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Julian Brigstocke

Dr Julian Brigstocke

(he/him)

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Media commentator
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Available for postgraduate supervision

Teams and roles for Julian Brigstocke

Overview

I am a Reader in Human Geography, with expertise in social and cultural theory, cultural geography, philosophies of geography, and the geohumanities. I am interested in experimental, creative, and arts-based research methods, including experiments with the forms of academic writing. My book Nonauthoritarian Authority: Speculative Exercises in Pluralizing Worlds will be published by LSE Press, as part of the RGS-IBG monograph series, shortly. 

My research is often collaborative, including working with local community groups, activists, and artists. Most recently I have been working with communities in a community of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Beween September 2025 and September 2026 I will be working on a Leverhulme-funded project on Informal Authority, Care and Resistance in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro.These interests have been shaped by my involvement with a research collective called the Authority Research Network.

In the spring 2024-25 semester, my office hours are: Tuesdays, 3-4pm (in person, Glamorgan 2.91) and  Thursdays 10am-12pm (online, MS Teams). Book a meeting with me here.

From September 2025-August 2026 I will be on research leave through a Leverhulme Fellowship. 

Other roles I have include:

Publication

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

  • Simpson, P. and Brigstocke, J. 2019. Affect. In: Atkinson, P. et al. eds. SAGE Research Methods Foundations.. London: SAGE

2018

2017

  • Brigstocke, J. et al. 2017. Implicit values: uncounted legacies. In: Facer, K. and Pahl, K. eds. Valuing Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research: Beyond Impact. Policy Press, pp. 65-84.

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

Articles

Book sections

  • Simpson, P. and Brigstocke, J. 2019. Affect. In: Atkinson, P. et al. eds. SAGE Research Methods Foundations.. London: SAGE
  • Brigstocke, J. 2018. Humour, violence and cruelty in late nineteenth century anarchist culture. In: Ferretti, F. et al. eds. Historical Geographies of Anarchism: Early Critical Geographers and Present-Day Scientific Challenges. Routledge, pp. 65-86.
  • Brigstocke, J. et al. 2017. Implicit values: uncounted legacies. In: Facer, K. and Pahl, K. eds. Valuing Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research: Beyond Impact. Policy Press, pp. 65-84.
  • Dawney, L., Kirwan, S. and Brigstocke, J. 2015. The promise of the commons. In: Kirwan, S., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures. London: Routledge, pp. 1-28.
  • Brigstocke, J. 2015. Occupy the future. In: Kirwan, S., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures. Routledge Research in Place, Space and Politics London: Routledge, pp. 150-165., (10.4324/9781315731995-17)
  • Brigstocke, J. 2014. Immanent authority and the performance of community in late nineteenth century Montmartre. In: Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Dawney, L. eds. Authority, Experience and the Life of Power. London: Routledge, pp. 107-126.
  • Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Dawney, L. 2014. Authority and experience. In: Blencowe, C., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Authority, Experience and the Life of Power. London: Routledge, pp. 1-7.

Books

Monographs

Websites

Research

Research

My research interests currently focus on geographies of power, authority, and embodiment. Previously I have worked on broader issues around art, activism, humour, and literature. I am especially interested in thinking about these issues through the lens of political aesthetics, the geohumanities, and non-representational geographies. 

Currently I am working on projects involving using creative embodied research methods to understand everyday life, authority, and violence in a community of favelas in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro. We are currently writing this research up into a co-authored monograph to be published in 2025. The research was funded by a £253,000 AHRC project from 2020-2023. Further work in this area is supported by a Leverhulme Fellowship from September 2025 to August 2026.

I am also working on a study of the aesthetics of 'nonauthoritarian authority', framed through a series of creative experiments with forms and genres of academic geographical writing. This work has been funded by various AHRC, Leverhulme, and Newton Fund projects. A monograph on this topic, titled Nonauthoritarian Authority: Speculative Exercises in Pluralizing Worlds is forthcoming, as part of the Royal Geographical Society / Institute of British Geographers book series published by LSE Press.

I am interested in debates in philosophies and histories of geography, and am currently preparing a co-edited volume, the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of History and Philosophy of Geography, for publication in 2026. 

My earlier work, funded by the ESRC, focused on art & literature, biopolitics, authority, the politics of aesthetics, and anarchist urban culture. This work was published in a monograph titled The Life of the City: Space, Humour, and the Experience of Truth in fin-de-siecle Montmartre (Ashgate, 2014), as well as edited collections including Authority, experience and the life of power (Routledge, 2014); Space, power and the commons: the struggle for alternative futures (Routledge, 2015); and Problems of participation: reflections on democracy, authority, and the struggle for common life  (2013, ARN Press). More recently, I co-edited a special issue of GeoHumanities on Spaces and Politics of Aesthetics

I also have a strong ongoing interest in creative posthumanist geographies, explored in particular through a £55,000 AHRC Project 'The voice of the other: A cartography of creative listening practices'. Research in this area culminated in an edited book in the form of a 'choose your own adventure' book, Listening with Nonhuman Others (ARN Press, 2016), as well as a special issue of GeoHumanities on Spaces of Attunement (GeoHumanities special section, 2016).

