The 'Orient' in the 'Occident' : the social, cultural and spatial dynamics of Moroccan diaspora formations in Granada, Spain

PhD ThesisContributing to research on geographies of diasporas and migration, this thesis examines how the Moroccan diaspora in the city of Granada, Spain, has transformed urban space, and conversely, how the spatiality of Granada engenders distinctive diasporic identity formations, senses of belonging and spatial practices. Using the geographical insight that diasporas alter and are altered by the places they inhabit and that identities and belongings are often spatialised and spatially contingent, the research examines how these processes function for the Moroccan diaspora living in Granada. Granada’s mixed Christian and Islamic heritage, its relatively recent transformation from an ethnically homogenous space into a diaspora space, and the close proximity of the Maghreb and Africa, all herald Granada as a rich arena to explore social, cultural and spatial processes of diasporas and migration. Conceptually, the research is positioned within urban geographies of diasporas. The centrality of the urban spatial scale in diaspora formations and experiences, rather than the national, is demonstrated and examined. The thesis focuses on four concepts that are at the core of geographies of diasporas: space, belonging, home and identity. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis provides an empirical analysis that is grounded in the everyday and intimate spaces of the Moroccan diaspora. As such it responds to calls for grounded studies on diasporas that take locations and their contexts seriously. Overall, the thesis underlines the fundamental centrality of place for diaspora formations, and argues that the experiences and perceptions of the Moroccan diaspora in Granada provide distinctive narratives of European urban diversity

Brexit writings and the war of position over migration, 'race' and class

This timely series of interventions scrutinises the centrality of race and migration to the 2016 Brexit campaign, vote and its aftermath. It brings together five individual pieces, with an accompanying introduction, which interrogate different facets of how race, migration and Brexit interconnect: an examination of the so called 'left behinds' and the fundamental intersections between geography, race and class at the heart of Brexit motivations and contexts; an exploration of arguably parallel and similarly complex developments in the US with the rise of populism and support for Donald Trump; an analysis of the role of whiteness in the experiences of East European nationals in the UK in the face of increased anti-foreigner sentiment and uncertainty about future status; a discussion of intergenerational differences in outlooks on race and immigration and the sidelining of different people and places in Brexit debates; and a studied critique of prevailing tropes about Brexit which create divisive classed and raced categories and seek to oversimplify broader understandings of race, class and migration. Taken together these articles, all arguing for the need to eschew easy answers and superficial narratives, offer important and opportune insights into what Brexit tells us about race and migration in contemporary UK

Multi-Proxy Characterisation of the Storegga Tsunami and Its Impact on the Early Holocene Landscapes of the Southern North Sea

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ERC funded project No. 670518 LOST FRONTIERS, https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en, https://lostfrontiers.teamapp.com/). The project gratefully acknowledges the support of the Estonian Research Council (https://www.etag.ee/en/estonian-research-council/, Grant number: PUTJD829). PGS (https://www.pgs.com/) is acknowledged through provision of data used in this paper under license CA-BRAD-001-2017.Doggerland was a landmass occupying an area currently covered by the North Sea until marine inundation took place during the mid-Holocene, ultimately separating the British landmass from the rest of Europe. The Storegga Event, which triggered a tsunami reflected in sediment deposits in the northern North Sea, northeast coastlines of the British Isles and across the North Atlantic, was a major event during this transgressive phase. The spatial extent of the Storegga tsunami however remains unconfirmed as, to date, no direct evidence for the event has been recovered from the southern North Sea. We present evidence of a tsunami deposit in the southern North Sea at the head of a palaeo-river system that has been identified using seismic survey. The evidence, based on lithostratigraphy, geochemical signatures, macro and microfossils and sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), supported by optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating, suggests that these deposits were a result of the tsunami. Seismic identification of this stratum and analysis of adjacent cores showed diminished traces of the tsunami which was largely removed by subsequent erosional processes. Our results confirm previous modelling of the impact of the tsunami within this area of the southern North Sea, and also indicate that these effects were temporary, localized, and mitigated by the dense woodland and topography of the area. We conclude that clear physical remnants of the wave in these areas are likely to be restricted to now buried, palaeo-inland basins and incised river valley systems.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe