Dr Matt Watson
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography
| Room number: | F9 |
| Telephone (internal): | 27911 |
| Telephone (UK): | 0114 222 7911 |
| Telephone (International): | +44 114 222 7911 |
| Email: | M.Watson@Sheffield.ac.uk |
Matt Watson gained his PhD from Lancaster University. He spent a number of years as a postdoctoral researcher at Lancaster University and the University of Durham before joining the department in 2007.
Research Interests |
Social and cultural geographies of everyday practices, consumption and sustainability; and related issues of governing. |
Current research |
My work is concerned with the complex systemic processes which make, shape, shift and stabilise practices with consequences for sustainability and wellbeing, and with exploring the routes and institutions through which those practices are governed. Addressing themes including consumption, energy, waste, mobility and biodiversity, my research engages with geographical and sociological theories of practice, materiality and everyday life, as well as with science and technology studies, and literature on the structures and processes of governing. My research programme springs from the basic insight that social interventions designed in response to the challenges of sustainability and wellbeing must be grounded in an understanding of the dynamics of what people do. Questions about how expectations escalate, how environmentally damaging behaviours become normal or how more sustainable ways of life can be propagated require methods and perspectives that go beyond individualistic and rational-choice based paradigms and that confront the embeddedness of everyday practices in spaces, social relations, routines, norms and socio-technical systems. Current funded research takes this programme forward through two projects.
Waste Prevention is a research project being undertaken by Dr Ana Paula Bortoleto under a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship, for which I am Scientist in Charge. The project is exploring commonalities and contrasts in domestic waste minimisation practices between Sheffield and Sao Paulo. |
Teaching |
In keeping with the research-led teaching strategy of the University and of the Department of Geography, my teaching is closely aligned with my research. In much of my teaching, the topics, concepts and knowledge I help students learn about are related to my own research on themes of sustainability, governing, technologies and consumption. Through modules like Environment, Society and Policy or Geographies of Consumption, a key aim is to engage students critically with big geographical themes, like climate change, food security, well being and social justice, and with contemporary ways of thinking about them, by reflecting upon their own lives as members of the society which produces and responds to these issues. The other side of my teaching focuses on the processes of doing research. A fundamental part of becoming a graduate from this department is gaining both understanding and practical experience of producing geographical knowledge. Contributing to this, I am able to draw upon my experience as a researcher to teach social research methods and research design, and enable students to learn by doing, from first year undergraduate through to early stage doctoral researchers. Matt is convenor of these undergraduate and postgraduate modules:
Matt also teaches on these postgraduate modules:
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Key Publications |
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