Geography and Planning

Honoured to be situated on Darug Country in northern Sydney, our research engages critical post-development and Indigenous geographies to rethink rights, responsibilities and belonging. We nurture the theory–practice nexus through innovative research approaches including close collaborations with communities, families, NGOs and place. Our research focuses on:

• the interface of Indigenous and local communities
• institutional frameworks
• governance
• sustainability
• justice.

We work to challenge the dominance of Western knowledges and colonising processes and go beyond categorical thinking and dualisms to nurture relations and spaces of belonging, sharing and care. Our staff, research students and collaborators, work in Australia, Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Aotearoa-New Zealand and Sami and are active researchers in a number of fields.

The Cultural and Political Geography cluster brings together faculty, researchers, postgraduates and MRes students whose work explores the inextricable relationships between cultural and political worlds. Within their research, this cluster draws on a range of geographical and philosophical traditions, including:

• postcolonialism
• feminist geographies
• political philosophy
• post-structural theory
• social and spatial justice.

The cluster's research is concerned with how cultural and political forces converge and interact in shaping environments, communities, identities, memories, bodies, knowledges, landscapes and mobilities. They seek to advance critical theoretical thinking and praxis, through a diversity of formats, while promoting the cutting edge work being done in the department.

Shifting socioecological conditions highlight the complexity of life in the Anthropocene, where the boundaries between environments and societies are problematised; and where there is increasing recognition of the political power relations that shape the 'more-than-human' worlds we inhabit. This research cluster:

• focuses on new approaches to understanding power and human-environment relations on a dynamic planet
• centres on connections across social and environmental systems, rethinking these categories in Australia, the Asia Pacific and beyond
• draws on a range of Indigenous, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, geographical, historical and philosophical approaches that bridge theory and practice
• emphasises the importance of engaging and collaborating with diverse communities and publics.

The cluster is committed to critical research that highlights social and environmental injustices whilst also fostering resilient ways of living in and with multi-species communities.

Research on the social, political, economic, cultural and environmental processes shaping cities is paramount to respond to the dynamic global urban challenges manifest in the Anthropocene.

Their research:

• provides a critical lens to interrogate urban processes and their diverse outcomes
• addresses conceptual and policy challenges related to the way our cities are planned, governed and experienced
• is based on a transformative politics and dedication to improving urban futures through enabling justice and care in the city
• draws together critical urban theory and planning practice to investigate the ways cities are managed and experienced by urban stakeholders, including:
  • policy makers
  • private sector actors
  • communities
  • a diverse array of non-human actors.

Central to our research is a multi-scalar lens which sees cities in relation to local, national and global practices and processes. We are dedicated to improving the policy and practices of urban governance through applied, comparative and collaborative research with governments, non-government organisations and communities which address real world urban issues.