Pre-conference activities
Find out more about activities taking place in the run-up to the conference.
Several activities will take place in the run-up to the conference on Tuesday 26 August, all of which are free to attend for fully registered conference delegates.
Carceral Geography Working Group 鈥� Creating in confinement: co-production, creative methods and carceral geographies
Tuesday 26 August, 10.00am-5.00pm BST.
Location: to be confirmed.
This workshop explores how creative practice and research enable novel forms of knowledge production in carceral settings. Providing researchers across career stages with opportunities to meet, share experiences and try out creative approaches for their own work, the workshop is open to all.
Morning and afternoon sessions open with keynote speakers engaged in creative practice in carceral settings:
- Paula Harriot (Unlock)
- Laura Caulfield (Wolverhampton University)
- Maria Addams (Doing Porridge, University of Surrey)
These in-depth presentations will be followed by practical workshops on creative writing, collage and body-mapping. We will close the day with a celebration of recent monographs, edited volumes and publications by our international network) and an informal social gathering.
Digital Geographies Research Group 鈥� Exploring place-based creativity in a digitally-mediated world
Tuesday 26 August 2025, 2.00pm-5:30pm BST.
Location: to be confirmed.
Complementing the Society's conference theme of 鈥楥reativity/creative geographies鈥�, the Digital Geographies Research Group have organised parallel workshops that invite participants to explore placed-based creative practices of researchers, content creators and game designers alike.
Speaking across a range of digitally-mediated contexts, these parallel sessions introduce practices through explorative, playful or audio-visual forms of creativity. The workshops aim to address a series of questions prompted by this year鈥檚 theme:
- What new concepts, methods or practices can digitally-mediated creativity offer researchers?
- How can being creative help researchers to navigate increasingly turbulent times?
- Where are the new digital spatialities of creativity emerging?
The event will start with three parallel sessions which you will be able to sign up for followed by a panel discussion.
Energy Geographies Research Group 鈥� Visit to Tyseley Energy Park
Tuesday 26 August, 12.00pm-5.00pm BST.
Location: University Rail Station.
Home to the pioneering Webster and Horsfall company, this 300-year-old industrial site has been transformed into an Energy Park.
On this guided tour, we鈥檒l visit the UK鈥檚 largest hydrogen refuelling station 鈥� powering 20 zero-emission buses for Birmingham 鈥� explore the Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre, where cutting-edge research from the University of Birmingham is shaping future energy systems, and learn about the park鈥檚 programmes for community and public engagement.
Please note: this trip involves a return train to Tyseley (fare not included) and a 20-minute walk to the Energy Park through one of Birmingham鈥檚 more industrial areas.
Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group 鈥� Creativity in children鈥檚 geographies: teaching and learning from pre-school to post-graduate
Tuesday 26 August, 1.30pm-4.00pm BST.
Location: The Warehouse, (Birmingham Friends of the Earth), 54-57 Allison Street, B5 5TH (city centre, close to Moor Street train station).
This informal workshop 鈥� supported by the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group (GCYFRG) - is free and open to all with an interest in geography, children and young people, and pedagogy.
Children鈥檚 geographies are often absent from school geography curricula and remain on the margins of higher education geography curricula. This event seeks to support and inform the teaching of children鈥檚 geographies from pre-school to Higher Education, particularly encouraging those in teaching roles to draw on this year鈥檚 conference theme of 鈥楥reativity鈥� to inspire and inform their pedagogy.
Engaging with children鈥檚 experiences and imaginations of the world in schooling can support them in making connections between ideas and knowledges and ensure they are respected and valued in education spaces. Learning with, and from, children can enhance pedagogies and methods that support children鈥檚 agency and voice in education and society.
In higher education, engaging with children鈥檚 geographies can enhance students鈥� knowledge of their spatialities, mobilities, issues and perspectives, often providing a lens to think about the world around them in a more creative manner.
This event aims to bring people together to share practices and ideas, focussing on how the teaching and supervision of geographies of children, youth and families can be supported and advanced from the early years to postgraduate levels, through creative practice.
The event will be a 鈥榯each meet鈥� style event, with some invited contributions to stimulate discussion around teaching creatively. The event will conclude with a discussion aiming to identify priorities for the teaching of children鈥檚 geographies moving forward and opportunities to network.
Invited speakers
- Gemma Collins (King's College London)
- Matt Finn (University of Exeter)
- Sophie Hadfield-Hill (Birmingham University)
- Sarah Sprake (Early Years Adviser)
Convenors
- Nadia von Benzon (Lancaster University)
- Lauren Hammond (University of Oxford)
This event is free, and we are very grateful to GCYFRG for their financial and wider support of this event.
We invite all attendees to share insights from their own teaching practice or to bring questions or topics of conversation to the workshop.
To register interest, or suggest a 5-10 minute contribution please email Nadia von Benzon at n.r.vonbenzon@lancaster.ac.uk
Participatory Geographies Research Group and Urban Geography Research Group 鈥� Participatory walking methods
Tuesday 26 August, 11.00am-4.30pm BST.
Location: to be confirmed.
Registration is now closed for this workshop.
The workshop will catalyse discussions and share knowledge on walking methods in research and practice, with a focus on:
- Ethics, care and trends in research.
- Technologies such as mobile recording.
- Participatory methods.
- Creative walking methods.
- How to effectively communicate and teach walking methods to a broad audience inside and outside academia.
We also aim to support mentorship by linking researchers of different career stages through their interests and experiences in walking methods. This workshop would be an ideal introduction to the Society's conference where we are facilitating two sessions on Creative Tensions in Place: The Promise of Walking Perspectives.
The workshop is organised by three geographically-minded researchers and teachers with different perspective on walking, urban politics and participatory methods: David Adams, Morag Rose and Aled Singleton. We are supported by the Participatory Geographies and Urban Research Groups.
The Azeezat Johnson Memorial RACE Pre-Conference Event 2025
Date and time: Tuesday 26 August, 10.00am鈥�12.30pm, followed by lunch.
Venue: Ikon Gallery, 1 Brindley Pl, Oozells Sq, Birmingham B1 2HS.
The RACE working group of the Royal Geographical Society is celebrating its 10th anniversary. As we normally do in our pre-conference event, we鈥檒l be giving postgraduate and early career researchers a chance to network and share their experiences.
We鈥檒l also be thinking beyond the leaky pipeline within the discipline: we鈥檒l be finding new ways to discuss Black and brown student experiences, career paths and community activism.
This year鈥檚 pre-conference event will end with a focused discussion of the RACE group鈥檚 future: should the RACE group continue, what do people need from the RACE group now, and what鈥檚 our vision for the RACE group鈥檚 future?
Please note: on the same day and at the same venue, the Fi Wi Road fair will run from 1.15pm鈥�4.00pm. If attendees are interested in participating, they can email cynthia@fiwiroad.co.uk
Programme
- 10.00am 鈥� Welcome
- 10.05am 鈥� Postgraduate and early career conversations and networking. Speakers: Lyn Kouadio and Saffron Powell, followed by discussion
- 10.40am 鈥� Tea/coffee break, with networking
- 10.50am 鈥� Beyond the leaky pipeline: student experiences, careers and community activism. Speakers: Karina Kanda, Azura Farrell-McLeod, Obinna Iwuji and Anita Shervington, followed by discussion
- 11.40am 鈥� RACE futures: what's our vision for the RACE group's future?
- 12.20pm 鈥� Round-up and finish
- 12.30pm-1.15pm 鈥� Lunch
