Development, Inequality, Resilience and Environments (DIRE)

Our interdisciplinary team addresses the fundamental challenges associated with development, and the dynamics of those challenges in the Global South compared to the Global North. Key challenges in the Global South include lack of basic human rights and resource depletion. By comparison, the Global North is faced with overcoming the legacy of neoliberalism, including the social and environmental burden of western economies on less wealthy regions. While the barriers and opportunities related to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals vary geographically, there are also common deep causes, including the colonial roots of modern-day challenges. Unpacking these ‘causes of causes’ is a central objective of our research group, and an essential step towards eradicating inequalities between developing and developed nations, as well as within regions.

Relationships between social disadvantage and socio-economic outcomes are well documented in some many parts of the world but less is known about unfair and uneven development over space and time in most countries. The Inequalities cluster encourages both critically engaged technical work and technically capable critical work. Our work embraces quantitative and qualitative social research practice to provide clarity about the best routes for understanding and tackling inequalities through an interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective. Our current projects include exploring the factors that explain inequality and the impact on vulnerability, particularly in the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic. DIRE members in the School of Geography and School of Health and Social Care are engaged in ongoing real-time research about how demographic and socio-economic inequalities increased the vulnerability of some groups in society to biological contagion and acute mental health conditions during the pandemic. Other areas of research include how socio-economic inequalities in coastal communities in developed and developing countries are reflected in policy-making, particularly in relation to planning and management responses to biodiversity loss and sea level rise. 

The resilience cluster engages critically with the idea and concept of societal ‘resilience’ and the cognate ideas of vulnerability and adaptation. It focusses especially on the theme of disasters and climate change, their causes and responses, as well as the social, economic, political and behavioural factors that promote - or hinder - resilient communities and citizens. These themes are addressed at a range of geographical scales including the subcontinent, the nation state, the region, and the municipality. Research on resilience also links historical and contemporary research by providing long-term perspectives on problems that are often assumed to be of modern origin.

In 2020 Dr Moore published a study following her Doctoral research in Australia about the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), examining the political and economic challenges associated with achieving sustainable water management in the context of climate change and increasing financial constraint. The study considered the institutional arrangements that dictate how water is ‘recovered’ for environmental purposes at the basin scale. The paper suggested that efforts to secure water for environmental purposes like the artificial watering of flood-plains would fall short of the minimum amounts required to ensure the survival of ecosystems in the MDB. In 2023, Professor Jamie Pittock at ANU suggests that as Dr Moore and colleagues expected, these efforts have failed to achieve the goals of the MDB Plan, including securing water for the environment. The analysis presented by Moore and colleagues (below) could help predict policy failures before they happen in regions with similar water entitlement arrangements (e.g., Chile).

Featured Publications

Julian Clifton:

Pauli, N., Clifton, J., Elrick-Barr, C. (2023). Evaluating marine areas in Fiji. Nature Sustainability DOI:10.1038.s41893-023-01136-2 

Zimmerhackel, J.S., Clifton, J., Ackermann, F., Burton, M., Elrick-Barr, C.E., Hill, G., Harvey, E.S. (2023). A framework for the integrated assessment of social and economic values associated with man-made marine structures. Marine Policy 152: 105612 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105612 

Elrick-Barr, C.E., Clifton, J., Cuttler, M., Perry, C., Rogers, A.B. (2023). Understanding coastal social values through citizen science: the example of Coastsnap in Western Australia. Ocean and Coastal Management 238: 106563 DOI: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2023.106563 

Elrick-Barr, C.E., Zimmerhackel, J.S., Hill, G., Clifton, J., Ackermann, F., Burton, M., Harvey, E.S. (2022). Man-made structures in the marine environment: a review of stakeholders’ social and economic values and perceptions. Environmental Science & Policy 129: 12-18 DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.12.006 

King, C., Iba, W., Clifton, J. (2021). Reimagining resilience: COVID-19 and marine tourism in Indonesia. Current Issues in Tourism 24(19): 2784-2800 DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2021.1873920 

Clifton, J., Osman, E.O., Suggett, D.J., Smith, D.J. (2021). Resolving conservation and development tensions in a small island developing state: a governance analysis of Curieuse Marine National Park, Seychelles. Marine Policy 127:103617 DOI: 10.​1016/​j.​marpol.​2019.​103617 

González-Bernat, M.J., Clifton, J. (2021). A governance analysis of two marine protected areas in the Pacific Region of Guatemala: the Multiple Use Area of Monterrico and the Private Reserve La Chorrera-Manchón Guamuchal. Marine Policy 127: 103625 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103625 

González-Bernat, M.J., Clifton, J. (2021). A governance analysis of Guatemala’s first recognized marine protected area: The Wildlife Refuge of Punta de Manabique (RVSPM). Marine Policy 127: 103626  DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103626 

