Harriet Hawkins

Harriet is Professor of Human Geography and Co-Director of the Centre for GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Her research is focused on the advancement of the geohumanities, a field that sits at the intersection of geographical scholarship with arts and humanities scholarship and practice. Empirically, she explores the geographies of artworks and art worlds, theoretically she is interested in the elaboration of core humanities concepts of aesthetics, creativity and the imagination from a geographical perspective. Her current research focuses on the underground as a site of much needed new environmental imaginations.

Collaboration underpins her research practice and alongside written research, she has produced artist’s books, participatory art projects and exhibitions with individual artists and range of international arts organizations including Tate, Arts Catalyst, Iniva, Furtherfield and Swiss Artists in Labs.

Harriet is the author of For Creative Geographies (Routledge 2013) and Creativity (Routledge 2016), co-editor of Geographical Aesthetics (Ashgate 2014) and Geographies of Making Craft and Creativity (Routledge 2017). Her next monograph exploring practice-based research in Geography is forthcoming in 2020. In addition, she has written over 80 peer-reviewed publications. Her research and collaborations are funded by a range of bodies including the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), The Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Arts Council, and the National Science Foundations of the US, Switzerland and China.

Harriet has given over 60 invited lectures, keynotes and plenaries in 16 different countries and, in 2016, she was awarded the Royal Geographical Gill Memorial Award, the Phillip Leverhulme Prize and an AHRC Leadership Fellowship in recognition of the international influence of her research.

Harriet is Associate Editor of the AAG journal GeoHumanities and is Managing Editor of the journal Cultural Geographies. She is Chair of the Royal Geographical Society's Social and Cultural Geography Research Group and Panel Chair for the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Future Leader Fellowships Peer Review College. In 2018, Harriet took up the role of the Deputy Director of Technē, an AHRC funded doctoral training partnership.