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Postdocs / Research Assistants
Dr. Cian O' Callaghan
Personal Information
| Name: |
Dr. Cian O' Callaghan |
| Position: |
Post-doctoral Fellow |
| Department: |
Geography / NIRSA |
| Organisation: |
NUI Maynooth |
| Location: |
Room 2.13, Iontas Building, NUI Maynooth |
| E-mail: |
cian.ocallaghan@nuim.ie |
| Telephone: |
++ 353 1 708 6210 |
| Fax: |
++ 353 1 708 6456 |
| Research Interests: |
Broadly, my research is concerned with integrating poststructuralist theories of discourse and society with the study of the urban and cultural geographies of the post-industrial era. My research interests include (i) Social theory and epistemology in urban geography, especially in regard to the thinking of Henri Lefebvre, Edward Said and Gilles Deleuze (ii) Urban and cultural geographies of transformation in the post-industrial city, particularly through large-scale cultural and physical regeneration initiatives (iii) Cultural policy, creativity and place, focussing on a critical reading of the 'creative class' discourses and the European Capital of Culture event (iv) The 'neoliberal' state and urban governance, and principally Ireland during and after the Celtic Tiger period (v) The exploration of the changing nature of culture, identity and place through visual and textual media and methodologies.
Through my position in NIRSA I am involved in a wide range of the activities of the institute. In terms of research I have been centrally involved in projects on regeneration projects in Limerick and Cork, on agglomeration economies and governance in the Dublin region, housing policy and ghost estates, and on sustaining communities debates, and on new ways of disseminating EU level planning research to Irish and international practitioners.
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Projects
| Project Title |
Memories of the everyday present: Haunting, absence, and the spectral performance of everyday life in the Irish Ghost Estate.
This project is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
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| Project Abstract: |
This project aims to explore how ghost estates have been used in media and political debates to represent the Celtic Tiger crash, to highlight from a policy perspective some of the problems that are posed by the estates, and to explore changing Irish identity through the point of view of residents living on them. The objective of this research is to animate the ways in which the global financial crisis and the national recession have affected people's ordinary everyday lives.
This project deploys a research methodology based on discourse analysis of media and political debates to explore how ghost estates have been mobilised as a vehicle to represent the Celtic Tiger crash, and 'oral history' interviews with residents living on ghost estates to explore how they reconcile past and present realities. The way in which memory is evoked in people's experience of places is contingent upon the relations between broad narratives that attempt in Karen Till's terms to "master the past" and the 'intrusions' of other narratives that have been excluded. Together with facing stark fiscal and social realities, people must now reconcile how their own personal biographies intersect with this collective catastrophe. It is on this pivot where national collective history and personal experience meet that the project is located.
The project asks a number of research questions:
- How has the Ghost Estate been implicated within narratives of national change?
- How is the trauma of economic collapse affecting Irish society and space?
- How are people re-evaluating the Celtic Tiger period in light of the current recession?
- What are the major problems that are faced by residents living on ghost estates?
- What kinds of policy interventions could help residents?
- How are new landscapes and communities being formed from these spaces?
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Background
Cian O' Callaghan is an urban and cultural geographer. His PhD research, which focussed on urban and cultural geographies of transformation in Cork, Ireland, through plans to regenerate the city's industrial docklands and its year as European Capital of Culture, was completed in University College Cork in 2008. Since then, he was worked at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis in NUI Maynooth as a researcher on a range of projects, including work on urban regeneration, agglomeration economies, and Ireland's housing crisis. He is also a regular contributor to the Ireland after NAMA blog.
Publications
Journal articles
- (2012) Contrapuntal Urbanisms: Towards a postcolonial relational geography, Environment and Planning A, In press.
- (2012) Lightness and Weight: (Re)reading urban potentialities through photographs, Area, In press.
- With Rob Kitchin, Mark Boyle, Justin Gleeson, and Karen Keaveney (2012) Placing Neoliberalism: The rise and fall of Ireland's Celtic Tiger, Environment and Planning A, In press.
- (2011) Urban anxieties and creative tensions in the European Capital of Culture 2005: 'It couldn't just be about Cork, like', International Journal of Cultural Policy, Forthcoming. View here
- (2010) Let's Audit Bohemia: A Review of Richard Florida's 'Creative Class' Thesis and Its Impact on Urban Policy, Geography Compass, 4/11, 1606-1617. View here
- With Mary P. Corcoran and Wendy Fuller (2009) "Sustaining communities: setting the agenda", GeoJournal, in Press.
View here
- (2007) "Just Add Water: (re)producing Cork docklands", Progress in Irish Urban Studies, Volume 3 pp.13-24, (view here).
- (2007) "Dressing for Success: the waterfront image of Cork and Limerick", UCC Critical Geographies Working Paper, (view here).