Pyke, M., Close, P., Dobbs, R., Toussaint, S., Smith, B., Cox, Z., Cox, D., George, K., McCarthy, P., Angus, B., Riley, E., Clifton, J. (2021). ‘Clean him up…make him look like he did before’: Australian Aboriginal management of wetlands with implications for conservation, restoration and multiple evidence base negotiations. Wetlands 41:28 DOI: 10.1007/s13157-021-01410-z 

Yunitawati, D., Clifton, J. (2021). Governance in the early stages of marine protected area development: a case study of Nusa Penida District Marine Conservation Area, Indonesia. Marine Policy 127: 103653 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103653 

Verde Selva, G., Pauli, N., Clifton, J., Kim, M.K., (2021). A framework for analysing ecological fiscal transfers: case studies from the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Journal of Latin American Studies DOI:10.1017/S0022216X21000018  

Verde Selva, G., Pauli, N., Kim, M.K., Clifton, J. (2020). Opportunity for change or reinforcing inequality? Power, governance and equity implications of government payments for conservation in Brazil. Environmental Science & Policy 105, 102-112  DOI:10.1016/j.envsci.2020.01.001 

Jay Emery:

Emery, J., Powell, R., & Crookes, L. (2023). Class, affect, margins. The Sociological Review, 71(2), 283-295.

Bennett, K., & Emery, J. (2023). Emotional. In Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography (pp. 125-130). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Emery, Jay (2022) Heterogeneities of England’s deindustrializing towns: comparative urbanisms in territories of relegation. In: Desindustrialización: memoria, patrimonio y representaciones. Ediciones Trea.

Emery, J. (2022). Urban trauma in the ruins of industrial culture: Miners’ Welfares of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, UK. Social & Cultural Geography, 23(5), 639-659.

Emery, J., Pattison, J., Simpson, K., Thomlinson, N., & Jackson, L. (2022). Practices and negotiations of belonging in the deindustrialising coalfields: navigating school, education and memory through a time of transformation. In Education, Work and Social Change in Britain’s Former Coalfield Communities: The Ghost of Coal (pp. 223-244). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Emery, J. (2020). After coal: Affective-temporal processes of belonging and alienation in the deindustrializing Nottinghamshire coalfield, UK. Frontiers in Sociology, 5, 38.

Emery, J. (2019). Geographies of deindustrialization and the working‐class: Industrial ruination, legacies, and affect. Geography Compass, 13(2), e12417.

Emery, J. (2019). 'That once romantic now utterly disheartening (former) colliery town': The affective politics of heritage, memory, place and regeneration in Mansfield, UK. Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 6(2-3), 219-240.

Emery, J. (2018). Belonging, memory and history in the north Nottinghamshire coalfield. Journal of Historical Geography, 59, 77-89.

Dr Harriet Moore:

Moore, H.E., Hill, B., Siriwardena, N., Law, G., Thomas, C., Gussy, M., Spaight, R. and Tanser, F., 2022. An exploration of factors characterising unusual spatial clusters of COVID-19 cases in the East Midlands region, UK: a geospatial analysis of ambulance 999 data. Landscape and Urban Planning, 219, p.104299.

Moore, H.E., Siriwardena, A.N., Gussy, M., Tanser, F., Hill, B. and Spaight, R., 2021. Mental health emergencies and COVID-19: the impact of ‘lockdown’in the East Midlands of the UK. BJPsych Open, 7(4).

Moore, H.E., Hill, B., Siriwardena, A.N., Tanser, F. and Spaight, R., 2021. Rethinking the health implications of society-environment relationships in built areas: an assessment of the Access to Healthy and Hazards Index in the context of COVID-19. Landscape and Urban Planning, p.104265.

Moore, H.E. and Rutherfurd, I.D., 2017. Lack of maintenance is a major challenge for stream restoration projects. River Research and Applications, 33(9), pp.1387-1399.

Moore, H.E., Rutherfurd, I.D., Peel, M.C. and Horne, A., 2020. ‘Sub-Prime’Water, Low-Security Entitlements and Policy Challenges in Over-Allocated River Basins: the Case of the Murray–Darling Basin. Environmental Management, pp.1-16.

Moore, H.E. and Boldero, J., 2017. Designing interventions that last: a classification of environmental behaviors in relation to the activities, costs, and effort involved for adoption and maintenance. Frontiers in psychology, 8, p.1874.

 

Dr Andrew Kythreotis:

Kythreotis, AP & Mercer, TG (2020) Collaborative education as a new ‘urban’ civil politics of climate change. In Castán Broto, V, Robin, E & While, A (2020) Climate urbanism: towards a critical research agenda. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 

Mercer, TG & Kythreotis, AP (2020) Towards Citizen Governance for Climate Change Education and Justice: a Science-Policy Perspective.  In Hanna, E, Hemstock, S & Myers, S (2020) Moana – Water of Life: Navigating Climate Change for Planetary Health. Emerald, Bingley, UK.

