Postgraduate research students

Research Title:

Changing Faces: Geographies of Facial Appearance

Research Summary:

This PhD research attends to an unexplored and neglected avenue within human geography: the geography of the human face. As a distinct and complex site of identity, narrative, and politics, the face exists an area of the body upon and through which humans face the world. Taking forward these contentions, this research explores the existence and manifestations of a politics of appearance, and questions what it means to live with a ‘changing’ face – a face that diverts from a ‘conventionally’ appearing image of the human face. This project considers specifically the experience of those living with a visible facial difference resulting from illness or trauma, e.g. facial scarring or birthmarks, or the loss of facial hair resulting from illness or the treatment of illness. Working in collaboration with social enterprise ‘ReMake Up’ and other organisations that offer support for those living with facial differences, the project explores the potential impact of such support services, and in particular, considers the practices of permanent cosmetics and paramedical tattooing. This research addresses a pressing social issue in a society that is contoured by aesthetic prejudices.

• Professor Hester Parr
• Professor Christopher Philo
• Dr Emma Laurie

• ESRC Studentship in Human Geography 2019-2022

Tutor: Level 2 Geography

Lab Leader: Level 2 Qualitative Methods

Lab Demonstrator: Level 1 Geography