Dr Angharad Closs Stephens

• Untitled (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Sergei Shubin

• The Everyday Affects of Protest: Engaging the Politics of Citizenship at the Museum (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Amanda Rogers

• Tommeni Glo Cymreig: Hen Wastraff neu Risg Newydd? (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Rhian Hedd Meara

• Practices of welcome with refugee and asylum seeking migrants in rural Wales: ‘literacies of doing’ and the (re)writing of place. (awarded 2024)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Sergei Shubin

• Reconfiguring the place of estate-based game management: challenge, change and opportunity within rural England and Wales today (awarded 2023)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Keith Halfacree

• Looking for dementia friendly communities: towards an interdisciplinary understanding using a case study, fragments and cut-ups.«br /»«br /» (awarded 2022)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Charles Musselwhite

• Experiencing the Experience: one hundred and ten years of tear gas use from 1914 to 2014, and its memories, memorials, and meanings (awarded 2024)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Marcus Doel

• Shielding in Wales: National Identity and Everyday Experiences (awarded 2023)

  MSc

  Other supervisor: Dr Osian Elias

• GEC277 Dulliau Daearyddol a Dadansoddi Data

  Welsh translation to follow This core 20-credit module introduces a variety of physical and human geography methods, along with data analysis. The module builds upon student knowledge and covers research design, data collection and data analysis. Students are introduced to a range of lab and field techniques in physical and / or human geography along with statistical analysis. They gain experience in describing, interpreting and presenting the results.

• GEG251 Political Geographies

  How do we begin to think about the political world? What difference does Geography make to our understandings of politics? This module will address these questions by engaging with critical and cutting-edge debates in Political Geography as well as related fields. The module will begin by analysing the modern way of understanding world politics as based on a system of sovereign states, which was established alongside the rise of capitalism in Europe and its colonial encounter with the rest of the world. We will explore the dominance of this way of imagining the political world whilst also examining various attempts at thinking space, politics and citizenship differently. This is an exciting time to be studying politics as there are so many examples from the world around us of the strain on the principle of state sovereignty and geographers are especially well placed to explore these tensions and limit points. This course will help guide students to develop a robust understanding of the political world we have inherited and to uncover ways of thinking about other possible worlds.

• GEGM15 Qualitative Research Methods

  This is a ¿hands on¿ module concerned specifically with how to effectively and reflectively ¿do¿ qualitative methods in the social sciences. It complements and builds on similar modules in quantitative approaches and epistemological and ontological frameworks such as CRM02, CRM03, POM32 and EDM18. After two initial lectures situating the contested and shifting notion of ¿the field¿ and relationships between theory and practice, students will engage in a series of hands-on, practical workshops in specific methods. Workshops will be of 3 hours duration each and will include a theoretical element, a practice element and a reflection element. Following each workshop students will be asked to complete a short, 800-word reflection on the applicability of the research method to their discipline and set of research questions. Students will be encouraged in their reflections to consider both the practical and academic aspects of ¿doing¿ each method. The completed reflective portfolio will be handed in at the end of the course for marking. The methods will vary depending on the staff complement teaching the module from year to year, but are very likely to include: ¿ Ethnographic methods and observation ¿ Archival research, oral history and biographical methods. ¿ Organisational research and interviewing elite actors ¿ Questionnaires, interviews and focus groups ¿ Mobile methods ¿ Participatory action research ¿ Textual and online methods.

• GEGM29 Crisis and Global Change

  'Crisis and Global Change' is a compulsory module for the MSc in Society, Environment and Global Change. One part of this module is designed to provide an advanced introduction to key geographical concepts and frameworks for addressing global crises. This includes asking how we approach and understand 'crisis'? How in particular do we develop critical approaches for understanding and evaluating different crises? And at what scale are different crises addressed, by governments as well as various institutions and organisations? We will address how crises impact people and place unevenly, how crises for some are opportunities for others, what moments of crisis reveal about broader dynamics of power, identity, inequality and violence, and finally how crises also present moments for thinking about change in the world around us. The second part of the module is designed to allow students to explore particular urgent issues and debates in more depth. These will change in any given year, and will draw on staff's research expertise. It will include a focus on topics such as: The Pathologies of Global Cities; Financial and Economic Crises and Resilience; the Global Politics of Nationalism; Migration, Race, Memory and Culture; Imagining Climate Change; and Sustainability and the Politics of Place. These topical lectures will give students an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of some global crises, and to consider how crises interconnect. The module will conclude by considering questions about how we respond to crises, looking at the role of cities, communities, artists, civil society and social movements in engaging social change. Overall the module is designed so that students develop advanced frameworks for approaching and understanding the geographies of global crises, and for considering how crises interconnect and impact people and place differently. By the end of the module, students will be able to connect theoretical frameworks with discussion of urgent global issues, and feel confident that they have a wide-ranging understanding of how to address debates around crisis and global change.

Dr Closs Stephens has supervised 9 PhD students and 4 MSc by Research students to completion, and mentored 2 ESRC funded Post-Doctoral Fellows. Topics have included a geographical comparison of different forms of food banks, Wales as a ‘nation of sanctuary’, teaching citizenship to young people, the Brexit vote, and a geographical study of ‘dementia-friendly communities’. She has secured funding for PhD studentships from the Economic Social Research Council - in partnership with external partners Welsh Refugee Council and National Museum Wales, and from KESS – Knowledge Economy Skills funding, Welsh Government.