Katherine Morton

HEA STEM (GEES): Home and Away, increasing international appeal and outreach accross UK universities

This event addressed internationalisation strategy in research-led teaching, and promoted understanding of the global education market. Discussions were had around the recruitment of international geography students and the promotion of the UK student study abroad experience, as well as the challenges and opportunities of such internationalisation.

HEA STEM (GEES): Teaching fellows support network workshop

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LTHE) Programme: Stage Two

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LTHE) Programme: Stage One

International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies: University of Groningen

Session- 'Feelings Inside': Emotional and embodied geographies of 'the bodily interior

‘I look so much older than I feel’: Anti-Ageing practices and emotion in the aesthetic clinic

Abstract: This paper draws attention to a hitherto under-researched set of knowledges, practices and technologies around ‘anti-ageing’, arguing that they are explicitly gendered and speak to feminist geographies of the body, emotion and corporeal ideology. Drawing on ethnographic and in-depth interview data from current PhD research, the paper addresses the embodied experiences of consumers and practitioners involved in the pursuit of ‘youthful’ corporeality. The paper highlights the processes of ‘diagnosis’ and ‘treatment’ in the aesthetic clinic as heavily imbued with emotion, addressing ‘corporeal anxiety’ (Straughan, 2012, 2010) and emotional labour as integral to anti-ageing body modification practices. The paper argues that anti-ageing treatments are by no means limited by the skin, and considers the capacity for anti-ageing technologies to refigure the ‘boundaries, capacities and thresholds’ (Abrahamsson and Simpson, 2011) of the body. Situating these practices within the wider context of health and well-being, the paper draws out the increasingly complex relations between the cosmetic and the medical and the material and the emotional.

BSA Ageing Body and Society Conference: Brtitish Library, London

Body Work in the ‘Aesthetic Clinic’: Problematising corporeal boundaries in anti-ageing practices

Abstract: This paper is informed by ongoing research regarding the anti-ageing industry, gender and the body. It examines the body work associated with practices of ‘anti-ageing’ within the wider context of social and cultural norms surrounding ageing bodies. Situated within an emergent space of body modification, the ‘aesthetic clinic’, the paper seeks to problematise the boundaries between health/beauty and medical/cosmetic that have been imposed by previous work, and consider the body work practices in, and beyond, such spaces. Drawing on qualitative research from ongoing research in three cities in South-West England, this paper uses ethnographic data from participant observation in aesthetic clinics, as well as semi-structured interviews with practitioners in the field of cosmeceuticals and non-surgical cosmetic treatments.  

Natures, Materialities and Biopolitics Research Group Knowledge Exchange: University of Exeter

Conference Paper: Re-materialising the Ageing Body: Preliminary thoughts on 'Anti-Ageing' Practices in the Beauty Salon

Creativity and Knowledge Research Group Conference: University of Exeter

Conference Paper: Performing the 'Impossible Object': Affective ethnographies of stand-up comedy

Feminism and Futurity V- Material Feminisms: University of Bristol

This seminar considered the growing interest in materiality within feminist geographies. The session comprised of three paper presentations covering a range of topics, followed by participation in active discussion addressing the content of the papers as well as issues of materiality and feminism more widely.

RGS/IBG Postgraduate Conference: University of Aberyswyth