Dr Anna Lawrence

Photo of a medlar tree with wriggly old branches against a blue sky

Photo of brown medlar fruit clustered on the tree against a blue sky

A very characterful medlar tree

Social Infrastructure in Neighbourhoods and Cities Social Infrastructure in Neighbourhoods and Cities - Studying the Facilities That Sustain Community, Social Networks and Trust; From parks to pubs, social infrastructures are the everyday places that ...

excited & terrified that the first formal piece of work from my PhD is coming into the world in a book chapter in May '26! it sits alongside some amazing pieces & brilliant minds, and I'm very lucky! take a goosey: bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/social-infra...

‘Plant Perspectives’ 2.2 is now available online – entirely #openaccess thanks to our #subscribetoopen supporters and our generous individual donors. #plantstudies @plantperspectives.bsky.social

My paper on SDG investment pipelines in Ghana is now in the latest @tibg.bsky.social issue, in great company with other excellent works!

In Nonauthoritarian Authority @jbrigstocke.bsky.social introduces the idea of nonauthoritarian authority: a form of power that pluralises marginalised and hidden voices and recognises diverse agencies.

📚 Publishing #OpenAccess in Spring 2026.

🔗https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.noa

In Climate Hegemony, @laurieparsons.bsky.social brings us a human’s-eye view of the climate crisis, drawing on two decades’ research at the frontline of global development in Cambodia.

📚 Publishing via #OpenAccess in Spring 2026.

Find out more: press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3...

📢 New on the LSE Press blog!

How can geography publishing reflect today’s diverse and complex world?

📍Five minutes with Margath Walker and @jakehodder.bsky.social on the @rgsibg.bsky.social monograph series publishing #OpenAccess later this year with LSE Press.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsepress/202...

If you want to find out about publishing #OpenAccess in the RGS-IBG Book Series, take a look at this recent interview with our Co-Editors, Margath Walker & @jakehodder.bsky.social ⬇️

Graphic promoting the book Non-Authoritarian Authority, with LSE Press logo, RGS logo and Open Access logo.

Graphic promoting the book Climate Hegemony, with LSE Press logo, RGS logo and Open Access logo.

We're delighted to share two upcoming books from our RGS-IBG Book Series! These books will be publishing via #OpenAccess in Spring 2026.

Find out more: https://press.lse.ac.uk/rgs-ibg-series

@laurieparsons.bsky.social @jbrigstocke.bsky.social @annamlawrence.bsky.social @rgsibg.bsky.social

We are thrilled to be partnering with RGS-IBG on their book series and seeing the first @lsepress.bsky.social books publish next year.

Very excited to announce a NEW BOOK coming at the start of next year, with the RGS-IBG book series/ @lsepress.bsky.social

𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐲: 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞

More info to come, but take a peek at the cover and overview here 👇

press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3...

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles showing the Special Section 'Legacies of Austerity', with the names of papers in the issue. The names of the papers and authors are as follows: 1) 'Legacies of Austerity: Editorial Introduction' by Sander van Lanen & Sarah Marie Hall 2) 'Family Hubs and the vulnerable care ecologies of child and family welfare in austerity' by Tom Disney et al. 3) 'Relational legacies and relative experiences: Austerity, inequality and access to special educational needs and disability (SEND) support in London, England' by Rosalie Warnock 4) 'Lived experiences of utilities-based indebtedness in Greece: Tracing the afterlives of austerity' by Aliki Koutlou 5) 'Grassroots temporary urbanism as a challenge to the city of austerity? Lessons from a self-organised park in Thessaloniki, Greece' by Matina Kapsali 6) 'De-municipalisation? Legacies of austerity for England's urban parks' by Andrew Smith et al. 7) 'Austerity's afterlives? The case of community asset transfer in the UK' by Neil Turnbull 8) 'Austere futures: From hardship to hope?' by Julie MacLeavy

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are nine tiles with standard articles, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) 'The rise of education-featured gated communities in Chinese cities: (Re)producing the enterprising self via the entrepreneurial local state–capital nexus' by Shenjing He 2) 'Policy-driven education-led gentrification and its spatiotemporal dynamics: Evidence from Shanghai, China' by Rong Cai, Lirong Hu & Shenjing He 3) 'The market formation of private sector, purpose built student accommodation in Sheffield 2000–2019' by Carl Lee 4) 'Evaporation losses from residential swimming pools and water features under climate variability and change' by Alicia Cumberland & Robert Wilby 5) 'Forecasting urban shifts post-earthquake: LULC change analysis in Elazığ, Turkey using ANN and Markov models' by Fatih Sunbul, Enes Karadeniz, Mustafa Taner Sengun & Muhammed Kocaoglu 6) 'Care-ful encounters: A case for empathetic youthful encounters with coastal environments' by Mark Holton 7) 'How do you like your rivers? Portraying public perception and preference for urban rivers in China via a combined visual and textual analysis' by Yixin Cao, Wendy Yan Chen & Karl Matthias Wantzen 8) 'Understanding place-to-place interactions using flow patterns derived from in-app mobile phone location data' by Mikaella Mavrogeni, Justin van Dijk & Paul Longley 9) 'Gender difference in space–time fixity from household structure in urban China: A case study of Beijing' by Hongbo Chai, Patrick Witte, Stan Geertman & Dick Ettema

