Carceral Geography

Career overview

Professor Dominique Moran studied Geography at Oxford, graduating in 1995 with a First Class BA(Hons) and the Gibbs Prize, and in 2000 with a DPhil, focusing on post-socialist transformation in the Russian near-North. Her PhD research involved fieldwork in former Stalinist Gulag settlements and communities near contemporary prison colonies. Following her studies, she held a Research Fellowship at Warwick Business School, investigating social exclusion and organisational change in the UK, funded by the UK Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Social Exclusion Unit. She then joined the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham as a Lecturer in Rural Poverty and Development, where she conducted policy-oriented research on HIV/AIDS, governance reform, and service delivery for the UK Department for International Development. In 2004, she became a Lecturer in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She was promoted to Chair in 2018 and has held a Visiting Fellowship at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. Professor Moran is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the European Society of Criminology and the Global Prisons Research Network. Her research and teaching focus on carceral geography, exploring incarceration from a geographical perspective. She has contributed significantly to theoretical developments in geography, criminology, and prison sociology, particularly in relation to hyperincarceration, recidivism, and the punitive state. Professor Moran has authored and edited several influential publications in her field, including ''Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration'' and ''The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Design''. She has received substantial research funding from various organisations, including the Economic and Social Research Council and the Australian Research Council, supporting her work on topics such as the impact of nature contact on prisoners'' wellbeing and the experiences of ex-military personnel in the prison service. Her teaching has been recognised for its quality, receiving multiple awards, and she actively supervises doctoral research in carceral geography.

Research interests

Professor Dominique Moran''s research focuses on carceral geography, offering a geographical perspective on incarceration. Her work, supported by the ESRC, has contributed to theoretical developments in geography, criminology, and prison sociology, while engaging with contemporary issues such as hyperincarceration, recidivism, and the punitive state. She is currently investigating the impact of nature contact on prisoners'' wellbeing and the experiences of ex-military personnel working in the prison service. Professor Moran has authored the book *''Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration''* (2015) and edited several works, including *Historical Geographies of Prisons: Unlocking the Usable Carceral Past* (2015) and *The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Design* (2022). Her research has been published in leading journals such as *Progress in Human Geography*, *Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers*, and *Theoretical Criminology*.