Key Notes
Alice Milner Connected peatlands: Integrating process, place and policy
David Storey Connecting places: National allegiance and sporting citizenship in international football
David Storey Connecting places: National allegiance and sporting citizenship in international football
Alice MilnerAssociate Professor in Physical Geography
Department of Geography Royal Holloway University of London Alice Milner is a critical physical geographer who, as co-founder of the Wet Woodlands Research Network and co-lead of PeatQuest, is at the forefront of advancing peatland science. Her research at the science–policy interface develops mechanisms to enhance the integration of scientific evidence into policymaking processes. For this key note, Alice draws on experience working with stakeholders across academia, conservation, and land management.
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Connected Peatlands:
Integrating process, place and policy
Peatlands sit at the centre of some of today’s most urgent environmental challenges, linking carbon and hydrology with biodiversity, land use, governance and community priorities. In this talk, I reflect on how peatland research can move beyond disciplinary silos to produce knowledge that is both scientifically robust and useable in real decision-making. Drawing on examples from long-term field observatories, evidence synthesis and international community-led agenda setting, I explore what it means to build integrated and connected environments in practice: connecting scales (from sites to national strategies), connecting methods (measurement, synthesis and modelling), and connecting people (researchers, practitioners and policymakers) to reshape what we study, how we collaborate and how evidence travels into policy and practice.
Integrating process, place and policy
Peatlands sit at the centre of some of today’s most urgent environmental challenges, linking carbon and hydrology with biodiversity, land use, governance and community priorities. In this talk, I reflect on how peatland research can move beyond disciplinary silos to produce knowledge that is both scientifically robust and useable in real decision-making. Drawing on examples from long-term field observatories, evidence synthesis and international community-led agenda setting, I explore what it means to build integrated and connected environments in practice: connecting scales (from sites to national strategies), connecting methods (measurement, synthesis and modelling), and connecting people (researchers, practitioners and policymakers) to reshape what we study, how we collaborate and how evidence travels into policy and practice.
David StoreyHonorary Professor of Human Geography
School of Science and the Environment University of Worcester David Storey is a prolific human geographer with an eclectic collection of research interests that coalesce around understanding how space asserts, maintains and resists power. His contributions to Geography include many publications exploring the relationship between place and identity, including the recent third edition of Territories: The Claiming of Space. For this keynote, David draws on his longstanding investigation into sport, place and identity.
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Connecting places:
National allegiance and sporting citizenship in international football
Sport provides a useful lens through which the complexities of national identity and citizenship can be explored. Competitors don the national colours, salute the anthem and face the flag, becoming the embodiment of the wider imagined community. Traditionally, those who compete for countries have usually been born and raised there or have lived there for most of their lives. However, in recent years the selection of competitors born in other countries has become more common. A combination of national citizenship requirements, residency qualifications and the shifting regulations of sporting bodies has seen an increasing number of ‘transfers’ of national allegiance. In football, many national teams now draw heavily on players born elsewhere but often with familial links to the country, a long-standing practice for the Republic of Ireland men’s team. These scenarios serve to draw attention to the often complex, multi-layered and contingent nature of national identity and an apparent divergence between national identity and sporting citizenship. A player’s identity space may be one that connects them to more than one country, pointing to a need to explore the ways in which individual identities may be entwined with multiple places transcending the confines of the bounded nation-state.
National allegiance and sporting citizenship in international football
Sport provides a useful lens through which the complexities of national identity and citizenship can be explored. Competitors don the national colours, salute the anthem and face the flag, becoming the embodiment of the wider imagined community. Traditionally, those who compete for countries have usually been born and raised there or have lived there for most of their lives. However, in recent years the selection of competitors born in other countries has become more common. A combination of national citizenship requirements, residency qualifications and the shifting regulations of sporting bodies has seen an increasing number of ‘transfers’ of national allegiance. In football, many national teams now draw heavily on players born elsewhere but often with familial links to the country, a long-standing practice for the Republic of Ireland men’s team. These scenarios serve to draw attention to the often complex, multi-layered and contingent nature of national identity and an apparent divergence between national identity and sporting citizenship. A player’s identity space may be one that connects them to more than one country, pointing to a need to explore the ways in which individual identities may be entwined with multiple places transcending the confines of the bounded nation-state.
