Prof Peter Merriman BA, PhD (Nottingham), Cert. FPSHE (Reading) FAcSS FRGS SFHEA
Professor in Human Geography
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences
Contact Details
- Email: prm@aber.ac.uk
- ORCID: 0000-0001-8118-6684
- Office: J7, Llandinam Building
- Phone: +44 (0) 1970 622574
- Twitter: merrimanpete
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=j4oUP2oAAAAJ
- Research Portal Profile
- Personal Pronouns: he/him/his
Profile
Peter Merriman is a human geographer specialising in cultural and historical geography, mobility studies, spatial theory, and cultural heritage. He has written widely on geographies of mobility, nationalism and national identity, and theoretical approaches to space and place. Until 2023 he led a major project on ports, coastal communities and trans-oceanic social and cultural connectivity.
Pete joined Aberystwyth as a lecturer in 2005 and was awarded a personal chair in 2014. He completed his BA and PhD degrees at the University of Nottingham, and was a Lecturer at The University of Reading from 2000 to 2005. He is co-Director of the University's Centre for Transport and Mobility (CeTraM).
Pete is an Honorary Member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility and the Humanities at the University of Padua (Italy), a
Responsibilities: Head of the Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group
Teaching
Module Coordinator
Grader
Lecturer
- GS20020 - Geography Research Design and Fieldwork Skills
- EAM4660 - Dissertation in Environmental Change Impacts and Adaptation
- GS33320 - Everyday Social Worlds
- GS14220 - Place and Identity
- GS21520 - Human Geography Research Design and Fieldwork Skills
- GS22920 - Placing Culture
- GS36220 - Landscape, Culture and Society in 20th Century Britain
- GS21420 - Environmental Earth Science Research Design and Fieldwork Skills
Tutor
- GS34040 - Geography Dissertation
- GS22920 - Placing Culture
- GS36220 - Landscape, Culture and Society in 20th Century Britain
Coordinator
Areas of Ph.D. and D.Prof. supervision:
- Cultural and historical geography
- History and philosophy of geography
- Mobility and transport
- Theoretical approaches to Space and Place
- Cultures of landscape
- National Identity and Nationalism
- Twentieth century Britain
- Welsh cultural history
- Cultural heritage
- Port history and heritage
Current PhD Students:
- Anna Pennington
- Lowri Ponsford
- Kirsty Usher
Current D.Prof. student:
- Vaughan Williams
Research
Mobility
My first main research interest is in social science and humanities approaches to mobility and transport. I am co-Director of Aberystwyth University's Centre for Transport and Mobility (CeTraM), and have published two monographs in this area ('Driving spaces: a cultural-historical geography of England's M1 motorway' (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) and 'Mobility, Space and Culture' (Routledge, 2012)), and co-edited four agenda-setting books: 'Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects' (Ashgate, 2011), 'The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities' (2014), 'Mobility and the humanities' (Routledge, 2018, Korean translation 2019), and 'Empire and Mobility in the Long Nineteenth Century' (MUP 'Studies in imperialism' series, 2020). I am a member of the editorial boards of 'Mobilities', 'Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies', ‘Applied Mobilities’ and 'Mobility Humanities'. From 2012 to 2020 I served as Associate Editor of 'Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies', and I am currently General Editor of Bloomsbury's forthcoming 6-volume collection on 'A Cultural History of Transport and Mobility' (due 2025). I have received
Theories of Space and Place
I authored an advanced text-book on 'Space' for Routledge's 'Key ideas in Geography' Series (2022) which provided the first comprehensive and accessible examination of approaches that have crossed between such diverse fields as philosophy, physics, architecture, sociology, anthropology, and geography. The text examines the influence of geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, empiricism, and positivism to the development of spatial thinking, as well as focusing on the contributions of phenomenologists, existentialists, psychologists, Marxists, and post-structuralists to how we occupy, live, structure, and perform spaces and practices of spacing. The book emphasises the multiple and partial construction of spaces through the embodied practices of diverse subjects, highlighting the contributions of feminists, queer theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, and post-colonial scholars to academic debates. In contrast to contemporary studies which draw a clear line between scientific and particularly quantitative approaches to space and spatiality and more ‘lived’ human enactments and performances, this book highlights the continual influence of different mathematical and philosophical understandings of space and spatiality on everyday western spatial imaginations and registers in the twenty-first century. The book was reviewed by a panel in the AAG Review of Books in 2024. Prior to this I edited a four-volume major reference work on ‘Space’ in the ‘Critical Concepts in Geography Series (Routledge, 2016). I have recently written articles on theoretical approaches to place for ‘Progress in Human Geography’ and ‘Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers’.
Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Place
I was AU Principal Investigator on the €3.2 million project 'Ports, Past and Present' project (2019-23) and AU co-investigator on the €3 million ‘Coastal Uplands, Heritage and Tourism’ (CUPHAT) project (2021-23), both funded by ERDF through the Ireland-Wales programme. These projects involved working with tourism and heritage stakeholders and local communities to make tourists aware of the deep history of Irish and Welsh ferry ports, and coastal uplands in Ireland and Wales. The major outputs for 'Ports, Past and Present' were 9 films produced with Mother Goose Films.