A graphic showing the title page of The Geographical Journal on a blue background with The GJ in large letters on the right hand page. On the left hand page are five tiles with commentaries and RGS-IBG Regulars, with the names of papers in the issue. 1) 'On commons, state institutions and capitalism' by Ioannis Rigkos-Zitthen & Nikos Kapitsinis 2) 'From The Hague to the margins: The ICC, feminist geopolitics and alternative legal futures' by Sarah Klosterkamp & Alex Jeffrey 3) 'Everyone's talking about climate change actions, but can we learn from Wales’ approach?' by Lynda Yorke, Athanasios Dimitriou, Sonya Hanna, Corinna Patterson, Sara Parry & Georgina Smith 4) 'Presidential address and record of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) AGM 2025' by Dame Jane Francis 5) 'Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2025' by Jane Francis, Murray Gray, Børge Ousland, Gillian Rose, Susan Smith & Dariusz Wójcik

📢New Issue of The GJ!📢

𝐺𝑒𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡

September's Issue features the 'Legacies of Austerity' Special Section alongside 9 papers, 3 commentaries, and records of the 2025 RGS-IBG Medals and Awards ceremony.

Take a look here ⬇️

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754959...

A book cover for Julian Brigstocke's forthcoming book 'Non-Authoritarian Authority: Cities, Materially and the Aesthetics of Power' published by LSE Press and the RGS-IBG, with a black and white aerial photograph of a large crowd in the background.

A book cover for Laurie Parson's forthcoming book 'Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of Environmental Impasse' published by LSE Press and the RGS-IBG, with a black and white photograph of three people riding on a scooter above a body of water filled with litter.

Pleased to share the first two RGS-IBG Book Series titles to be published fully open access with @lsepress.bsky.social, available early 2026...

@laurieparsons.bsky.social
@jbrigstocke.bsky.social

press.lse.ac.uk/books/coming...

The web page for my forthcoming book "Nonauthoritarian Authority:
Cities, Materiality, and the Aesthetics of Power", part of the @rgsibg.bsky.social monograph series, is now live:
press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3... It should be out around January 2026 🤞 #geosky #sociology #socialtheory

Poster for the event Plants, Memory Belonging

The journal is co-presenting an online event with Oak Spring Garden Foundation on 8th October – 'Plants, Memory belonging'

Join us for some wonderful research on plants by writers, artists, and academics

Register here: www.osgf.org/programs-and... #envhist #envhum #PlantStudies

A graphic advertising a new collection of papers in Transactions called 'Geography in the World 3: Area Studies' with the title curved around a black and white image of the globe in the centre, and the Transactions logo next to the Royal Geographical Society logo at the top of the red background. With contributions from: Aya Nassar, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Deen Sharp, Han Cheng, Maano Ramutsindela & Vera Smirnova

New in TIBG!

Geography in the World, part 3: Area Studies

Han Cheng & @deensharp.bsky.social's collection draws together authors from Egypt, Singapore, China, South Africa & Russia to explore non-Western geography's relationship with Area Studies.

Read all papers here ⬇️

tinyurl.com/5n72yt46

A hand-coloured, nineteenth-century lithograph of an engraving by Johann Peter Hasenclever entitled "Weinverkoster in einem Keller".

Registration for our hybrid autumn seminar programme—"Bad Habits"—is now live! Full details and registration links here: eepurl.com/jnswZs

An interesting case study on the climate mitigation potential of sacred forests on Ethiopian Orthodox Church land ⬇️

This is REALLY A GOOD IDEA, @rgsibg.bsky.social. Thank you.

cc @claireplacial.bsky.social

Translation: ‘Geografías de la esclavitud en Les Malouines/Las Malvinas/Falklands Islands: La conexión cimarrona/quilombola’ by Ana Zavala Guillen, TIBG By Ana Laura Zavala Guillen, Northumbria University The translation of the article ‘Geographies of slavery in the Les Malouines/Las Malvinas/Falkland Islands: The Maroon connection’, published in T…

This is the first translation of a Transactions paper hosted on one of our platforms, and we hope that it might be the first of many.

Ana has provided an introduction to her translation, both in English and Spanish, reflecting on the interpretation process and the tensions it raised.

I didn't notice that the RGS journals are making space to host translated versions of articles (which are importantly open access). This is a wonderful initiative!!

