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Dr Nina Williams

Dr Nina Williams

Senior Lecturer
UNSW Canberra
School of Science

I am a cultural geographer in the School of Science at UNSW Canberra.

My research explores conceptual innovations in the fields of nonrepresentational theory, process philosophy, speculative thinking and post-humanism. In an effort to bring theory into close relationship with practice, a central pursuit of my research is to foreground the role of aesthetics and creative processes as unique means for understanding cultural and ecological change.

My current research project ‘Theorising Biodesign: ethics, values, techniques’ (funded with a UNSW Seed Funding award) explores biodesign initiatives in the fields of textiles and architecture (see ; ; ). The project has involved occupying a Visiting Researcher role at the Design and Living Systems Lab at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. I have alsoundertaken research visits as part of this project to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Co-Labs in Melbourne; École Nationale Supérieurede Création Industrielle in Paris; and Open Cell in London.The key questions guiding this research project are: what kinds of assemblages make up this form of design? How are the traditional durations of design disrupted by bioinspired or bioengineered techniques? What is implied by the ethos of collaborating or co-producing with nature in biodesign discourses? How do practitioners transition from the speculative to manufactured stages of design? Whatrole do regenerative designs play in the contexts of circular economies and ecological crises?

More broadly my research is concerned with two central themes:

1. To amplify how distinct forms of evaluation and problematisation emerge as part of creative practices. For example, drawing on the philosophy of Henri Bergson, I have theorised creativity as a process that disrupts individual ingenuity and human durations (see ; ). After Félix Guattari,I have challenged the idea that the political potential of art is limited to representational intentions (see discussion of Keiichi Tahara's portrait collection 1978-1987 in) and subjects (see discussion of Nathalie Sarraute'sTropisms).I have sought to re-conceptualisestyle, after Gilles Deleuze, Anne Sauvagnargues and Sonia Delaunay, understanding it as a transformative practice rather than as a fixed category (see ).Also drawing on the philosophy of Deleuze, I have discussed how creative and arts-based geographic research can serve as a site of geographic critique (see). I have also situated this theme of my research in the context of fashion and style, where the introduction to a special issue I co-organised with Dr Merle Patchett (Bristol University) sought to draw out globally-orientated and decentered approaches to the study of fashion and consider the microsocial problematics and potentials of fashion practices (see 2022).

2. To develop experimental, qualitative research as generative practico-theoretical events. I have designed experimental methodologies in the contexts of art and curation, walking and mapmaking, and sonic geographies. Through this aspect of my research, I have pursued an interest in disseminating research beyond the academy,having co-organised andsecured funding forcommunity and arts-based workshops and exhibitions. My PhD thesis 'An Aesthetic Gait: research in the minor registers of creativity and walking' (completed at the University of Bristol and funded through the Economic and Social Research Council, UK) involved walking interviews in rural landscapes, public workshops on urban field-recording, and immersive engagements with walking art.Ihave also developed Masters level and citizen-led workshops on listening to urban environments via audio recording devices (see ); I have utilised the post-card as a form of mapping (see; ); and I have curated exhibitions and creative workshops to engage the public in thinking about documenting cities (see ; discussed in ). With collaborators inBristol, Canberra, and Linköping, I have addressed how post-humanist theoretical interventions reframe methodological practices and expectations in the humanities and social sciences (see ).

