The Changing Forms of Social Phenomena Today

In this talk, Ted Schatzki first describes the stream of social thought with which he is associated—theories of practices—before presenting a recently developed general framework for grasping contemporary sociodigital phenomena.

Dr. Theodore Schatzki

Theodore Schatzki is professor of philosophy at the University of Kentucky. Additionally, he is a professor in the Department of Geography and, until September 2024, he is also professor of sociology at Lancaster University in the UK.  Schatzki earned a BA in applied mathematics from Harvard University (1977) and graduate degrees in philosophy from Oxford University (1979) and UC Berkeley (1986).  He joined the philosophy faculty at UK in 1986.

Schatzki’s research interests lie in theorizing social life.  He is widely recognized for his contributions to the contemporary stream of social analysis called practice theory, which is active today in multiple disciplines including sociology, geography, organizational studies, education, anthropology, international relations, and history.  Schatzki is the author of five single-authored monographs, the co-editor of six collected volumes, and responsible for almost ninety articles—and a slew of other pieces—on a wide range of topics in philosophy and social theory.  He has received research support from the Fulbright Commission, the Humboldt Foundation, the ESRC (UK), and the Leverhulme Trust.  Recent work concerns the digital shaping of associations, the notions of space needed to analyze digitalized social phenomena, and (with R. Friedland) a practice institutional analysis of blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and platforms. 

Schatzki has taught a wide variety of courses at UK and other universities in philosophy, geography, sociology, social theory, and environmental studies.  He has chaired nineteen PhD committees.  Administratively, he has served as cofounder and codirector of the Committee on Social Theory (1989-2000), chair of the philosophy department (2002-2007), and senior associate dean in the College (2008-17).  Currently, he is cofounder and co-organizer of a lively international practice theory community boasting over 500 members.  In this capacity, he is coresponsible for reading room series, an online graduate course in practice theory, an annual conference, and occasional topical workshops, among other activities.

Schatzki has been a guest professor or researcher at numerous universities oversees including the University of Exeter, The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Aalborg University Copenhagen, the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna, Lancaster University, the University of Bristol, the University of Zurich, the University of Bielefeld, the Free University in Berlin, The Charles Sturt University in Australia, the Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt in Germany, and the University of Bergen.  In the spring of 2018 he received an honorary doctorate from Aalborg University in Denmark.

A November 29, 2021 article in the Daily Nous based on the Scopus index listed Schatzki as the 13th most cited philosopher in the world in 2020.

Geography Career Night is Wed., Feb. 7th, 5:00-7:00pm

Join a panel of alumni and professionals for a night dedicated to kickstarting your career. We'll be meeting in-person on Wed., Feb. 7th, at 5pm in the Stuckert Career Center on campus. Bring your resume to workshop with a career counselor and get a new professional headshot for your LinkedIn profile. Then stay for a panel discussion with alumni from UK Geography, discussing their career path after graduation:

Sean Conway graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2015 with a BA in Geography.  Starting his geospatial career at NV5 Geospatial, he spent 8 years progressing from a Geospatial Tech to the role of Orthoimagery Technical Domain Expert and Software Developer.  In 2023 he was approached by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for a position in their St. Louis, MO facility where he is currently a Photogrammetrist in their Precise Imagery Division. 

Sandra Martinez (she/her) is currently working with the Riley-Decker Company under it's subsidiary The Job Center where she helps outgoing, talented individuals find jobs that fit their needs and skillsets. She serves as The Job Center's UPS Adminstrator meaning she's the liason between the internal Job Center team and the UPS account management team and ensures both teams communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Equipped with the analytical skills gained through her Geography degree, she's able to maintain and improve internal processes at The Job Center to ensure her team's workflow is effective and efficient.  

Benjamin Mills, an accomplished legal professional and educator, began his education at the United States Military Academy and has made significant strides in his career since graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of Kentucky in 2017. Following his undergraduate education, Mr. Mills continued at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. While at law school, he completed a judicial externship for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, an experience that afforded him extensive engagement in advanced legal research and writing.

Ellie Wellman graduated from UK in August of 2022 with a B.A. in Geography and a minor in Mapping and GIS. During the summer of 2022, she worked as an intern with the Kentucky Geological Survey to aid with a sinkhole mapping project. After graduation she began working with NV5 as an Orthographic Imagery Technician and has been working at NV5 for a year and a half. 

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20 Dreams

Highlighting anti-colonial methodologies, this working paper addresses some of the limitations and possibilities of theorizing climate catastrophe and ecocide alongside race and racism. Working closely with Paul Gilroy, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, my thinking is propelled by their methodological clues that, as they unfold, unsettle analytical frames that tend to equate environmental toxicities with (degraded) blackness. The paper also centres pedagogy and draws attention to how black livingness is not a concept, per se, but a set of actions that teach us how to theorize our environs anew.

Speaker Information

Prof Katherine McKittrick is our 50th Geography in the Bluegrass Day Speaker. Prof McKittrick is Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen's University. She researches in the areas of Black studies, anti-colonial studies, and critical-creative methodologies. She authored Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, edited Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, and co-edited, with Clyde Woods, Black Geographies and the Politics of Place. Her most recent monograph, Dear Science and Other Stories is an exploration of Black methodologies. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

We are grateful for support from the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies and our Geography Development Fund.

