Fiona M. Smith

Research Interests

Two key themes currently form the basis of my research:

Community, resilience and inclusion.
This has involved research in eastern Germany, the UK, Slovakia and Poland. Approaches taken include investigations of neighbourhood-scale collective action, the roles of formal and informal volunteering in developing individual and collective resilience, and the place of innovative forms of social policy in building capacity in communities. Associated with this is the question of how communities can be enabled to articulate their own agendas in relation to diverse policy areas, including urban development, tourism and heritage practices, and environmental sustainability and greenspace. Partner organisations on this work include Volunteer Development Scotland, Forestry Commission Scotland, NHS health boards, and community and youth work centres in Leipzig and Bratislava, and funding bodies include AHRC and ESRC.

Gender and youth geographies.
This has involved interest in the gendering of community and I jointly authored the book Geographies of New Femininities (with Nina Laurie, Claire Dwyer and Sarah Holloway). It also includes a focus on youth mobilities - particularly around international student mobility in relation to individualisation and risk biographies. This addresses key agendas on the ways in which youth cultures intersect with processes of global mobilities and interrogates the nature of the encounters with mobility and difference experienced by young people. Related to this, I have an interest in the nature of international and cross-cultural field work, for students and researchers, and the whole methodology of working with translation between languages. Funding for this research has come from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (UK) and the Carnegie Trust.

Recent Research Grants

Teaching

Undergraduate modules

• GE11001 - A World in Crisis
• GE21001 - Dynamic Human Worlds
• HU12001 - A Globalising World
• EU21002 - Contemporary Challenges in Europe
• GE32007 - Field work in South-Eastern Spain
• GE32014 - Geographies of Power
• GE42015 - Geographies of Power (Advanced)

Postgraduate modules

• GE52010 - Questionnaire Design and Qualitative Research Methods

Postgraduate research projects supervised

• Morgan Windram-Geddes, Fit for girls: embodied geographies of girls' participation in sport, ESRC Open Competition (+3) (ES/HO19170/1), Oct 2009 onwards. First supervisor (with L. van Blerk)
• Amy Holden, Restoration ecology and art: heritage and cultural practice in Highland Scotland, ESRC Open Competition (1+3), Oct 2010 onwards. First supervisor (with M. Kirkbride and M. McDonald, Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art and Design).
• Matej Blazek Young people and gender in transition in Slovakia ESRC Quota Award (+3) (ES/FO2342X/1), 2007 onwards. First supervisor (with D. Brown). Submitted.
• Mike Woolvin Informal volunteering in Scotland: social inclusion in marginal communities across the lifecourse ESRC (CASE) award with Volunteer Development Scotland (+3) (Award Number ES/F03296X/1). October 2007 onwards. (PI with N Fyfe). Oct 2006 onwards (extended 3 months for ESRC-Scottish Government Internship). Submitted.
• Stuart Muirhead Nature and well-being: building social and emotional capital through environmental volunteering ESRC (CASE) award with Forestry Commission (+3). Second supervisor (with N. Fyfe). Jan 2006 onwards (extended 3 months for ESRC-Scottish Government Internship). PhD awarded.
• Helen Timbrell The Nature, Meaning and Impact of Volunteering in Scotland ESRC (CASE) (+3) award with Volunteer Development Scotland (Award Number PTA-033-2003-00020). Second supervisor (with N. Fyfe). 2003-2006. PhD awarded.

• Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2006) - President's Medal.
• Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Newbigin Prize (1997) for the paper F.M Smith (1996) 'Housing tenures in transformation: questioning geographies of ownership in eastern Germany' Scottish Geographical Magazine, 112, 1, 3-10.
• Women and Geography Study Group, Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers - Chair, 2001-2007.
• Gender, Place and Culture , International Editorial Board, 2004-2007.

Books, chapters and published reports:

Smith, F.M. (2010) 'Working in different cultures', in N. Clifford and G. Valentine (eds.) Key Methods in Geography, Sage, London. Revised second edition.

Findlay, A.M., R. King, A. Geddes, F.M. Smith, A. Stam, M. Dunne, R. Skeldon and J. Ahrens (2009) Motivations and experiences of UK students studying abroad: Final Report (Centre for Applied Population Research and Department of BIS). (Two further published and four further unpublished reports).

