Nigel Thrift
Encyclopedia
Nigel John Thrift is the current Vice Chancellor of the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

 and a leading academic in the field of human geography
Human geography
Human geography is one of the two major sub-fields of the discipline of geography. Human geography is the study of the world, its people, communities, and cultures. Human geography differs from physical geography mainly in that it has a greater focus on studying human activities and is more...

.

Early life and career

Born in 1949, and educated at Nailsea School
Nailsea School
Nailsea School, located in Nailsea, North Somerset, England, is a mixed, comprehensive secondary school and sixth form. It has Technology and Media Arts College specialist school status....

, Thrift has held posts at numerous universities including University of Wales, Aberystwyth
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

, University of Wales, Lampeter
University of Wales, Lampeter
University of Wales, Lampeter is a university in Lampeter, Wales. Founded in 1822 by royal charter, it is the oldest degree awarding institution in Wales and may be the third oldest in England and Wales after Oxford and Cambridge...

, the University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...

 and the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. At Oxford, Thrift served as Head of the Life and Environmental Sciences Division before becoming Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research. In 2003, he became a fellow of the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

  and was awarded the Victoria Medal
Victoria Medal (geography)
The Victoria Medal is an award presented by the Royal Geographical Society. It is awarded "for conspicuous merit in research in geography" and has been given since 1902.-Past recipients:...

 of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...

. In 2005 he was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

, taking up the position in July 2006.

Contribution to geography

Thrift has been described as one of the world's leading human geographers and social scientists, and is credited with coining the phrase soft capitalism as well as originating 'Non-representational theory
Non-representational theory
Non-representational theory is a theory developed in human geography, largely through the work of Nigel Thrift , and his colleagues such as J.D. Dewsbury . It challenges those using social theory and conducting geographical research to go beyond representation...

'. He has been awarded several prizes and commendations recognising his research including the Scottish Geographical Medal in 2009, and he was elected Fellow of the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

 in 2003. Thrift sits on a number of advisory committees for the UK Government, and was a member of the ESRC Research Priorities Board. In 1982 Thrift co-founded the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space whilst serving as managing editor, since 1979, of Environment and Planning A.

His work on time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

, power, representations
Representations
Representations is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities published quarterly by the University of California Press. The journals was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism movement of the 1980s. It covers topics including literary, historical, and...

 and the body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...

 have been influential and it has been suggested that Thrift's career reflects and in some cases spurred the substantial intellectual changes in Human Geography in the 1980s and '90s. Thrift can most readily be associated with poststructuralism through his attention to subjectivity, representation, identity and practice. Most recently he has written on what he terms 'non-representational theory
Non-representational theory
Non-representational theory is a theory developed in human geography, largely through the work of Nigel Thrift , and his colleagues such as J.D. Dewsbury . It challenges those using social theory and conducting geographical research to go beyond representation...

', which stresses performative and embodied knowledges and is a radical attempt to wrench the social sciences and humanities out of an emphasis on representation and interpretation by moving away from contemplative models of thought and action to those based on practice. Thrift has claimed that non-representational theory addresses the 'unprocessual' nature of much of social and cultural theory. Major themes within non-representational theory include subjectification; space as a verb; technologies of being; embodiment; and play & excess. Non-representational theory has provoked substantial debate within the field of Human Geography around the limits of the mediation of our world through language and how we might see, sense and communicate beyond it.

Selected Books

Thrift has written three monographs and co-authored more than twenty other books.
  • Peet R & Thrift N (Eds.) (1989) New Models in Geography: The Political-Economy Perspective, Boston: Unwin-Hyman
  • Pile S & Thrift N (Eds.) (1995) Mapping the Subject: Geographies of Cultural Transformation, New York, NY: Routledge
  • Thrift N (1996) Spatial Formations, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
  • Corbridge S, Martin R & Thrift N(Eds.) (1997) Money, Power and Space, Oxford: Blackwell
  • Leyshon A & Thrift N (Eds.) (1997) Money/Space: Geographies of Monetary Transformation, London: Routledge
  • Miller D, Jackson P, Holbrook B, Thrift N and Rowlands, M (1998) Shopping, Place and Identity, London: Routledge
  • Pile S and Thrift N (Eds.) (2000)City A-Z: Urban Fragments. London: Routledge
  • Crang M
    Mike Crang
    Dr. Michael A. Crang is a reader in cultural geography at Durham University in the UK. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first in geography and gained a PhD from the University of Bristol....

     and Thrift N (eds.) (2000) Thinking Space (Critical Geographies) London: Routledge
  • Amin A
    Ash Amin
    Ash Amin FBA AcSS is a professor of geography at the University of Cambridge and formally at Durham University, UK. He graduated from the University of Reading in 1979 with a first-class degree in Italian Studies and then gained a PhD in geography from Reading in 1986...

     Massey D and Thrift N (2000) Cities for All the People Not the Few. Bristol: Policy Press.
  • Thrift N and May J (eds.) (2001) Timespace: Geographies of Temporality. London: Routledge.
  • Amin A
    Ash Amin
    Ash Amin FBA AcSS is a professor of geography at the University of Cambridge and formally at Durham University, UK. He graduated from the University of Reading in 1979 with a first-class degree in Italian Studies and then gained a PhD in geography from Reading in 1986...

     and Thrift N (2002) Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Amin A
    Ash Amin
    Ash Amin FBA AcSS is a professor of geography at the University of Cambridge and formally at Durham University, UK. He graduated from the University of Reading in 1979 with a first-class degree in Italian Studies and then gained a PhD in geography from Reading in 1986...

     Massey D and Thrift N (2003) Decentring the Nation. A Radical Approach to the Regions. London: Catalyst.
  • Harrison S Pile S and Thrift N (eds.) (2004) Patterned Ground: Entanglements of Nature and Culture. London: Reaktion.
  • Thrift N (2005) Knowing Capitalism (Theory, Culture and Society). London: Sage.
  • Thrift N (2007) Non-Representational Theory. London: Routledge.
  • Glennie P & Thrift N (2009) Shaping The Day: A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300 - 1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Kitchin R & Thrift N Co-editors of The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Oxford and Boston: Elsevier Publishing

Journal articles

  • Thrift N (1981) "Owners time and own time: The making of capitalist time consciousness, 1300-1880" in Pred A (Ed.) Space and Time in Geography: Essays dedicated to Torston Hagerstrand, Lund: Lund Studies in Geography Series B, No. 48
  • Thrift N (1983) "On the determination of social action in space and time", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1: pp. 23–57
  • Thrift N (1997) "The Rise of Soft Capitalism" in Cultural Values, Volume 1, Number 1, 1997 , pp. 29–57
  • Thrift N (1999) “Steps to an Ecology of Place” in Massey D, Allen J & Sarre P (Eds.) Human Geography Today, Cambridge: Polity Press: pp. 295–323
  • Thrift N (2000a) "Performing cultures in the new economy", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 4: pp. 674–692
  • Thrift N (2000b) "Afterwords", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18 (3): pp. 213–255
  • Thrift N & Olds K (1996) "Refiguring the economic in economic geography", Progress in Human Geography 20: pp. 311–337
  • Thrift N (2004) "Intensities of Feeling: Towards a Spatial Politics of Affect" in Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, Volume 86, Number 1, pp. 57-78
  • Thrift N (2005) "But malice aforethought: cities and the natural history of hatred" in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 133-150

External links

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