Learn more about this 50th Geography in the Bluegrass Day, here.

Landscape as Knowledge: Racial Capitalism, Citizen Science, and Environmental Modelling

Citizen science plays a crucial role in addressing gaps left by the state in environmental monitoring. This study examines various elements such as air quality monitors, rain gauges, and biodiversity to highlight how the deployment of low-cost sensors by residents can complement national services provided and national research projects. These citizen science initiatives offer enhanced local data that contributes to broader models for precipitation and air quality. However, processes racial capitalism give rise to a pattern of "socio-ecological segregation" in the geography of citizen science contributions: higher-income and predominantly white neighborhoods are more likely to participate in such projects. The presentation presents findings from hurdle models to underscore the uneven socio-ecological geographies that emerge, resulting in gaps in data representation and early warning systems for low-income and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities, thus perpetuating environmental injustices. This disparity creates a feedback cycle that further entrenches uneven socio-ecological spaces. The presentation concludes with a discussion on the future prospects of citizen science.

Assistant Professor Dillon Mahmoudi specializes in urban, digital, and economic geography, exploring the intersections of cities, technology, political ecology, and uneven development in his research. His broad work intersects critical human geography and critical GIS, focusing on understanding the political economic dimensions of urban environments, particularly in relation to issues of race, class, and environmental inequality. His current work engages in co-created research and community-based initiatives aimed at addressing socio-environmental injustices towards building just and sustainable futures. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from Portland State, and is currently Assistant Professor in Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he also serves as Graduate Program Director of the Just Maps GIS Masters, is a Faculty Fellow at the Hilltop Institute, and Affiliate Faculty in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics.

Join us for a public film screening and discussion of CALLS FROM HOME, a 2023 short film directed by Sylvia Ryerson, a Yale PhD student in American Studies. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Geography and the UK Appalachian Studies Program

A longstanding radio program sends familial messages of love to people incarcerated in Central Appalachia. Directed by Sylvia Ryerson, a former DJ for the show, CALLS FROM HOME follows the weekly broadcast through prison walls, portraying the many forms of distance that rural prison building creates—and the ceaseless work to end the racist system of mass incarceration and family separation.

Sylvia Ryerson (she/her) is a filmmaker, radio producer, organizer, and PhD student in American Studies at Yale University. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the documentary arts center Appalshop, in Whitesburg, Kentucky. There she served as a reporter and director of public affairs programming for Appalshop’s community radio station WMMT-FM and led the station's citizen journalism project. She also co-directed and hosted WMMT’s longstanding radio show Hip Hop from the Hilltop & Calls from Home broadcasting music and messages to people incarcerated in the region. She has co-produced numerous community-based participatory media projects working with movements for a just transition from fossil fuel extraction, the abolition of the prison industrial complex, and migrant justice. In 2021, she was a recipient of the Docs in Action Film Fund through Working Films to produce and direct her film CALLS FROM HOME, which won the Jack Spadaro Documentary Award for best nonfiction film or television presentation on Appalachia or its people from the Appalachian Studies Association. Her media & written work has appeared in the New York Times, American Quarterly, the Boston Review, NPR’s Here & Now and The Takeaway, the BBC, the Marshall Project, and other outlets. 

This screening also intends to build awareness around plans being pushed forward to build a new 1,408-person federal prison in Letcher County KY on a former mountain top removal site. On March 1 the Bureau of Prisons released their "Draft Environmental Impact Statement" which opens up a required 45-day public comment period. She is a founding member of the Racial Capitalism and the Carceral State (RCCS) Working Group at Yale, and of the Building Community Not Prisons (BCNP), a local and national coalition that is fighting to stop the construction of this prison and instead demanding investment in flood recovery, housing, education, and healthcare.

The film screening will be followed by a general Q & A along with a discussion with Sylvia and Dr. Lydia Pelot-Hobbs (UK Department of Geography) on mass incarceration in Central Appalachia.

A space of interrogation: opening the black box of asylum adjudication 

I examine the spatiality and practice of asylum adjudication in the context of the Danish asylum system. People who make an asylum claim in Denmark are required to participate in interviews conducted by the Danish Immigration Service. These interviews serve as the principal way through which the Danish state gathers evidence, assesses a person’s credibility, and determines an asylum claim. Bringing together insights from feminist political geography and feminist legal theory, I conceptualize the asylum interview as a quasi-legal space marked by wildly uneven but also uncertain power relations. I illustrate how the asylum interview and its ‘internal’ power dynamics are connected to and informed by other geographical sites, policing practices, and imaginations across multiple temporalities, spaces, and scales. While state authorities and politicians often represent the asylum interviews and the spaces in which they take place as impartial and sequestered from politics of any kind, I argue that the asylum interview is more akin to the quasi-legal dynamic of police interrogations. 

Dr Malene Jacobsen is a NUAcT Fellow in Geography at Newcastle University, United Kingdom. She is a feminist political geographer working at the intersection of political geography, critical refugee studies, and feminist legal theory. Malene has published on issues related to the geographies of war and refuge, families’ struggles to end forced separation, the politics of dispossession and refusal, as well as the legal re-writing of refugee protection. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Malene recently completed the EU-funded research project ‘JustAsylum’, which explored the lived realities and spaces of asylum adjudication.