James Weldon

(he/him)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

Tree Diseases:

My ESRC-funded PhD focuses tree diseases and the long term responses to disease outbreaks. My research centres on:

·       Efforts to breed, return and preserve elm trees in UK

·       The ecological and cultural response to ash dieback in Devon 

I ask what specifically these conservation efforts are trying to conserve/preserve and why the loss of trees matters to those involved in their conservation. Through interviews, participant-observation and documentary analysis I am investigating how these conservation efforts are shaped by perceptions of what species belong where, how treescapes 'should' look and what makes an appropriate proxy for ‘lost’ species. Additionally, I am interested in artistic responses to speices loss, and the ways they document changing landscapes and memorialise lost trees.

Planetary Health:

I am a Research Assocaite supporting the production of the Routledge International Handbook of Planetary Health, a book critically assessing regional approaches to the intersection of climate change, ecosystem health and human health issues. The book aims to foreground knowledge produced by Global South and indigenous researchers and put inequalities at the centre of analysis.

Transparent Food Supply Chains: 

I am currently working on a TITAN, a project involving multiple academic, industry and NGO partners. In line with the European Green Deal the project focuses on the role of policy tools in enabling food system transparency through novel digital technologies (AI, Blockchain, Internet of Things).

Urban Orchards:

My Masters research focused on the community groups across London are reversing the loss of the city's historic orchards by planting new collections of fruit trees. It sought to understand why these sites are important, the processes by which they are made valuable, and how this could change in the future. This project questioned what plant autonomy is in these sites, and how it acts in close relation to human intention. Additionally, it investigated how fruit trees are valued as heritage objects and native species - and how these values are reworked in the face of climate change. 

Teaching

Graduate Tutor

Developing Research Methods: CP0273

Research Dissertation: CP0383

Border Spaces: Identities, Cultures and Politics in a Globalising World: CP0152

Graduate Demonstrator

Researching Contemporary Issues in Geography and Planning (South Africa): CP0380

Researching Contemporary Issues in Geography and Planning (Netherlands): CP0380

Heritage, Regeneration and Inequality (Liverpool): CP0277 

Biography

Employment: 

Research Assistant, Cardiff University, TITAN, February 2026 – ongoing

Research Associate, Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences, February 2025 – ongoing

Education:

PhD Cardiff University, School of Geography and Planning, 2022 - 2026.

MSc Social Science Research Methods Cardiff University, 2021 - 2022.

MA Social Anthropology University of Edinburgh, 2015 - 2020.

Academic positions

Editor - Agoriad: A journal of spatial theory 

Speaking engagements

The creative abilities of trees: producing an ‘authentic’ disease resistant replacement for absent elm. RGS conference 2025.

Memorialising trees: emotional responses to species ‘lost’ to disease. The Greenhouse Centre for Environmental Humanities Research Talks 2025.

Attending to tree species ‘lost’ to disease: nostalgia, memorialisation and life after death. Cardiff University, School of Geography and Planning, Social and Cultural Research Group talk 2025. 

Attending to tree species ‘lost’ to disease: memorialization and life after death. ASLE-UKI postgraduate conference 2024

Hestercombe House TEST BED Panel Discussion 2024.

Replacing 'lost' trees: aesthetics, ecology and the desired states of treescape restoration. RGS Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2024. 

Responding to loss: what is 'the right tree' and 'the right place' when replanting after disease. CCRI Winter School 2024.

Tree disease and the cultural wellbeing of impacted communities: valued and unvalued trees in authentic treescapes. ASA conference 2023.

Committees and reviewing

PGR conference fund committee