Dr Catherine Oliver
Lecturer in Sociology (Climate Change)Profile
I am a social geographer interested in more-than-human geography and urban studies. At Lancaster, I am teaching and researching the Sociology of Climate Change.
Prior to arriving at Lancaster, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge on an ERC-funded project researching urban chickens in London. This research responds to changing demands on food systems, ecologies, and urban space, seeking to understand how non-human life is governed and regulated in cities.
In 2021, I was appointed as a Royal Geographical Society/Wiley Digital Archives Fellow (2021), receiving a fellowship to research animals in geographical exploration. My project is a Wiley Case Study, with an online curated exhibit. In 2021-22, I was also a fellow on the Global Urban History Project’s Dream Conversations series on Cities and the Anthropocene in 2021.
My first book, ‘Veganism, Archives, and Animals,’ was published with Routledge in 2021. The book provides a unique and timely contribution to debates within animal and more-than-human geographies and is the first of its kind in “vegan geographies.” The book draws from my doctoral research on veganism in Britain (University of Birmingham, 2020).
From 2016 to 2017, I worked in the archives of animal activist Richard D. Ryder at the British Library on a PhD placement with Dr Polly Russell and Gill Ridgeley, producing the British Library’s online curation, ‘Archiving Activism’.
Other recent projects include a feminist geography research project theorising academic conferences as microcosms of the university, an ongoing project on more-than-human metabolisms, and a newly launched project on alternative communities and the seek for connection in capitalist Britain.
I currently teach on SOCL221 Climate Change and Society, SOCL521 Environment and Culture, SOCL931 Methods in STS, and SOCL101 The Sociological Imagination. I also supervise PhD students, Masters projects, and undergraduate dissertations.
Selected Publications
Veganism, Archives, and Animals: Beyond-human geographies
Oliver, C. 13/08/2021 London : Routledge. 162 p. ISBN: 9780367692773. Electronic ISBN: 9781003141211.
Book
Transforming paradise: Neoliberal regeneration and more-than-human urbanism in Birmingham
Oliver, C. 28/02/2023 In: Urban Studies. 60, 3, p. 519-536. 18 p.
Journal article
The Opposite of Extinction.
Oliver, C. 1/05/2022 In: Environment and History . 28, 2, p. 197-202. 6 p.
Journal article
Resisting the “academic circle jerk": precarity and friendship at academic conferences in UK higher education
Oliver, C., Morris, A. 25/05/2022 In: British Journal of Sociology of Education. 43, 4, p. 603-622. 20 p.
Journal article
Beyond‐human ethics: The animal question in institutional ethical reviews
Oliver, C. 12/2021 In: Area. 53, 4, p. 619-626. 8 p.
Journal article
All Publications
Blue Avian Ecologies: Seabirds & Climate Change in Morecambe Bay
01/11/2022 → 31/10/2025
Research
Longing to Belong: Cults, Communes and Conspiracy Theories
01/08/2022 → …
Research
Animals of the Royal Geographical Society
01/01/2021 → …
Research
More-than-human Metabolism
01/12/2020 → …
Research
The Chicken City
01/07/2020 → 02/09/2022
Research
Dis-belonging, Exclusion, and Re-thinking Academic Conferences
01/06/2017 → 06/06/2022
Research
Animal Rights and Food Fights: The British Library
01/09/2016 → 31/03/2017
Research
Towards a beyond-human geography: veganism and multispecies world
30/09/2015 → 15/05/2020
Research
Blue Avian Landscapes, Morecambe Bay
Oral presentation
Animals in the Royal Geographical Society Archives
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
PhD Placement
Fellowship awarded competitively
Royal Geographical Society Wiley Digital Archives Fellow
Fellowship awarded competitively
Global Urban History Project Emerging Scholar
Fellowship awarded competitively
Newnham College Postdoctoral Research Associate
Fellowship awarded competitively