Professor Peter Kraftl has been named as recipient of the Royal Geographical Society’s 2020 Murchison Award. This prestigious award recognises Peter’s research, which has significantly contributed to social and cultural geographies.
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is the learned society and professional body for geography. The Society’s medals and awards recognise excellence in geographical research and fieldwork, teaching and public engagement. They are presented annually to individuals who have made outstanding achievements. Peter joins a list that includes Sir Alexander Burnes, David Livingstone, Alfred Russel Wallace, Captain R. Scott and more recently Professor Peter Haggett, Dr Sylvia Earle, Professor Diana Liverman, Sir Crispin Tickell and Sir David Attenborough.
Peter Kraftl is best known for his research on children’s geographies, and especially for research into the emotions, affects, materialities and practices that make up their everyday lives. He also publishes on geographies of education and architecture. He is currently an Editor of the journals Area and Children’s Geographies and was a founding member of the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). He is also an Honorary Professor at the School of Education, RMIT, Melbourne.
From 2018-2020, he held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship on Plastic Childhoods, which examines the many ways in which plastics are entangled with children’s lives.