Maria Escobar
Print version
Research
Maria Paula's research explores our – white, western, patriarchal- project of modernity and its modes of relating to otherness through the specific case of animals:
Pestering Geography: Zoo-ontological Politics in Trafalgar Square
The controversial policy of the Greater London Authority to reduce the pigeon population of Trafalgar Square serves as the backbone for a dissertation exploring how human, animal and spatial identities are relational, multiple and contingent. That the world is made up of and through relations has become a commonplace in Human Geography today (e.g. Hinchliffe 2007, Whatmore 2002), as indeed across the social sciences more generally (Latour 2004, Law 2007, Mol 2002). Talk of relations and relationality serves as the pivot for an interrelated but diverse body of work seeking to re-conceptualise nature (Hinchliffe 2007), objects (Cook et.al. 2004, Law 1986), animals (Haraway 2003 and 2008, Philo and Wilbert 2000, Wolch and Emel 1998), cities (Massey 2007; Smith 2003), and humans (Badmington 2003, Ingold 2004). It has also been worked through to reconsider notions of space (Law and Mol 1994, Massey 2005) and modernity (Latour 1993). Moreover, relationality has had crucial repercussions on theories and philosophies of knowledge (Knorr-Cetina 2001, Mol 2002) and power (Murdoch 2006).
Her thesis uses the concrete case of Trafalgar Square to examine the possibilities and implications of a relational view of the world. While the relational vocabulary of networks, fluids, agency, non-human, multiplicity and enactments helps convoke different dimensions of Trafalgar Square, those stories in turn, provide the grist for sharpening some critiques of relationality, particularly its apparent political and ontological flatness and the place of time in highly spatialized conceptual register of topology and juxtaposition.
In keeping with that conceptual approach, the writing strategy is itself a relational exercise. Successive chapters, or turns, successively reconfigure the elements making up the Trafalgar Square pigeon story to problematise fixed notions of modernity, space and time, and animal nature and the concepts and vocabulary we use to understand them and our relations to them. As she has often found the text an insufficient narrative strategy, she has experimented with video, and you can view her videos at www.mariapaulaescobar.co.uk
This highly theoretical and philosophical project is supervised by
Professor David Demeritt (King’s) and
Dr. Mike Goodman(King’s).
Pestering Geography: Zoo-ontological Politics in Trafalgar Square
The controversial policy of the Greater London Authority to reduce the pigeon population of Trafalgar Square serves as the backbone for a dissertation exploring how human, animal and spatial identities are relational, multiple and contingent. That the world is made up of and through relations has become a commonplace in Human Geography today (e.g. Hinchliffe 2007, Whatmore 2002), as indeed across the social sciences more generally (Latour 2004, Law 2007, Mol 2002). Talk of relations and relationality serves as the pivot for an interrelated but diverse body of work seeking to re-conceptualise nature (Hinchliffe 2007), objects (Cook et.al. 2004, Law 1986), animals (Haraway 2003 and 2008, Philo and Wilbert 2000, Wolch and Emel 1998), cities (Massey 2007; Smith 2003), and humans (Badmington 2003, Ingold 2004). It has also been worked through to reconsider notions of space (Law and Mol 1994, Massey 2005) and modernity (Latour 1993). Moreover, relationality has had crucial repercussions on theories and philosophies of knowledge (Knorr-Cetina 2001, Mol 2002) and power (Murdoch 2006).
Her thesis uses the concrete case of Trafalgar Square to examine the possibilities and implications of a relational view of the world. While the relational vocabulary of networks, fluids, agency, non-human, multiplicity and enactments helps convoke different dimensions of Trafalgar Square, those stories in turn, provide the grist for sharpening some critiques of relationality, particularly its apparent political and ontological flatness and the place of time in highly spatialized conceptual register of topology and juxtaposition.
In keeping with that conceptual approach, the writing strategy is itself a relational exercise. Successive chapters, or turns, successively reconfigure the elements making up the Trafalgar Square pigeon story to problematise fixed notions of modernity, space and time, and animal nature and the concepts and vocabulary we use to understand them and our relations to them. As she has often found the text an insufficient narrative strategy, she has experimented with video, and you can view her videos at www.mariapaulaescobar.co.uk
This highly theoretical and philosophical project is supervised by
Professor David Demeritt (King’s) and
Dr. Mike Goodman(King’s).
Biography
Originally trained as a Political Scientist at the Universidad de los Andes, Maria Paula completed with Distinction an MA in Environment, Politics and Globalisation in 2004, at King’s College London. After a short visit to Colombia, she decided to embark on a PhD project at her London Alma Mater, with the support of an ORS Award and a Scholarship awarded by the KCL’s School of Social Science and Public Policy. Before moving to London in 2000 Maria Paula worked in both the public and private sectors and had the opportunity of exploring other of her professional interests, like journalism and University lecturing.
With a PhD ahead and a family to look after, she still dreams of making some time for her other loves: traverse flute and literature.
With a PhD ahead and a family to look after, she still dreams of making some time for her other loves: traverse flute and literature.