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Transactions by Jan Simon Hutta (2025) entitled 'Hide and rule: Accumulation by disappearance and necro-periurbanisation in Brazil' with a red banner at the top. This paper examines how peri-urban spaces are governed through practices of concealment and obfuscation, thus undermining and displacing techniques of making things legible. Focusing on the Baixada Fluminense region north of Rio de Janeiro, it connects clandestine practices of ‘grilagem’, or state-sponsored land fraud, to the obfuscation of violence as part of territorial strategies. Methodologically, the article combines a genealogical approach to analysing obfuscation as a multi-pronged technology of power with empirical research on the violent control of peri-urban neighbourhoods. In Rio de Janeiro's hinterland, it is argued, the obfuscation of land entitlements has long been linked to the invisibilisation of violence and atrocities, facilitated by racialised conditions of willed ignorance and opacity. At a conceptual level, the paper contributes to nascent works in urban geography and anthropology that are committed to developing context-sensitive approaches to necropolitics in peri-urban and fringe spaces of the Global South. Moreover, it draws on work on uneven spatial development, control grabbing and forced disappearance to develop the notion of ‘accumulation by disappearance’. Such an approach complicates assumptions around modern power being built on ‘state projects of legibility’ (James Scott) and violent spectacles, while also extending engagements with racialised opacity by drawing attention to cunning techniques of obfuscation that traverse the governance of people and spaces. What emerges is a context-sensitive approach to interrogating powerful, yet contested processes of ‘necro-periurbanisation’.

#OpenAccess in TIBG:

'Hide and rule: Accumulation by disappearance and necro-periurbanisation in Brazil' by @jshutta.bsky.social

This paper examines the governance of peri-urban spaces near Rio de Janeiro, connecting land fraud to the systemic hiding of violence.

doi.org/10.1111/tran... #geosky

Some more beauties in the rain

The Royal Society's Lisa Jardine Grant Scheme is still open for applications. This scheme offers early-career scholars the opportunity to use history of science collections, including our own, as part of their research. Find out more:

#RSGrants

https://royalsociety.org/grants/lisa-jardine/

My first time organising a session at @rgsibg.bsky.social! Huge thanks to my amazing co-organisers Matthew Beach and Franklin Ginn, all the brilliant speakers across three panels, and everyone coming to our HPGRG-sponsored ‘Practicing Vegetal Geographies: Creativities and Beyond’ session!💚🪴🌺 #RGS

📣 I'M HIRING! Please spread the word 📣

🔎 Looking for a 1-year postdoctoral research associate to support @sensory-lives-prj.bsky.social & UK-wide tour of a playhouse tent communicating neurodivergent children’s experiences of Temporary Accommodation.

🛜 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOL488/p...

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area (2025) by Febe De Geest, Carolina Contreras, Todd Denham, Patrick Bonney, Ashleigh Stokes, Blanche Verlie, Oluwadunsin Ajulo & Lauren Rickards entitled 'Climate change sensing across work and home: A research diary experiment' with a black banner at the top. As we contend with climate change, understanding its impacts on our everyday lives and work becomes increasingly crucial. In this paper, we applied research diaries as an innovative qualitative method to better understand how we, a team of climate change researchers in Melbourne (Australia), experience, sense, and make sense of and adapt to climate change. Our approach documents how we sense climate change in the individual and collective spaces of our work as researchers, addressing a significant gap in climate change adaptation studies, which have largely overlooked hybrid work environments. The paper offers two main conclusions. First, the research diaries provide insight into the personal, embodied, and affective character of how we sense climate change in hybrid work environments. Second, while research diaries have limitations, they show promise as part of a suite of collective autoethnographic approaches for deepening our understanding of the personal, and often invisible, work experiences of climate change adaptation.

#OpenAccess in Area:

'Climate change sensing across work and home: A research diary experiment' by Febe De Geest et al.

This paper uses collective research diaries to explore how researchers in Melbourne perceive and adapt to extreme weather in their work environments.

doi.org/10.1111/area...

Cover of "On the Backs of Others: Rethinking the History of British Geographical Exploration" by Edward Armston-Sheret

"@edarmstonsheret.bsky.social‬ offers new perspectives on British exploration by focusing on the contributions of the people and animals who made possible the journeys of exploration and discovery," writes Jules Stewart for Geographical Magazine.

Order your copy: bit.ly/45ylaNL

Two hours to go until our #RGSIBG25 keynote panel on 'The Future of Environmental Geography'! 🌎🌍🌏

A poster advertising a 'Meet the Editors' session for The GJ at today's RGS-IBG Annual Conference in Birmingham, with The Geographical Journal logo in blue on the left hand side, and text reading 'Meet the Editors, The Geographical Journal: "Geography in the public interest"' with Peter Hopkins, Paul Milbourne, Rebecca Collins & Trivik Verma, Wednesday 27th August, Muirhead Building: Room 113, 13:10-14:25

If you're at the @rgsibg.bsky.social Annual Conference today, stop by our 'Meet the Editors' session at 13:10 in the Muirhead Building today to hear about our new editorial team's vision for the The GJ ⬇️