutional Geographies of the British state. Regional Studies, 39: 421-436.

Books

2009

  1. Goodwin M, Jones M, Jones R. 2009. Devolution, Constitutional Change, and the Shifting Economic and Political Geographies of the British State. In prep.

2007

  1. Jones R. 2007. People/States/Territories: The Political Geographies of British State Transformation.
  2. Whitehead M, Jones R, Jones M. 2007. The nature of the state : excavating the political ecologies of the modern state. Oxford geographical and environmental studies;,