Kythreotis, AP, Mercer, TG, Jonas, AEG & Marsden, TK (2020) Rethinking urban adaptation as a scalar geopolitics of climate governance: climate policy in the devolved territories of the United Kingdom. Territory, Politics and Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1837220

Howarth, C, Morse-Jones, S, Kythreotis, AP, Brooks, K & Lane, M (2020) Informing UK governance and resilience to climate risks: improving the local evidence base. Climatic Change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02821-3

Kythreotis, AP, Jonas, AEG & Howarth, C (2020) Locating climate adaptation in urban and regional studies. Regional Studies, 54(4): 576-588.

Kythreotis, AP, Mantyka-Pringle, CS, Mercer, TG, Whitmarsh, L, Paavola, J, Corner, A, Chambers, CD, Miller, BA & Castree, N (2019) Citizen Social Science for more integrative and effective climate action: a science-policy perspective. Frontiers in Environmental Science, https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00010

Kythreotis, AP (2018). Reimagining the urban as dystopic resilient spaces: scalar materialities in climate knowledge, planning and politics. In: Ward, K, Jonas, AEG, Miller, B and Wilson, D (eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics. Routledge, London.

Howarth, C, Morse-Jones, S, Brook, K & Kythreotis, AP (2018) Co-producing UK climate change adaptation policy: an analysis of the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessments. Environmental Science & Policy, 89: 412-420.

Kythreotis, AP & Bristow, GI (2017) The ‘resilience trap’: exploring the practical utility of resilience for climate change adaptation in UK city-regions. Regional Studies, 51 (10): 1530-1541.

 

Dr Matthew Hannaford:

Hannaford, M.J., Beck, K.K. Rainfall variability in southeast and west-central Africa during the Little Ice Age: do documentary and proxy records agree?. Climatic Change 168, 11 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03217-7

Hannaford, M., Climate Change and Society in Southern African History. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.

Van Bavel, B., Curtis, D.R., Dijkman, J., Hannaford, M., de Keyzer, M., Van Onacker, E. and Soens, T., 2020. Disasters and History: The Vulnerability and Resilience of Past Societies. Cambridge University Press.

Van Bavel, B.J., Curtis, D.R., Hannaford, M.J., Moatsos, M., Roosen, J. and Soens, T., 2019. Climate and society in long‐term perspective: Opportunities and pitfalls in the use of historical datasets. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(6), p.e611.

Hannaford, M.J., 2018. Long-term drivers of vulnerability and resilience to drought in the Zambezi-Save area of Southern Africa, 1505–1830. Global and planetary change, 166, pp.94-106.

Adamson, G.C., Hannaford, M.J. and Rohland, E.J., 2018. Re-thinking the present: The role of a historical focus in climate change adaptation research. Global Environmental Change, 48, pp.195-205.

Hannaford, M.J. and Nash, D.J., 2016. Climate, history, society over the last millennium in southeast Africa. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(3), pp.370-392.

 

Group Members

Name	Position	Email
Dr Harriet Moore	Lead Academic and Lecturer	hamoore@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Creighton Connolly	Assistant Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.	creightonconnolly@ln.edu.hk
Dr Matthew Hannaford	Lecturer	mhannaford@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Andrew Kythreotis	Senior Lecturer	akythreotis@lincoln.ac.uk
Professor Mark Gussy	Global Professor in Rural Health and Social Care	mgussy@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Julian Clifton	Senior Lecturer	jclifton@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Yeran Sun	Senior Lecturer	yesun@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Jay Emery	Lecturer	jemery@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Alex Lechner	Associated Professor	Alex.Lechner@monash.edu
Mr Robert Spaight	East Midlands Ambulance Service	robert.spaight@emas.nhs.uk
Mr Gregory Whitely	Paramedic PhD Student and Lecturer	gwhitley@lincoln.ac.uk
Dr Candice Howarth	Senior Policy Fellow - Place-based Climate Action Network (PCAN)at Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment	C.Howarth@lse.ac.uk
Professor Andy Jonas	Professor of Human Geography at the University of Hull	a.e.jonas@hull.ac.uk
Professor Gary Bosworth	Northumbria University, Newcastle Business School	gary.bosworth@northumbria.ac.uk
Mr Soseala Tinilau	Human Geography PhD Student	25549931@students.lincoln.ac.uk

Collaborations

College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, including the School of Health and Social Care

The Lincoln Institute for Rural Health

Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health

Child Friendly Research Network

Community and Health Research Unit 

HPACC

Societal Resilience

Utrecht University

East Midlands Ambulance NHS Service

Lincoln Climate Commission

 

Within the DIRE Research Group we deliver an annual seminar series that aims to promote knowledge sharing between academics across disciplines with shared interests in some of the biggest challenges facing societies and the environments they inhabit. The seminars include presentations from DIRE members as well as guest speakers from the UK and abroad. Find out about our speakers and seminars below, or get in touch with Dr Harriet Moore for more information. 

DIRE academics in the School of Geography are delighted to collaborate with postgraduate students to investigate some of the biggest challenges facing societies today. We are extremely proud of the ambitious projects our students have developed and actively work towards co-producing high-quality research outputs with them. Learn more about our Postgraduate Research Case Studies.