Katrina Brown is a human geographer with 20 years of experience researching practices of rural and environmental governance and innovating audiovisual methods for engaging, understanding and managing multiple, competing claims to land. Her particular research expertise is understanding how geographically situated, in-person and digitally-mediated encounters between human and non-human species shape the formal and informal decision-making and regulatory practices vital for addressing land management challenges. She is based in the interdisciplinary James Hutton Institute, in the Socio-Economics and Geographical Sciences Group (SEGS) has held a Research Associate position at RURALIS in Trondheim, Norway.
Katrina is passionate about finding new ways to bridge science, policy and practice and is an experienced innovator of mobile video and participatory documentary techniques (e.g. work she led in developing novel video ‘go-along’ methods using wearable cameras received the Sage prize for most innovative contribution to Sociological Research Online in 2009 [2]). Her background in qualitative methods and training in digital facilitation and evaluation, film production and sound design has allowed her to be at the forefront of the cross-fertilisation between film and academia, with past projects exploring the bounds of collaborative documentary (e.g. ‘Grazing on the Edge’ [3]) and Participatory Video (e.g. ‘Dogs & Outdoor Access’ Participatory Video [4] and current projects exploring the interactive and co-creative dimensions of digital storytelling and storymapping.
Her projects have explored a range of governance issues, often involving the sharing of space or forms of environmental co-management in England, Scotland and Norway, and include: wildlife and conservation conflicts [5]; outdoor access, recreation and wellbeing; delivering multiple benefits from grazing land and marine resources, and; the co-creation of animal-human health and wellbeing, biosecurity, and antimicrobial resistance in agriculture.
Katrina’s overall aim is to do research that allows a deeper understanding of how people relate to each other with regard to land and environment, and innovate engaging methods to enable a more constructive dialogue around this process, especially around the role of scientific ways of knowing. This is informed by detailed work on the following themes:
This research examines how institutional practices mediate and balance objectives relating to land and environmental management on one hand, and participation, health, social inclusion and wider ecosystem benefits on the other. It centres on understanding and resolving conflicts, such as those concerning: woodland expansion; outdoor leisure and reindeer herding; mountain biking in upland environments; and, dogs and disturbance of ground-nesting birds. Here [6] is a video of a recent talk given at the Outdoor Recreation Network 'People and Dogs in the Outdoors' conference on managing dogwalking in the outdoors for the mutual benefit of people, dogs and wildlife.
Twitter: For updates on research and happenings relating to outdoor access issues and the governance of rural conflicts follow (@outdooraccess [7])
This theme examines how human-animal relations shape landscapes and ecologies, focussing on two main types of cross-species dynamics:
Current research examines the relationship between health and wellbeing on one hand, and access to – and experiences of – outdoor environments, landscapes and ‘greenspace’ on the other. We focus on deepening understanding of the social, cultural and institutional mechanisms through which people’s engagements with environments influence their health; for example, how meanings and emotional and sensory experiences of environments (which can produce wellbeing) are shaped by multiple and contested social orderings. This informs knowledge of how we can better enable and manage participation in outdoor activity and recreation to deliver wellbeing benefits.
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0341-7229
[2] https://www.britsoc.co.uk/opportunities/sage-prize-for-innovationexcellence/sage-prize-for-innovationexcellence-winners-archive/
[3] https://vimeo.com/194534623
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qULN6HCb6Fk
[5] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/Actionable%20Knowledge%20Brief_DRAFT_v1(1).pdf
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H72tkrBYFRY&t=1s&ab_channel=OutdoorRecreationNetwork
[7] https://twitter.com/OutdoorAccess
[8] https://www.nibio.no/en
[9] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/projects/TRANSGRASS