Empirically, my work has centred on Paris, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro. I have published on diverse topics including biopolitics, authority, urban avant-gardes, literature in fin-de-siecle Paris, creative geographies,  more-than-human and experimental participatory methods,  the commons, future generations, the politics of aesthetics,  urban infrastructure in colonial Hong Kong, the aesthetics of sand, and experimental neuro-urbanism methods using mobile galvanic skin response biosensors. 

Funded Projects

  • Informal Authority, Care and Resistance in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Principal Investigator, £68,147, Leverhulme Fellowship, Sept 2025 to August 2026). 
  • Co-Designing Spaces of Care in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro: An Embodied Approach (Principal Investigator, £21,673, Global Challenges Research Fund, 2022-2023)
  • Transforming Atmospheric Authority: Experimental Embodiments in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Principal Investigator, £253,000, AHRC, 2020-2023).
  • What it is to Be There: Exploring grief, place and memory (Co-Applicant, £2000, Brigstow Institute, 2022)
  • Urban Humanities Research Network (Co-Applicant, £6134, GW4 Building Communities Programme, 2021-2022)
  • Harena (Principal Investigator, £3000 creative residency, Leverhulme, 2018)
  • Social Change Through Creativity and Culture, Brazil (Co-Investigator, Newton/AHRC, £280,000, 2016)
  • An Affective Map of Journeys in the Mare Complex of Favelas (Principal Investigator, Newton, £12,000, 2016)
  • The Museum of Living Exchange (Co-Investigator, Newton, £8000, 2016)
  • Participation's "Others": A Cartography of Creative Listening Practices (Principal Investigator, AHRC, £55,000, 2014 - 2015).
  • Starting From Values: Evaluating Intangible Legacies (Co-Investigator, AHRC, £128,000, 2014-2015).
  • Landscapes of Authority (Principal Investigator, Plymouth University, £3000, 2013-2014)
  • Authority, Knowledge and Performance in Participatory Practice (named researcher, AHRC, £40,000 (2012)
  • Immanent Authority and the Making of Community (named researcher, AHRC, £40,000, 2011)

Teaching

Teaching

My teaching interests lie in Social and Cultural Geography and Social Theory. I love teaching, and I aim to guide students towards understandings of contemporary issues by starting from embodied and creative practices and theories, as well as problem-based, active learning. 

I currently teach on modules including:

  • Border Spaces: Identities, Cultures, and Politics in a Globalizing World (module leader)
  • Critical Geographies of Race and Power
  • Gender, Space and Place
  • Researching Contemporary Issues in Geography: Paris (final year field study visit)
  • Urban Theory Provocations
  • Research Methods
  • Dissertations (undergraduate and postgraduate)

Biography

Qualifications

  • PGDip Academic Practice, Plymouth University (2014)
  • PhD Human Geography, Bristol University (2011)
  • MSc Society & Space, Bristol University (2006)
  • BA (Hons) Philosophy, Bristol University (2003)

 

Professional memberships

  • Chair of the Royal Geographical Society's History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group
  • Managing Editor, Agoriad: A Journal of Spatial Theory
  • Editorial Board, GeoHumanities
  • Editorial Board, Aurora: Revista de Arte, Mídia e Política
  • Editorial Board, Cardiff University Press
  • Chair of the Monograph Commissioning Panel, Cardiff University Press
  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Founding member of the Authority Research Network (ARN)
  • Peer Review College member, Arts and Humanities Research Council (2016-2021)

Academic positions

  • Reader, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University (2024-present)
  • Senior Lecturer, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University (2020-present)
  • Lecturer, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University (2014 - 2020).
  • Lecturer, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University (2012-2014).
  • Research Associate, Warwick University, Department of Sociology (2012)
  • Senior Research Assistant, Northumbria University, Department of Sociology (2012)
  • Research Associate, Newcastle University, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology (2011)
  • Teaching Associate, Newcastle University, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology (2010-2011)
  • Project Editor, Canopus Books (2003-2006)

Supervisions

Supervision

I am interested in supervising research students working in the following areas:

  • Cultural geography, geohumanities, and non-representational geographies
  • Cultural theory
  • Creative / experimental geographical writing or methods
  • Geographies of power and authority
  • Borders
  • Brazil, Hong Kong, Paris, UK

Current supervision

Fabiana D'Ascenzo

Fabiana D'Ascenzo

Tirion Jenkins

Tirion Jenkins

Qinyu Feng Feng

Qinyu Feng Feng

Contact Details

Email BrigstockeJ@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29208 76085
Campuses Glamorgan Building, Floor 2, Room 2.91, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Cultural geography
  • Geohumanities
  • Politics of aesthetics
  • Power and authority
  • Speculative theory
Historical Geographies of Anarchism

Historical Geographies of Anarchism

17 July 2017

External profiles