Interview with Fiona McConnell

Fiona McConnell is associate professor in human geography at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on stateless communities and how their voices can be heard on the world stage, including the challenges faced by diplomats advocating at the United Nations as well as the political structures and practices of the Tibetan government-in-exile. She was recently awarded the Back Award by the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the development of public policy.

Where and when were you born, and how has this shaped who you are?
Belfast in 1981. My parents live just outside the city, and my younger sister and I went to school in East Belfast. I’ve never done research on or in Northern Ireland, however growing up there has influenced what research questions I’ve been interested in and how I’ve approached my work. I’ve gravitated towards issues of self-determination, conflict mediation and diplomacy, and have a long-standing interest in how marginal and marginalised spaces that have a strained relationship to the institutions of the state function day to day.

Should the average person care about your work?
These days I don’t think I need to persuade anyone that geopolitics matters, but my focus has been on communities, polities and spaces that are on the margins of the international arena, and as a result are usually ignored by mainstream media. My aim has been to highlight not only that conflicts and human rights issues disproportionately affect such communities, but that it is in these marginal spaces that new ideas and creativity about how to “do” politics emerge. I’ve been interested in how, for example, the exiled Tibetan government rehearses aspects of statehood from its base in India, how the Somaliland foreign service mimics formal diplomatic practices in its overseas offices, and how representatives from Aceh use innovative strategies to make their voices heard at the UN. These are in many ways expressions of self-determination, and by bringing them to the fore we can get insights into how the norms of geopolitics are constructed and how they might be contested in order to facilitate a wider range of participation.

What is the biggest misconception about your field of study?
The quips that geographers draw maps or go “exploring” are still around, and point to important imperial legacies that as a discipline we’ve been both reflecting on and challenging in our current practice. In a similar way, the idea that political geography is all about maps of the world with neatly coloured-in states is a useful starting point for thinking about how this view of international politics has been constructed and normalised, and about the messy and hidden geographies that lie beneath it. Indeed, with the current environmental, economic and geopolitical crises, the profile and importance of geography has, I think, grown significantly in the public eye, and we need to continue to encourage and enthuse students to study the subject at all levels of education.

What are the best and worst things about your job?
The best things are collaborations – with other academics, with practitioners and with students. I found PhD research quite a lonely experience and have really enjoyed working with a diverse group of collaborators in my research since then. I’ve learned a huge amount from working with colleagues in diplomacy studies – inspiring, polymathic scholars such as Costas Constantinou and Noe Cornago; from collaborating with Mongolian colleagues who have decades of experience advocating for the rights of herder communities; and from running skill-sharing workshops with “unrepresented diplomats” from stateless communities. The worst thing is the increasing bureaucratisation of so many aspects of being an academic, which squeezes the time and mental energy we have for just such research collaborations.

What keeps you awake at night?
The climate and biodiversity emergencies, and our seeming collective inability – or unwillingness – to do anything about it. They are the biggest challenges of our times, and in the wee hours I wonder if I should be putting my research energies in that direction. My morning self is more persuaded that my research matters, and that there are amazing people – including many I work with at the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford – who are tackling these issues with the scientific knowledge and skills that are so urgently needed.

What advice do you give to your students?
I get teased by colleagues for advising new undergraduates about email etiquette (essentially just to err on the side of formality in initial emails), but more importantly I encourage my students to apply and test out ideas on issues that they are passionate about, particularly when it comes to their dissertation research.

What divided your life into a ‘before’ and ‘after’?
Parenting! My children are one and four, so it feels like I currently have a second full-time job. I used to be terrible at keeping boundaries between work and non-work time, but now I’m a lot more disciplined in terms of when my working day and working week finishes and “being mum” resumes. That said, it’s often impossible to get everything done in working hours, and having to get back to emails/marking/editing once they are settled in bed isn’t always easy.

If you weren’t an academic, what do you think you’d be doing?
As a child I wanted to be a mountaineer and, though mountains are where I gravitate towards for holidays, a fear of heights soon put paid to that career. I think if I wasn’t an academic I’d probably be working in the NGO sector, most likely in the field of human rights. I have huge admiration for colleagues who do that work, but I think I’d miss the freedom to pursue ideas where they take me, to spend time reading around subjects, and experimenting with different ways of writing. For all its pressures and challenges, I still think the freedom to think and challenge ideas in academia is hard to beat.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com

CV

2004 BA in geography, University of Cambridge

2005 MA in geography, Queen Mary University of London

2009 PhD in human geography, Queen Mary University of London

2011-13 Junior research fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge

2013 lecturer in human geography, Newcastle University

2013– Associate professor in human geography, University of Oxford, and tutorial fellow in geography, St Catherine’s College, Oxford

Appointments

Nancy Ip will be the first female president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She will take on the role in October, succeeding Wei Shyy, following a six-year stint as the institution’s vice-president for research and development. Professor Ip, a molecular neuroscientist, has been at HKUST since 1993. Council chair Andrew Liao Cheung-Sing hailed her as “a one-of-a-kind combination of an accomplished scientist, a seasoned university administrator and an HKUST-grown leader”.

Freddy Boey has been appointed president of the City University of Hong Kong. Currently deputy president (innovation and enterprise) of the National University of Singapore, he will take up the post following the retirement of Way Kuo in May 2023 after a 15-year term. Richard Allen, a CityU professor who sat on the search committee, described Professor Boey as “a distinguished scholar and transformative academic leader who knows the region like the back of his hand”.

Mary Collins has been appointed director of the Blizard Institute, the biomedical research centre at Queen Mary University of London. Currently dean of research and provost at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, the immunologist spent more than a decade at UCL, including a five-year spell as dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences.

Cathy Cassell has been named executive dean of Durham University’s business school. She currently leads the University of Birmingham’s business school and has held the number two role at Alliance Manchester Business School and Leeds University Business School.

Glen Krutz will be the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. He currently holds the same position at Oklahoma State University.

Hedley Roberts is joining the University for the Creative Arts as director of the School of Fine Arts, Crafts and Photography. He has previously led arts departments at the universities of East London and Bedfordshire.