Christina Noble

Social Scientist in Agricultural Innovation
Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences
E: christina.noble@hutton.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)
I am a human geographer specialising in migration, social capital and digitalisation in rural communities within UK, Ireland and international contexts for the Social and Economic Geographical Sciences group at James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen. I’m interested in facilitating important conversations about how we, as researchers, can understand transformational changes in rural places, how traditional methods and research approaches are being updated and reworked during a period of rapid societal change, and what constitutes best practice for future rural research.

Biography

I am a human geographer in the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Group, joining in 2018. My research interests include specialising in migration, social capital and digitalisation in rural communities within UK, Ireland and international contexts.  I’m interested in facilitating important conversations about how we, as researchers, can understand transformational changes in rural places, how traditional methods and research approaches are being updated and reworked during a period of rapid societal change, and what constitutes best practice for future rural research.

My PhD on ‘Return Migration and Belonging in Ireland’, was completed in 2018 from the University of Aberdeen. The research focused upon return migration from Irish-born citizens returning to the predominately rural counties across the west and south coasts of Ireland during 1991-2011. This was a period of great change in Ireland and using a mobilities-led theoretical approach, I explored issues of belonging, identity and materiality for these returning migrants. Situated in a rural context, I was able to explore the unique place of rural Ireland and how it shapes identity and sense of belonging.

Alongside my research, I am the co-ordinator for the Graduate Research Assistant Programme since 2022 and joined the Ethics Committee as shared deputy chair in Spring 2024. I recently completed the Aurora Advance HE’s leadership development initiative for women for 2023-2024.

I’m a PhD Supervisor (maternity cover) for Christopher Murray (Joint Hutton & St Andrews University): The housing ‘trilemma’: geographies of precarity in rural Scotland, (ESRC-funded studentship, 2021-2024).

Research

CODECS (Horizon Europe: 2022-2026), Maximising the co-benefits of agricultural digitalisation through conducive digital ecosystems. The project aims to support farmers and growers across Europe to improve their understanding of the social, economic and environmental benefits and costs of digital tools, enabling them to adopt relevant digital tools in order to enable sustainable and transformative change. This research leads from my previous work in understanding the policy landscape for small farms and businesses in Scotland (H2020 AgriLink, H2020 Salsa) and more recent work exploring the social and economic costs and benefits of digital tools for a living lab in Scotland.

Rural Economies: Informing a socially and spatially just future for the Scottish rural economy: pinpointing opportunities, assets and support needs (RESAS 2022-2027). My research seeks to address the questions: What are the wider impacts of improving digital connectivity for rural and island areas, and what are the barriers for its uptake? We will focus on the work of Perthshire Artisans as an example of how rural micro-businesses have survived during the Covid-19 pandemic by collaborating in different ways, in this case by bringing together 35 artists and makers from across Perth and Kinross to sell products through a curated digital platform. This model, in which being part of a dispersed but regionally focused digital network has made the micro-business economy more resilient than would have been possible through individualised growth, may be appropriate for other rural places going through periods of change.

Rural Communities: Realising change: working with communities to inform a resilient recovery process in remote, rural and island communities (RESAS 2022-2027). My research seeks to understand the distinct characteristics and needs of remote rural communities and how they change over time, including changing population dynamics. I lead a living lab in NW Highlands of Scotland employing longitudinal research with rural communities witnessing population decline, housing shortages, an ageing population and I am keen to understand key drivers and support measures towards building resilience and addressing longstanding depopulation issues.

 

 

 

 

Past research

2023: DigiEthics: Navigating Digital Ethics for Rural Research. Project funded by the Scotland Hub of the British Academy Early Career Research Network that explored, from an ethics point of view, how researchers and administrators of rural community Facebook groups can agree on the conditions to utilise such networks for better research.

2022-2023: Co-lead for project investigating the Long Term Future of the Mournes, with the Department of Finance, NI Government.

EU H2020 DESIRA: Digitisation: Economic and Social Impacts in Rural Areas – I’ve co-led work on gender and digitalisation, producing a digitalisation policy roadmap and took a lead role in our scenario development workshop. I also helped co-design the training materials for the project’s scenario development workshops that was used by all project partners across Europe.

Small Smart Farms (UKRI Not-Equal): Designing and developing Smart Farming Technologies (SFTs) with small-scale farmers and crofters to access opportunities afforded by SFTs.

2016-2022 Scottish Government RESAS: Understanding the response to Covid-19 – Exploring options for a resilient social and economic recovery in Scotland’s rural and island communities.

U H2020 AGRILINK: Agricultural Knowledge: Linking farmers, advisors and researchers to boost innovation (2017-2021). I led WP4 on the implementation of Farm Advisory Services in the UK and subsequent policy initiatives to support sustainable transitions in farming for Hutton.  I co-edited a special issue on ‘Rethinking the Dimensions of Farm Advice with 9 original articles in EuroChoices which was published in April 2022.

EU H2020 SALSA: Small farms, small food businesses and food security and nutrition (2016 -2020)

Transparency of Land Ownership in Scotland, International Comparisons for Scotland,  Scottish Government 2018

Publications

Journals

Technical / contract reports

Conference papers

  • Wilson, R.; Noble, C.; Currie, M. (2022) A new idyll Harnessing newfound appetite for rural migration during Covid19, Trans-Atlantic Rural Research Network (TARRN), Newcastle, 23-25 May 2022
  • Wilson, R.; Noble, C.; Currie, M. (2022) A new idyll Harnessing newfound appetite for rural migration during Covid19, Trans-Atlantic Rural Research Network (TARRN), 23-25 May 2022, Newcastle University