- With Denis Linehan (2007) "Identity, politics and conflict in dockland development in Cork, Ireland: European Capital of Culture 2005", Cities, Volume 24 Issue 4 pp.311-323. View here
- (2005) "‘space paint’: art and heritage in Cork Docklands regeneration", Chimera, No. 20 pp.94-102.
- (2004) "Imaging the Homeless in the Irish Free State", Chimera, No. 19 pp.37-43.
Book chapters
- (In Press) Ghost Estates: Urban Geography after NAMA in Crowley, C and Linehan, D (eds) Spacing Ireland, Manchester University Press.
Book Reviews
- (2011) Potter, L. and Shaw, K., editors 2009: Whose Urban Renaissance? An international comparison of urban regeneration strategies. Oxon, UK and New York, NY: Routledge. 291pp. Progress in Human Geography, 35:3, pp. 434-435.
Other Articles
- (2011) Haunted Landscapes (Introduction to 'Settlement' by Anthony Haughey), Source: The Photography Review, Issue 65, p. 33.
Reports
- (2010) With Rob Kitchin, Justin Gleeson, and Karen Keaveney. A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
- (2010) With Declan Curran, Delphine Ancien, Chris van Egeraat, Des McCafferty, Justin Gleeson and Brendan Bartley. The Case for Agglomeration Economies in Europe (CAEE) - Dublin Case Study. ESPON.
Edited Collections
- (2009) With Mary P. Corcoran and Wendy Fuller. Sustaining Communities, Special Issue of GeoJournal, forthcoming.
- (2004) With Richard Collins. Chimera: UCC Geography Journal, Number 19.
Conference Papers
- (2011) Spectres of Prosperity: Ghost estates, representation and memory in the national narratives of Celtic Tiger Collapse. Mapping Spectral Traces IV, 25-26 May, NUI Maynooth and Dublin.
- (2011) Spectres of Prosperity: Ghost estates, representation and memory in the national narratives of Celtic Tiger Collapse. Conference of Irish Geographers, 6-8 May, Limerick.
- (2011) With Delphine Ancien. Creative city synecdoche: Place-marketing and praxis in Dublin, Ireland. Association of American Geographers, 12 - 16 April, Seattle.
- (2011) With Delphine Ancien. 'An Irish solution to an Irish problem': city-regional governance, creativity, and digital media in Dublin. Association of American Geographers, 12 - 16 April, Seattle.
- (2010) Lightness and Weight: Reading and re-reading the potentialities of urban Ireland through fieldwork images. Conference of Irish Geographers, 30 May - 2 April, NUI Maynooth.
- (2010) With Rob Kitchin and Justin Gleeson. A Haunted Landscape: Ghost Estates in Ireland. Conference of Irish Geographers, 30 May - 2 April, NUI Maynooth.
- (2009) Connection Expectations: Sustaining Entrepreneurial Urban Agendas in Irish Cities Before and After the Crash. ISSP Conference, 1-2 December, NUI Galway.
- (2009) Relational Retail Spaces: The development of the Mahon Point shopping centre Cork, Ireland. RGS IBG Annual International Conference, 26-28 August, Manchester.
- (2009) Global prospect and local agency in the development of the Mahon Point shopping centre, Cork city. Conference of Irish Geographers, 15-16 May, University College Cork.
- (2009) 'It couldn't just be about Cork like': Mobilising and managing the arts in European Capital of Culture 2005 Cork, Ireland. Association of American Geographers Annual Conference, March 22-27, Las Vegas.
- (2009) The European Capital of Culture as a Creative Strategy: Image/substance and culture/economy dichotomies in Cork 2005. FIUS Conference: Creative Cities: Panacea or Placebo for Urban Policy-Making?, March 9, Trinity College Dublin.
- (2008) "The spaces in between: neo-liberalism, governance and urban development in Cork", FIUS Annual Research Seminar, February 26, Trinity College Dublin.
- (2007) "Half Submerged By Each: economic culture and cultural economy in Cork 2005: European Capital of Culture", Conference of Irish Geographers, May 11-13, St Patrick’s College Drumcondra.
- (2006) "Dressing for success: Reorganising the city through image enhancement projects, the case of Cork and Limerick", Researching Contemporary Cities: postgraduate e-conference, November 2, University of Manchester.
- (2006)" ‘A River Ain’t Too Much to Love’: the contestation of politics and identity in Cork’s waterfront redevelopment", Conference of Irish Geographers, May 5-7, University College Dublin.
- With Denis Linehan (2006) "‘A Little Too like Las Vegas for my Liking': identity, politics and conflict in waterfront development in Cork, Ireland", Association of American Geography Annual Conference, March 9-13, Chicago.
- (2005) "Let Us Rephrase: discursive representation and urban change in Cork and Limerick", Conference of Irish Geographers, May 6-8, NUI Galway.
last updated: Wednesday, 18-Jan-2012 16:56:39 GMT
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