I obtained a BA (hons) in Geography at the University of Manchesterin 2011;anMSc in Human Geography: Society and Spaceat the University of Bristol in 2012; and aPhD in Human Geography at the University of Bristolin 2017. Before commencing my current role at UNSW Canberra in 2019,I workedas a Research Associate in Urban Livingin the department of Civil Engineeringat the University of Bristoland as a Lecturerin Human Geography in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Phone
+61 2 5114 5039
  • Books | 2022
    , 2022, Speculative Geographies, Williams N; Keating T, (ed.), Springer Nature Singapore,
  • Book Chapters | 2022
    Williams N; Keating T, 2022, 'From Abstract Thinking to Thinking Abstractions: Introducing Speculative Geographies', in Williams N; Keating T (ed.), Speculative Geographies: Ethics, Technologies, Aesthetics, Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1 - 32,
    Book Chapters | 2019
    Williams N, 2019, 'Non-Representational Theory', in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second Edition), pp. 421 - 427,
    Book Chapters | 2019
    Williams N, 2019, 'Reframing politics in art : from representational subjects to aesthetic subjectification', in Why Guattari? A Liberation of Cartographies, Ecologies and Politics, Routledge
  • Edited Books | 2022
    Williams N; Keating TP, (ed.), 2022, Speculative Geographies: ethics, technologies, aesthetics, Palgrave Macmillan,
  • Journal articles | 2023
    Cotsaftis O; Williams N; Chyon G; Sadar J; Va Pesaran DM; Wines S; Naarden S, 2023, 'Designing conditions for coexistence', Design Studies, 87,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Gerlach J; Debaise D; Wiame A; Roberts T; Lapworth A; Dewsbury JD; Colebrook C; Williams N; Keating TP, 2023, 'Correction: Geophilosophy round table (Subjectivity, (2023), 30, 1, (91-106), 10.1057/s41286-023-00150-1)', Subjectivity, 30, pp. 112,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Gerlach J; Debaise D; Wiame A; Roberts T; Lapworth A; Dewsbury JD; Colebrook C; Williams N; Keating TP, 2023, 'Geophilosophy round table', Subjectivity, 30, pp. 91 - 106,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Keating TP; Williams N, 2022, 'Geophilosophies: towards another sense of the earth', Subjectivity, 15, pp. 93 - 108,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Williams N; Burdon G, 2022, 'Writing subjectivity without subjecthood: the machinic unconscious of Nathalie Sarraute’s Tropisms', Social and Cultural Geography, 24, pp. 1403 - 1421,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Williams N, 2022, 'Waiting for Geotropic Forces: Bergsonian duration and the ecological sympathies of biodesign', Qualitative Inquiry, 28, pp. 1 - 10,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Patchett M; Williams N, 2021, 'Geographies of Fashion and Style: Setting the Scene', GeoHumanities, 7, pp. 198 - 216,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Williams N, 2021, 'The problem of critique in art-geography: five propositions for immanent evaluation after Deleuze', Cultural Geographies, 29,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Williams N; Collet C, 2020, 'Biodesign and the Allure of “Grow-made” Textiles: An Interview with Carole Collet', GeoHumanities, 7, pp. 1 - 13,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Williams N, 2020, 'Theorizing Style (In Three Sketches)', GeoHumanities, 7, pp. 1 - 18,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Williams N; Patchett M; Lapworth A; Roberts T; Keating T, 2019, 'Practising post-humanism in geographical research', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44, pp. 637 - 643,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Williams N, 2019, 'Listening', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44, pp. 647 - 649,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Cook S; Davidson A; Stratford E; Middleton J; Plyushteva A; Fitt H; Cranston S; Simpson P; Delaney H; Evans K; Jones A; Kershaw J; Williams N; Bissell D; Duncan T; Sengers F; Elvy J; Wilmott C, 2016, 'Co-Producing Mobilities: negotiating geographical knowledge in a conference session on the move', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 40, pp. 340 - 374,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Williams N, 2016, 'Creative processes: From interventions in art to intervallic experiments through Bergson', Environment and Planning A, 48, pp. 1549 - 1564,
  • Creative Works (non-textual) | 2014
    Williams N, 2014, Mapping in Momentum, The Walking Encyclopaedia Exhibition, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 07 February 2014 - 15 March 2014, at: https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/project_entry/the_walking_encyclopaedia_incl._paths_of_variable_resistance
    Curatorial Outputs | 2014
    Williams N, 2014, Sounding the City, exhibited at: The Edwardian Cloakroom Bristol, UK, 14 August 2014 - 16 August 2014

My Research Supervision

Tara Elisabeth Jeyasingh'Lives, Lines and Lights: problematising geographic thinking with Deleuze and Guattari and Glissant'

Sabrina Shanto-'Harassment and the Emotional Geographies of Fear on Public Transport in Dhaka'

Christian Sirois -'The Yassification of the Balkans: Media, Perception, and Power '

My Teaching

Current:

ZPEM2213 The Art and Science of Doing Geography

ZPEM2211 Special Topic in Geography: the social science of ecological crises

ZPEM1202 Geography 1B: understandingenvironments

Previous:

ZPEM2207 Social Geography

ZPEM4205 Human Geography Honours Special Topic

ZPEM4002 ZPEM4004 ScienceHonours Research