Dr Sinead O'Connor

BA (Hons) European Studies, PhD Human Geography, University College Cork

Dr Sinead O'Connor

Senior Lecturer

Department of Geography and Earth Sciences

Contact Details

Profile

 I'm currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences here at Aberystwyth and I am the programme leader for our integrated foundation year schemes. I moved to Aberystwyth after I completed my PhD at University College Cork, Ireland in 2016. My PhD work explored the geographies of encounter, the politics of difference, migration, and the internationalisation of Higher Education. Recently, my work has turned to feminism, post-feminism, social media, and the geographies of the body. I have a particular interest in neo-liberal post-feminism, discourses and representations of body size in digital spaces, online social justice movements, and the intersections of raced and gendered beauty ideals. 

Teaching

Module Coordinator
Coordinator
Lecturer

Research

 At the moment, I'm looking at the ways in which digital technology is shaping discourses around the body through an intersectional lens. I'm particularly interested in body size, fatness, race, gender, and post-feminism. I engage with the ways in which social justice movements - like body positivity, fat liberation, and self-care - are colonised and appropriated by white middle-class women, reproducing racialised/white supremacist beauty ideals. 

Responsibilities

Foundation Year Programme Leader

Publications

O'Connor, S 2024, 'The racial economy of Instagram', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 49, no. 3, e12642. 10.1111/tran.12642
O'Connor, S, Goodwin-Hawkins, B & Jones, RD 2020, 'Exchange and twinning in an age of borders: (inter)nationalism, mobility, encounter, and participation', RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2020, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 01 Sept 2020 - 04 Sept 2020.
O'Connor, S 2020, 'The intersectional geographies of international students in Ireland: Connecting spaces of encounter and belonging', Gender, Place and Culture, vol. 27, no. 10, pp. 1460-1480. 10.1080/0966369X.2019.1693342
O'Connor, S 2017, 'Problematising strategic internationalisation: Tensions and conflicts between international student recruitment and integration policy in Ireland', Globalisation, Societies and Education, no. 3 , pp. 339-352. 10.1080/14767724.2017.1413979
O'Connor, S 2016, Encounter, Interaction and the University: Producing Practices of Inclusion and Exclusion of International Students. in T Abebe, J Waters & T Skelton (eds), Labouring and Learning, Geographies of Children and Young People. vol. 10, Geographies of Children and Young People, vol. 10, Springer Nature, pp. 1-21. 10.1007/978-981-4585-97-2_14-1
More publications on the Research Portal