Jonathan Prior

🚨 New @rgsibg.bsky.social report & action plans from the @statesofprecarity.bsky.social team. Shares findings from our research on the long & short term effects of precarity in UK HEI Geography & includes action plans designed to support more equitable working cultures
➡️ www.rgs.org/research/hig...

Networked through Sound: First Research Trip to London In the days between summer and fall, with sunny mornings and rainy afternoons (see photo 1), our team came together for a first field trip to London. Experimental Archives Conference…

I’ve officially started my PhD as part of the »Networked through Sound project«! My first research trip with @jprior.bsky.social and @sandrajasper.bsky.social to London was the perfect beginning. I’ve written a short blog post about it: www.geographie.nat.fau.de/first-resear...

🌐🚨 CALL FOR PAPERS 🚨🌐

'The Visual Politics of Digital Ecologies'

🗓️ 2-3 February 2026
📍 @oxfordgeography.bsky.social

We invite one-word titles (e.g. hallucinating, zooming, obscuring, glitching, generating)

Deadline: 14th November

Full info: digicologies.com/cfp

A poster for an event at Microscope, Dalston, London. The background image is of a person holding a magnetic tape in the Wildlife and Environmental Sounds collection at the British Library. The foreground text reads as follows: "Animal archives, listening session, sonic conversation, 14.09, 5pm, Sandra Jasper and Jonathan Prior, part of the 2025 echolocation series, microscope, ticket link in bio, microscope@periscope.uk, 2-4 Tottenham Road, N1 4BZ, @micro__scope"

Second, we will be in conversation with Anton Spice at Microscope, an arts space in Dalston, London, on the 14th September.
Info and tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/echolocati...

A poster for the experimental archives conference 2025. Above a line drawing of an open suitcase that lies empty, text reads: "Experimental Archives conference 2025, Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, Courtyard Theatre, The Town House, 11th-12th September 2025, exploring archives as spaces of transformation, fragmentation, imagination, and experimentation across disciplines".

@sandrajasper.bsky.social and I will be presenting our ongoing wildlife sound archives research at two events in September.
First, we will give a keynote at the Experimental Archives conference at Kingston University (11th-12th September).
Info and tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/experiment...

This is great! Congratulations on the book - looking forward to reading it.

A common blue (Polyommatus icarus) butterfly in profile perched on a grass with the underwing showing.

A Brown Argus (Aricia agestis) butterfly perched on a seed head, with the upperwings showing. The wings are a variety of brown tones, with orange spots on the forewing.

A Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) butterfly perched on a seed head, with the upperwings showing. The wings are a variety of orange and brown tones.

Two Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) butterflies in profile. The butterflies are facing in opposite directions with their wings interlocked, as they copulate. The underwings are a variety of orange and brown tones, with a prominent white spot at the top.

A good start to this year's Butterfly Conservation count, with ten species spotted in my local urban patch, including Common Blue, Small Copper, Brown Argus, Comma, Small Skipper, and Meadow Brown.

Thanks, Fraser. It truly has been, and continues to be, a shit-show. I understand that Edinburgh are moving in a similar direction. Solidarity!

Cardiff University Council have rubber-stamped significant cuts across the University. Shameful, but not at all surprising.

Thanks, Hannah. I'm appalled to hear what is happening at Edinburgh as well - my full solidarity!

I can't tell you how many academic buzzwords this restructuring plan has killed for me, having now heard them ad nauseam. Try as I might, I can never take the term 'co-creation' seriously again...

A male common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) sits in profile on grass, with wings slightly splayed. The upperwing is bright blue with a white edge, and the underwing is light brown with a series of dark brown and orange spots across it.

A common blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) sits in profile on a stony path in full sunshine. The damselfly is a brilliant blue with regular black markings on each segment.

Common blues in Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff.

With interdisciplinary colleagues (biology, architecture, history, digital cultures, etc), I'm co-organising the SOUND+PURPOSE conference in Lund, 20-21 Nov. Please come and join our discussions of the *why* of sound and the *purpose* of sound research. CFP deadline 9 June: www.lmc.lu.se/en/node/591

A photograph taken from the window of an early morning Eurostar train. The sun breaks through mist over a tree canopy.

Inside Cologne Central Station. Two train conductors walk alongside a red Deutsche Bahn train that stretches into the distance.

A view from a train near Wolfsburg. A series of wind turbines on the horizon against a blue sky with light clouds. In the foreground is a ploughed agricultural field.

Inside Berlin Central Station. Light pours through the arched glass roof, hitting the train tacks and the side of a Deutsche Bahn train.

Research trip via train. Cardiff-London-Cologne-Berlin.

Two people walk past the Angel Hotel, Cardiff, in the sunshine.

A row of yellow daffodils adjacent to Alexandra Gardens, Cardiff

An edible plant with clusters of yellow flowers is visible through a semi-transparent plastic polytunnel.

A branch of dusty pink cherry tree flowers outside a row of terraced houses in Cardiff.

A concrete planter with daffodils and hyacinths sits in front of Cardiff Central police station.

Pink saucer magnolia flowers with a bright blue sky background in Bute Park, Cardiff.

Two white geese with orange beaks sit on the bank of Roath Park Lake.

A tree coming into leaf in the foreground, with light streaming onto the wall of a building in central Cardiff.

Gwanwyn cynnar yng Nghaerdydd

Thanks for listening, Michal!

CfP: Join our conference in October 2025 about fleeting voices and their materialities in the archives and the arts!
#voiceletters #audioletters #heritagescience #CulturalHeritage #soundstudies #materialsciences
www.hsozkult.de/event/id/eve...

Sound Art Geographies: Listening at the Limits of Audibility This paper explores the generative yet underexamined relation between human geography and sound art. Sound art has long been concerned with issues of spatiality, place and environment and yet interes....

New paper from me - a Geography Compass piece on sound art geographies:

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks Eric. A human geographer, no less, is leading on these proposals.

I appreciate that, Hannah.

Brutal cuts on the horizon here at Cardiff University, with proposals for 400 redundancies. Whole departments to close, and poorly thought through mergers. Zero transparency. Heartbreaking.

📣 OUT NOW - Digital ecologies: Mediating more-than-human worlds!Very happy to have contributed a chapter on digital sonic ecologies with @hannahfhunter.bsky.social and @jprior.bsky.social

Diolch!

Thank you, Hannah. If you know of anyone through the EEHN who might be interested, please encourage them to have a look!

Thank you so much, Alix! Means a lot coming from you.

A person holds the box of an Agfa tape reel containing animal sound recordings at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

As part of @sandrajasper.bsky.social and my project 'Networked through Sound: Listening to 20th Century Wildlife Sound Archives', we are currently advertising a funded PhD project. Full details here:
www.jobs.fau.de/jobs/doctora...

Thanks Clare! I remember discussing a very early idea for this project with you many moons ago!

Many thanks Trish!

We aim to understand how this network of wildlife sound archives, and the recordings they contain, have been produced and consumed in a variety of social and cultural contexts.