Dr James Evans

Director MSc. Environmental Governance, University of Manchester (2007-).

Lecturer, University of Birmingham (2004-2007).

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Birmingham (2003–2004).

• Ecological governance
• Urban sustainability
• Public geographies

My PhD and postdoctoral research developed a political ecology approach to understand the role science plays in transforming urban space. Work on wildlife corridors led to invited seminars in the US and UK, while a paper on biodiversity action planning was flagged by Area as a highlight of 2004. I am currently working with NGOs developing ways to embed environmental values into political decision-making in the region, which has generated an application to the ESRC to explore the use of spatial environmental governance tools at different scales in the UK.

An RGS-EPSRC small grant exploring how sustainability is incorporated into regeneration projects led to a textbook - ‘Urban Regeneration in the UK’ - and an ESRC funded research project looking at issues of social and environmental justice in rapidly regenerating areas (both with Dr. Phil Jones). Using mobile methods to capture local senses of place, we are collaborating with local artists, NGOs and developers to enhance the sustainability of the Eastside regeneration scheme in Birmingham.  My work on valuing place has also been applied through a DEFRA project on the social and cultural benefits of ecosystem services, and I hope to develop the use of mobile methods in the field of environmental valuation in a forthcoming bid to the ESRC.

More recently I have become interested in experimenting with the limits of academic practice in terms of outputs.  This has included submitting the first peer reviewed ‘film’ in geography, which explores rhythm and nature by turning environmental data into music, and an extremely collaborative paper on ‘public geographies’.

Rescue Geography: developing methods for public geographers (ESRC, £80k, with Dr. Phil Jones, University of Birmingham).

Inventory Study on Natural Environment Data II (DEFRA, with ADAS, EFTEC and Nottingham University).

Year 1

Introductory Tutorial
Approaches to Geographical Research

Year 2

Dissertation Tutorial Group.
Overseas Field Course: Amsterdam (Course leader).

Masters

I teach three core units on the MSc. Environmental Governance:
Theories of Environmental Governance;
Issues in Environmental Policy;
Seminars and Key Texts in Environmental Governance.

I am also Postgraduate Taught Admissions tutor for Geography.

PhD students

Jenny Cousins (2005-) "Conservation tourism: embodied science and changing nature-society relations" (ESRC-NERC Studentship with Dr. Jon Sadler).

Richard Bull (2004-) "Social learning, citizenship and the role of public involvement: a waste and resource management context" (ESRC-CASE Studentship with Prof. Judith Petts and Veolia).

Helen Griffiths (2004-) "'A mad and interesting subject': engaging students as citizens and consumers in new school geographies" (ESRC Studentship with Dr. Ian Cook).

Chilvers J and Evans J (In preparation) Editorial: Understanding networks at the science policy interface. Geoforum.

Cook I, Griffiths H and Evans J, (Under revision) Organic public geographies: “Making the connection” Antipode

Van der Horst D and Evans J (Under revision) Carbon claims and energy landscapes: Exploring the political ecology of Biomass. Landscape Planning.

Ricketts-Hein J, Evans J and Jones P (In press) Mobile methodologies: theory, technology and practice. Geography Compass.

Bull R, Petts J and Evans J (In press) Social learning from public engagement: dreaming the impossible? Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.

Jones P and Evans J (2008) Urban Regeneration in the UK: theory and practice. Sage, London.

Evans J (2008) “The spatial politics of conservation planning” in R Krueger and D Gibbs (Eds.) The Sustainability Paradox: urban political economy in the United States and Europe. Guilford, New York. 238-265.

Evans J (2008) “Social Constructions of Nature” in P Daniels, M Bradshaw, D Shaw and J Sidaway (eds.) An Introduction to Human Geography, Pearson.

Evans J and Jones P (2008) Towards Lefebvrian socio-nature?  A film about rhythm, nature and science.  Geography Compass 3.

Evans J, Cook I and Griffiths H (2008) Creativity, group pedagogy and social action: a departure from Gough Educational Philosophy and Theory 40 (2), 330–345. [link]

Evans J and Randalls S (2008) Geography and paratactical interdisciplinarity: Views from the ESRC–NERC PhD studentship programme Geoforum 39 (2), 581-592. [link]

Evans J and Jones P, (2008), Rethinking sustainable urban regeneration: ambiguity, creativity, and the shared territory Environment and Planning A 40 1416 – 1434.

Evans J (2007) Wildlife corridors: an urban political ecology. Local Environment 12 (2) 129-152.

Cook I, Evans J, Griffiths H, Mayblin L, Payne B and Roberts D (2007) Made in…? Appreciating the everyday geographies of connected lives. Teaching Geography (Summer) 80-83.

Cook I, Evans J, Griffiths H, Morris B, Wrathmell S et al. (2007) It's more than just what it is': defetishising commodities, changing pedagogies, situating ethics. Geoforum 38(6), 1113-1126.

Jones P and Evans J (2006) Urban regeneration, governance and the state: exploring notions of distance and proximity. Urban Studies 43 (9) 1491-1509.

Evans J (2006) Lost in translation? Exploring the interface between local environmental research and policy-making. Environment and Planning A 38(3) 517 – 531.

Jones P & Evans J (2006) Time for sustainability: exploring time, the city and non-humans, School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Working Paper 67.

Donovan R, Evans J, Bryson, J, Porter L and Hunt D (2005) Large-scale Urban Regeneration and Sustainability: Reflections on the ‘Barriers’ Typology (PDF). CERT Working Paper 05/01, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, ISBN 07044 25262.

Evans J (2005) 'Biodiversity'. In T Forsyth (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of International Development London and New York: RoutledgE

Evans J (2004) What is local about local environmental governance? Observations from the Local Biodiversity Action Planning process. Area 36 (3) 270-279.

Evans J (2004) Political ecology, scale and the reproduction of urban space: the case of Vincent Drive, Working Paper 66, Birmingham School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, ISBN 0 7044 24584.

Evans J (2004) Critical political ecology: the politics of environmental science. Progress in Development Studies 4 (2) 165-166.

Angus T, Cook I and Evans J et al. (2002) A manifesto for cyborg pedagogy? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 10 (2) 195-201.

Evans J (2000) Human agency, external factors, and discourse: a response. Conservation Ecology 4(1) r3.

Organised four sessions at the Association of American Geographers annual conference since 2001 and have been involved with seven papers.  Invited panelist and discussant in 2008. 

Organised sessions at the Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers’ annual conference in 2004 and 2006. 

Invited speaker at both UCL and Cardiff University in 2005 (both 5* departments), and received an honorarium to speak at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA, in 2006.

Invited referee for three ESRC Rural Economy and Land Use bids.

Referee for a range of journals.

Invited participant at the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop “Emerging Energies, Emerging Landscapes: Revisioning the Past, Constructing the Future” in Paris, 2007, and invited speaker at “Creative Geographies” symposium in Exeter 2008.