Close
UCL IRDR Monthly Seminar Series
07 May 2019, 5:00 pm–6:00 pm
Border volcanoes: Complexity, interactions and assemblages
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
Location
-
25 Gordon Street, Room 500Gordon StreetLondonWC1H 0AYUnited Kingdom
7th May Seminar on Border volcanoes: Complexity, interactions and assemblages
Speaker: Dr Amy Donovan, Lecturer in Geography at the University of Cambridge
Dr Amy Donovan will discuss research results from a project on border volcanoes – and her future plans. She will engage too with recent work on geosociality in the geography literature, arguing for approaches to disaster risk that think across the social and physical sciences. She has recently been thinking about the ways in which material environments and their “liveliness” have impacted and continue to impact culture and politics in a dynamic way that has sometimes been lost in DRR when “hazard” and “vulnerability” are considered as separate entities. Her talk will present some of those (ongoing and incomplete) ruminations.
- 2018-2019 Seminars (all 5-6pm)
Date Speaker Title Location Tues 9th Oct David Simmons, Willis Towers Watson Reinventing insurance – how insurance can help protect the vulnerable poor and eco-systems Roberts LT G06 Tues 13th Nov Terry Cannon, University of Sussex What are Critcal Disaster Studies Malet Place, Rm 103 Tues 4th Dec Isla Hurley Brunt, Cabinet Office Local and National Recovery Management Malet Place, Rm 103 Tues 8th Jan James Hammond, Birkbeck University of London Mount Paektu Volcano Geoscientific Project: Science Diplomacy in North Korea Pearson G22 Tues 5th Feb Ben Whitaker, Founder and Head of Innovation at Masabi; Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at UCL Transport Institute Resilience for Smart City technology Pearson G22 Tues 12th Mar tbc tbc Pearson G22 Tues 7th May Dr Amy Donocan, Lecturer in Geography at the University of Cambridge Border volcanoes: Complexity, interactions and assemblages 25 Gordon Street, Rm 500
About the Speaker
Dr Amy Donovan
Lecturer at University of Cambridge and Girton College
Dr Amy Donocan's research focusses on the human and physical processes around active volcanoes and in other precarious environments. She is particularly interested in how science encounters policy and culture.. She is PI of an ERC project entitled “Geographical imaginations and the (geo)politics of volcanic risk: Cultures, knowledges, actions”, which will be based in Latin America and East Africa, examining local experiences of living in hazardous environments, and the roles that governments and scientific institutions are increasingly playing in “managing” those environments. Amy also works on the role of science in other hazardous contexts, particularly those prone to landslides and earthquakes. While the Sendai Framework for DRR calls for early warning, the social context and their application and the power dynamics are rarely examined, and yet can have potentially devastating impacts if poorly managed.
Amy’s background is very eclectic – her first degrees were in English. She then studied geosciences (including the Geophysical Hazards MSc at UCL!), before taking a PhD in Geography, which looked at science and policy on Montserrat during the eruptions.
Forthcoming and latest publications:
- Donovan, A. and Oppenheimer, C. Volcanoes on borders: A scientific and (geo)political management challenge. Bulletin of Volcanology (accepted, in press)
- Donovan, A., 2019. Critical volcanology? Thinking holistically about risk and uncertainty. Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 81, Donovan, A., 2018. Sublime encounters: Commodifying the experience of the geos. Geo: Geography and Environment, v. 5, p.e00067-e00067.