Joe Blakey

@joeblakey.bsky.social

Lecturer, Geography UoM. Political Geographer interested in environmental knowledge politics, post-foundational political theories and aesthetics. Runner. Website: https://joeblakey.com Research: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/joe.blakey

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

I have a new paper out in Social & Cultural Geography titled: Making sense of ‘middle-age’: thinking from and through the middle. It presents a research agenda on the geographies of middle-age, and the value of thinking around the middle more generally. 🔗https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2025.2537686

ABSTRACT of paper
This paper presents a research agenda on the geographies of middle-age, drawing on life-history interviews with self-identified middle-aged participants from Greater Manchester, UK. The place of middle-age in debates about age within and beyond human geography is explored, including the extension of the category of youth and the deferral of older age. While lived experiences of middle-age are changing and significant, they are frequently overlooked in research. This paper argues that middle-age must be theorized through approaches and concepts of and around the middle. It draws upon more-than-representational theories as one such approach to thinking from and through the middle, emphasizing in-between affective states and forms of change, whilst highlighting a range of concepts and practices of the middle such as impasse, liminality and waiting. Thinking from and through the middle advances relational approaches to age by shifting attention away from the nodes at either end of a relation, towards the middle itself as being invariably in-relation. Geographers interested in ageing are urged to focus on the middle, be these moments of betweenness earlier or later in life, or midlife and middle-age itself. Future research must keep differences in experience at the fore and maintain a distinctly relational vantage point.

I have a chapter in the book on Cities and the Sixth Sense: The Aesthetics of Experimental Urbanism. The chapter looks at experimental architecture/urbanism projects on the US/Mexico border through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s politics of aesthetics. www.routledge.com/Aesthetics-a... #geosky

Aesthetics and the City

Aesthetics and the City engages aesthetics to explore the role of the city in urban experience. Drawing on diverse theories and global case studies, this edited collection examines how aesthetics rela...

routledge.com

🌍 Mark Usher and I are collaborating to bring professionals working on natural capital in Greater Manchester together for a workshop on Tues 22nd July (bringing together Mark's work on natural capital and my own on environmental accounting). Details below and register here: bit.ly/gmnaturalcap...

An invitation to a Greater Manchester Natural Captital Workshop. Water and aquatic plants are in the background. It details that the event seeks to bring divergent and common perspectives on natural capital accounting frameworks to the fore. It is on Tuesday 22nd June 2025 at the University of Manchester at 10am to 3:30pm. Participants must be a professional in the sector. The registration link is bit.ly/gmnaturalcapital

Worth doing a bit of maths around the UK's 81% NDC announcement. It comes from the net-zero 2050 pathway, which assumes a typical UK citizen receives 3x more emission space than an 'equal per capita' share of the remaining 50% ≤ 1.5°C carbon budget. Colonialism continues unchecked & even celebrated.

'The pressure to produce and perform in the short term can come at the expense of scientific progress in the long term. A more critical stance towards metrics and rankings is essential if we want to enhance the quality and credibility of research.' www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/01/how-...

How Research Credibility Suffers in a Quantified Society - Social Science Space

To address research credibility issues, we must reform the role of metrics, rankings, and incentives in universities.

socialsciencespace.com

Short article for a magazine up soon. But I'll just put it here that I've long followed the twist and turns of conservative politics in South Korea. You can find our attempt to chronicle Park's rollback of democracy (in retrospect not as audacious as Yoon, the very person who prosecuted her!)

Pursuing Post-democratisation: The Resilience of Politics by Public Security in Contemporary South Korea

This article analyses the disputed election of President Park Geun-hye and her administration’s confrontation of left-nationalist politicians and other social movements during her first year in off...

tandfonline.com