Prof Dan Clayton
Head of the School of Geography and Sustainable Development
Professor of Geography
Research areas
Historical geography; history and philosophy of geography; colonial and postcolonial geographies; decolonial and subaltern investigation; archival and global-comparative methods.
Member of the School's Gossip research group https://gossip.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/
Co-editor (2015-2021) The Scottish Geographical Journal https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsgj19/current
Dan's research and teaching is broadly in the area of historical geography, and with a core interest in geography 'in the round', and how the discipline aspires to be critical, equitable, inclusive and hopeful (in an age of doom). In more specialist terms, he has long-standing interests in: (a) how power dynamics of colonialism and empire, past and present, are lived, imagined and landscaped geographically; and (b) the nature of geography as a discipline and discourse concerned with links between environment and society, and 'us' and 'them', and that has struggled with a damaging investment in Eurocentric and imperialist ways of knowing. He has worked, in these veins, on exploration and cartography; western-Native contact and colonialism in North America and the Pacific c. 1750-1850 (including the book Islands of Truth); the idea of tropicality c.1870-present (including the book Impure and Worldly Geography); and spaces of decolonisation and revolution c. 1940-1980. His research engages postcolonial, subaltern and decolonial literatures and approaches, and is expedited through courses at St Andrews on the historical geography of capitalism; geographic thought; and colonial and postcolonial geographies.
Dan's current projects are on: 'decolonisation and asymmetric life'; and 'the jungle environment of the Vietnam War'; and with a longer/wider book project on Colonialism's Geographies. He is also involved in a collaborative project on 'imperial immunities' (with Prof. Jo Sharp SGSD, and Prof. Christos Lynteris SPAFS).
PhD supervision
- Marianne Bartels
- Joshua Hazelbower
Selected publications
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Critical historical geography
Clayton, D., 21 Mar 2024, Geography: Oxford bibliographies. Warf, B. (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 37 p. (Oxford bibliographies. Geography).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
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Open access
On Lefebvre’s orientalism and geography’s eurocentrism in Sidaway’s ‘Critical Muslim geographies’
Clayton, D., 3 Sept 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Dialogues in Human Geography. OnlineFirst, 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Entanglements in Cole Harris’s British Columbia: circumstance, translation, conviction, and performance
Clayton, D., 23 Mar 2023, In: BC Studies. 216, p. 132-142 11 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
'Scratching the surface of the taken as given, as a process of unsettling': an interview with Tariq Jazeel about his book Postcolonialism (2019)
Clayton, D. & Jazeel, T., 22 Aug 2022, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Scottish Geographical Journal. Latest Articles, 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Decolonisation and the unhomely tropicality of Pierre Gourou and Orlando Ribeiro, 1943-1982
Clayton, D., 30 Dec 2022, In: Revista Terra Brasilis. 17, 24 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
La guerre géographique sous les tropiques: Yves Lacoste et la guerre du Vietnam
Bowd, G. P. & Clayton, D., 4 Mar 2022, In: L'Espace Politique. 43, 1Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Shapes of settler colonialism and questions of dwelling: commentary 2: Book review: The contours of colonialism: a book review symposium
Clayton, D., 3 Jul 2022, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Progress in Human Geography. Online First, p. 5-8 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
A map lesson - about empire; with George Vancouver
Clayton, D., 20 Oct 2021, In: Detours: Social Science Education Research Journal. 2, 1, p. 60-63 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Climate change, COP26 and the crucible of crisis: editorial introduction to the special issue
Warren, C. R. & Clayton, D., 14 Feb 2021, In: Scottish Geographical Journal. 136, 1-4, p. 1-4 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial
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Countenancing and conferencing Japan at the Institute of Pacific Relations, 1945-1954
Clayton, D. & Fitzpatrick, H., 16 Dec 2021, Placing internationalism: international conferences and the making of the modern world. Legg, S., Heffernan, M., Hodder, J. & Thorpe, B. (eds.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 178-196 19 p. (Histories of internationalism).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter