Dr Patricia Noxolo BA, MA, PhD

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 7421
Email: p.e.p.noxolo@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Pat Noxolo’s research brings together the study of international development, culture and in/security, and uses postcolonial, discursive and literary approaches to explore the spatialities of a range of Caribbean and British cultural practices. Recent work has focused on: re-theorising Caribbean in/securities; theorizations of space in Caribbean literature; Caribbean laughter and materialities; re-thinking the decolonial city; and African-Caribbean dance as embodied mapping. Pat Noxolo is lead researcher on the Caribbean In/securities and Creativity (CARISCC) research network, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She is chair of the Society for Caribbean Studies, co-editor of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, and secretary of the RACE group of the Royal Geographical Society.

Qualifications

Postgraduate qualifications:

(2000) PhD. Human Geography, Nottingham Trent University

(1994) MA Development Studies, University of Manchester

(1987) BA (hons) French Studies, University of Manchester

Additional postgraduate certificates and professional qualifications:

(2007) PGCHE Coventry University

(1988) PGCE French and Drama, Manchester Metropolitan University

Additional postgraduate certificates and professional qualifications:

(2007) PGCHE Coventry University

(1988) PGCE French and Drama, Manchester Polytechnic

Biography

Pat Noxolo is an African-Caribbean Brummie (born and brought up in Birmingham). Since receiving her PhD from Nottingham Trent University in 2000, Pat Noxolo has held research posts at Birmingham University and at Leicester University, and lectureships at Coventry, Loughborough and Sheffield Universities. She took up her lectureship at Birmingham in January 2014.

Teaching

GGM332 Cultural Geographies of Development
GGM216/GGM301 Dissertation Supervision
GGM225 Cultural and Development Geographies
GGM109 Tutorial
GGM101 Contemporary Human Geography

Postgraduate supervision

Pat Noxolo has been both internal and external examiner for a range of PhD examinations, in the UK, Belgium and Jamaica, and has extensive experience of PhD supervision. Enquiries are welcome in any area of the geographies of international development, in/security, postcolonial theory, race, culture, literature and media.

Current students:

Katie Oliver – ‘Animals, Archives & Activism: Animal rights and veganism in the UK’

Emmah Etim Ima – ‘Health seeking behaviour in oil producing communities in Eket/Ibeno in the Niger Delta Nigeria using a mixed method approach’

Rita Gayle – ‘The Collective Utopia: Black British Feminists’ Creative Escape from the Margins of Society’

Alisa Hongthong – ‘Appropriate Residential Sites Environment for the Elderly in Baan Pong Nuea Sub-District Municipality of the Hang Dong District in Chiang Mai Province’

Ejikeme Kanu Johnson – ‘Environmental Justice in Oil Exploration on Environment: A case of Oil Producing States in Southeastern Nigeria’

Tia-Monique Uzor – ‘Roots: Establishing British Caribbean Diasporic Identity through Dance’

PhD completions:

Dr Phil Emmerson: ‘Approaching laughter with care: Non-representational ethics for worlds of multiplicity’ (University of Birmingham)

Dr Carol Dixon: ‘The othering of Africa and its diasporas in western museum practices’ (University of Sheffield)

Dr Aisha Giwa: ‘Contraceptive decision-making in Northern Nigeria’ (University of Sheffield)

Dr Faith Ikioda: Limits to Communities of Practice in an Open Air Market: The Case of the Alaba-Suru Market, Lagos, Nigeria (University of Sheffield)

Research

Research interests:

Postcolonial theory; cultural geography; development geography; geographies of in/security; Caribbean literary geographies

Current and ongoing projects:

Caribbean In/securities and Creativity (CARISCC) is a Leverhulme-funded interdisciplinary and international network, re-theorising security and insecurity (in/security) by centering the Caribbean and its creative cultures. An international programme of events and publications ran between January 2016 and December 2018, and the project will be extended over the next few years. More information: https://cariscc.wordpress.com/

The Dancing Maps project was part of the Being Human festival 2014, and encouraged participation in African and Caribbean dancing through digital technologies. It sought ultimately to explore and question cartography, by allowing participants to locate themselves through their bodies. Presentations and theorisations are ongoing. More information: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/dancing-maps/index.aspx

The Flat Out Arts Project began as a collaboration with The Drum Intercultural Arts Centre and Birmingham Royal Ballet, exploring the roles of community arts in the lives of people living in tower blocks in Newtown, Birmingham. It was revived in 2017, as a performance-led research project in collaboration with Birmingham housing officers, to explore models for sustainable arts in the city. More information: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/gees/research/projects/flat-out/index.aspx

Other activities

Awards and prizes:

Nomination for an outstanding teaching award, University of Birmingham, 2019
Nomination for an academic award for outstanding tutor support, Sheffield University Students’ Union, 2012
Exceptional Contribution Award, Sheffield University, 2012

Other scholarly contributions, past and present:

Co-editor: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
Development Section Editor: Geography Compass
Editorial board member: Gender, Place and Culture; Environment and Planning D; Geohumanities
Chair: Society for Caribbean Studies
External examiner: Newcastle, Birkbeck, Derby and Nottingham Trent Universities
Trustee: David Nicholls Memorial Trust

Publications

Monographs:

