Postgraduate research students

The planetary crisis is increasingly being understood as a crisis of culture. There is growing recognition that environmentally destructive behaviours and structures are themselves driven by deep-rooted assumptions about the natural world and humanity’s place within it – assumptions that may be perpetuated or disrupted through diverse practices of Earth writing. While there have been calls for “new” forms of education which address the cultural roots of our present crisis, efforts have been hampered by a lack of clarity over what this might entail. My research explores how Earth writing has been practised throughout the histories of the discipline of geography and the field of environmental education, bringing together insights from the critical-creative praxes of geopoetics and ecopedagogy. Through a breadth-and-depth analysis of published texts, I identify a range of educational discourses which promote radically different conceptions of the pedagogical role of storytelling. I argue that these discourses reveal deeper ideological struggles over the authority and agency of different actors in the reading and writing of the Earth. This analysis not only contextualises the recent turn towards storytelling in education for sustainability, but also problematises it, highlighting the importance of addressing the underlying tensions and complexities within the movement.

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• Professor Ria Dunkley
• Professor Christopher Philo

School of Education Conference Support [£500], University of Glasgow, 2024

Visualise Your Thesis Competition, First Place Travel Grant [£1000], University of Glasgow, 2024

Digital Humanities Summer School Bursary [£174], Royal Holloway, University of London, 2023

Three Minute Thesis Competition, Second Place Travel Grant [£500], University of Glasgow, 2022

SGSSS 3.25 Doctoral Studentship, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2021-2024

Oral presentations

Somerville, K. (2025, July 14-18). Earth writing: Creative knowledge-making in geographical and environmental education. International Conference of Historical Geographers (ICHG), Shanghai, China.

Somerville, K. (2025, May 1). Storytelling in Education for Sustainable Development. School of Social and Environmental Sustainability PGR Conference, Dumfries, UK.

Somerville, K. (2024, August 24-29). Poetic pedagogies in geographical and environmental education. International Geographical Congress (IGC), Dublin, Ireland.

Somerville, K. (2024, August 7-9). 50 years of environmental storytelling in education. Asia-Norway Environmental Storytelling (ANEST) Network Conference, Stavanger, Norway.

Somerville, K. (2023, December 5-7). Ocean literacy in Scotland. Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Annual Science Meeting (MASTS ASM), Glasgow, UK.

Somerville, K. (2023, July 13-14). Ecopedagogy, geopoetics, and critical-creative praxis: Elisée Reclus' radical geography. Ecologies in Practice Conference, London, UK.

Widening Participation

• Top-Up Programme
• Summer School (Geography and Earth Science)

Student Learning Development

• Writing and study advice (Arts, Social Sciences, International)
• [X]position (disciplinary and interdisciplinary mentoring)
• Let's Talk About [X] (interdisciplinary mentoring)
• Transition to Glasgow (elective module: What is Nature?)

Qualifications

• MRes Human Geography, University of Glasgow, 2017
• MA French and Geography, University of Glasgow, 2014

Professional Recognition

• Recognising Excellence in Teaching, Associate Fellow (RET AF)

Professional Memberships

• Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (UK and Ireland), Member
• British Society for Literature and Science, Member
• National Association for Environmental Education, Student Member
• Royal Geographical Society, Associate Fellow
• Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Student Member
• Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society, Post Graduate Member
• Scottish Association of Geography Teachers, Student Member
• Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, Member

Engagement Activities

• Winner of University of Glasgow Visualise Your Thesis competition, 2024
• Co-organiser of Creative Methods in Education for Sustainability reading group, 2023-
• Presenter at University of Glasgow This PhD Life symposium, 2022-23
• Speaker at Scottish Centre for Geopoetics Conversation on Education and Geopoetics, 2022
• Runner Up of University of Glasgow Three Minute Thesis competition, 2022
• Contributor to University of Glasgow PGR Blog, 2022-

Peer Review

Exclamat!on: An Interdisciplinary Journal