Smith, F.M. (2009) 'Translation'. In Kitchin R, Thrift N (eds) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 11, 361-367. Oxford: Elsevier.

Smith, F.M. (2006) 'What is Europe?' (pp.20-27) and 'Citizenship, human rights and migration' (pp.436-462) in D. Gowland, R. Dunphy and C. Lythe (eds.) The European Mosaic (3rd edition), Pearson, Harlow

Smith, F.M. (2000) 'The neighbourhood as site for contesting German reunification', in J. Sharp, P. Routledge, C. Philo and R. Paddison (eds.) Entanglements of Power: Geographies of Domination/ Resistance (Routlege, London) pp.122-147.

Laurie, N., C. Dwyer, S.L. Holloway and F.M.Smith (1999) Geographies of New Femininities (Longman, Harlow).

Smith, F.M. (1999) Contributor to L. McDowell and J.P. Sharp (eds.) A feminist glossary of human geography, Edward Arnold, London. Entries for 'Co-operatives, Co-operative housekeeping', pp.40-41, 'Gentrification', pp.112-113, 'Socialism', pp254-255 and 'Post-Socialism', 213-214.

Dwyer, C. and F.M. Smith (1998) 'Gender, geography and Europe' in T. Unwin (ed.) European Geographies (Longman, Harlow) pp274-290.

Smith, F.M. (1998) 'Between East and West: sites of resistance in east German youth cultures' in T. Skelton and G. Valentine (eds.) Cool Places: geographies of youth cultures (Routledge, London), pp289-304.

Women and Geography Study Group (collective authorship) (1997) Feminist Geographies: Explorations in Diversity and Difference (Longman, Harlow).

Journal articles:

Findlay, A., R. King, F.M. Smith, A. Geddes, R. Skeldon 'World class? An investigation of globalisation, difference and international student mobility' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (under review).

Smith, F.M., H. Timbrell, M. Woolvin, S. Muirhead and N. Fyfe (under review) 'Enlivening the geographies of volunteering: situated, embodied and emotional practices of voluntarism' Scottish Geographical Journal.

Blazek, M. and F.M. Smith (2010) 'Children's place in networks of child care in Slovakia, or what can childhood and gender tell us about post-socialism?' Analele Universitatii de Vest (Romania), Seria Geografie. Special Issue: Gender, Neo-liberalism, Postsocialism (IGU Commission on Gender and Geography).

Smith, F.M., J. Jamison and C. Dwyer (2008) 'Work and wonder at the weekend: on emotions in feminist geographical praxis', Gender, Place and Culture, 15(5), 533-545.

Fyfe, N., H. Timbrell and F.M. Smith (2006) 'The third sector in a devolved Scotland: from policy to evidence', Critical Social Policy, 26(3), 630-641.

F.M. Smith (2006) 'Encountering Europe through fieldwork', European Urban and Regional Studies, 13, 1, 77-82.

Philo, C. and F.M. Smith (2003) 'Political geographies of youth and children', Space and Polity, 7, 99-115.

Smith, F.M. (2001) 'Refiguring the Geopolitical Landscape: Nation, 'Transition' and Gendered Subjects in Post-Cold War Germany', Space and Polity, 5(3), 213-235

Smith, F.M. (1999) 'Discourses of Citizenship in Transition: Scale, Politics and Urban Renewal', Urban Studies, 36 (1), 167-187.

Smith, F.M. (1997) 'Contested geographical imaginings of reunification: a case study of urban change in Leipzig' Applied Geography, 17, 4, 355-369.

Blacksell, M. and F.M.Smith (eds.) (1997) 'Aspects of German Unification': Edited Volume, Applied Geography, 17, 4. Including editorial 'Aspects of German Unification', 255-256.

Smith, F.M. (1996) 'Housing tenures in transformation: questioning geographies of ownership in eastern Germany' Scottish Geographical Magazine, 112, 1, 3-10.

Smith, F.M. (1996) 'Problematising language: limitations and possibilities in 'foreign language' research' Area, 28, 2, 160-166.

Smith, F.M. (1994) 'Politics, place and German reunification: a realignment approach' Political Geography, 13, 3, 228-244.