(forthcoming) Fleshy textuality: Caribbean laughter, bodies and texts. Liverpool University Press

Articles in peer reviewed journals:

(2018) Editor of a special issue on Caribbean In/securities, in Small Axe (volume and issue TBC), including authorship of ‘Caribbean In/securities: an introduction’
(2018) Writing: an afterword in Wilson, H. and Darling, J. (eds.) Research Ethics for Human Geography. Sage.
(2018) Flat Out! Dancing the city at a time of austerity, in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36, 5, pp. 797-811
(2017) Edited a special section of Area, on decolonising geographical knowledge, including authorship of ‘Introduction: Decolonising geographical knowledge in a colonised and re-colonising postcolonial world’, 49, 3, pp. 317-9
(2017) Decolonial theory in a time of the re-colonisation of UK research, in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42, pp. 342-4
(2017) In/security: global geographies of a troubled everyday, in Geography Journal, 102, 1, pp. 5-9
(2016) Locating Caribbean Studies in unending conversation, in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34, 5: 830-835
(2016) Provocations beyond one’s own presence: towards cultural geographies of development? Social & Cultural Geography, 6: 773-777
(2016) A shape which represents an eternity of riddles: fractals and scale in the work of Wilson Harris, in Cultural Geographies 23, 3: 373-385
(2016) Postcolonial approaches to development, in Grugel, J., and Hammett, D. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of International Development, Palgrave
(2015) Moving Maps: African-Caribbean Dance as Embodied Mapping. PocoPages Diasporas and Cultures of Mobilities, Vol 2 Diaspora, Memory and Intimacy edited by Sarah Barbour, Thomas Lacroix, David Howard et Judith Misrahi-Barak, series PoCoPages, Coll. "Horizons anglophones" (Montpellier : Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée).
(2015) (with Madge, C. and Raghuram, P.) Conceptualizing international education, in Progress in Human Geography, 39, 6: 681-701
(2014) (with Featherstone, D.) Commentary: Co-producing Caribbean Geographies of In/security. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 39: 603–7
(2014) (with Raghuram, P. and Madge, C.) Rising Asia and Postcolonial Geography. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. 35:119-135
(2014) Towards an embodied securityscape: Brian Chikwava’s ‘Harare North’ and the asylum seeking body as site of articulation. Social and Cultural Geography.15: 291-312
(2013) (with Preziuso, M) Postcolonial Imaginations: Approaching a “Fictionable” World Through the Novels of Maryse Condé and Wilson Harris. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 103: 163-179
(2012) (with Preziuso, M) Moving matter: language in Caribbean literature as translation between dynamic forms of matter. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 14: 120-135
(2012) (with Raghuram P., and Madge, C) Unsettling responsibility: postcolonial interventions. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 37: 418-429
(2012) One world, big society: a discursive analysis of the Conservative Green Paper on International Development. Geographical Journal.178. 31-41
(2011) Postcolonial economies of development volunteering. McEwan, C., Hughes, A., and Pollard, J. (eds) Postcolonial Economies. Zed. pp. 205-229.
(2009) (with Huysmans, J.) Co-edited Community, Citizenship, and the ‘War on Terror’: Security and insecurity. Palgrave, including co-authorship of ‘Introduction: The politicisation of community, citizenship and identity’, and single authorship of ‘An ‘ordinary’ couple. Samantha Lewthwaite, Jermaine Lindsay, and the “securitisation” of community’
(2009) (with Raghuram and Madge) Co-edited a special issue of Geoforum, on responsibility and care in a postcolonial world, including single authorship of ‘My paper, my paper: reflections on the embodied production of postcolonial geographical responsibility in academic writing’; and co-authorship of ‘Engaged pedagogy and responsibility: a postcolonial analysis of international students’; and ‘Rethinking responsibility and care for a postcolonial world’.
(2009) Negotiating security: governmentality and asylum/immigration NGOs in the UK. Dodds, K. and Ingram, A. (eds.) Spaces of Security and Insecurity: Geographies of the War on Terror. Ashgate. Pp. 131-147.
(2009) Freedom, fear, and NGOs: balancing discourses of violence and humanity in securitising times. Duffield, M. and Hewitt, V. (eds.) Empire, Development and Colonialism: the Past in the Present. James Currey. Pp. 130-146.
(2008) (with Raghuram, P. and Madge, C.) ‘Geography is pregnant’ and ‘Geography’s milk is flowing’: metaphors for a postcolonial discipline? Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 26: 146-168
(2006) Claims: a postcolonial geographical critique of partnership in development discourse. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. 27: 254-269
(2006) Race, place and the marketing of British rurality. Journal of Rural Enterprise and Management. 2: 63-75
(2004) Balancing Acts? Empire, Race and Blairite Discourses of Development. Johnson, R. and Steinberg, D.L. (eds.) Blairism and the War of Persuasion: Labour’s Passive Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Blairism. Lawrence and Wishart.
(2004) (with Madge, C, and Raghuram, P) Bodily Contours: Geography, Metaphor and Pregnancy. Women and Geography Study Group (eds.) Geography and Gender Reconsidered. Women and Geography Study Group
(1997) Racism and Respect: Black Pride, Black Youth, Black Workers. D. Garratt, J. Roche and S. Tucker (eds.) Changing Experiences of Youth. Sage/The Open University, pp. 26-31.