Tom Mels

Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Department of Human Geography

Telephone:: +46 18 471 83 51, +46 498 10 83 51
E-mail:: tom.mels@kultgeog.uu.se
Visiting address:: Campus Gotland, Cramérgatan 3
621 57 Visby
Postal address:: Uppsala universitet, Campus Gotland
621 67 Visby

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Short presentation

I coordinate the undergraduate planning program on Campus Gotland. My research is concerned with power, justice and the politics of nature and landscape, with a historical, materialist and humanist penchant. Empirical interests include capitalist modernity and nature conservation in Sweden; the production of land reclamation spaces on Gotland; wind power landscapes. I teach many courses on e.g. environmental justice, planning theory, globalization, public space and natural resources.

Biography

Fil.dr (PhD) in Human Geography (Lund University, 1999); Assistant Professor at Lund University and Malmö University (1999-2000); Assistant Professor of Human Geography at Kalmar University (2000-2009); Postdoc University College Dublin (2001-2002); Docent (Associate Professor) of Human Geography (Lund University, 2009); Associate Professor of Human Geography at Gotland University (September 2009-2013); Guest lecturer at Stockholm University 2009-2012; Associate Professor of Human Geography at Uppsala University(Campus Gotland) 2013-currently.

My research has appeared in journals such as Antipode, Cultural Geographies, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Landscape Research, Journal of Historical Geography, and Geografiska Annaler. I am associate editor of Landscape Research (Routledge/Taylor Francis) and a member of the editorial board of Cultural Geographies (Sage).

Research

My work is mainly in the field of historical landscape studies, with a particular focus on 19th- and 20th-century capitalist modernity in the Swedish countryside. Wild Landscapes (Lund University Press 1999, dissertation) traces the rise and development of national park ideology and planning in Sweden. Co-written with Anne Buttimer, By Northern Lights (Ashgate, 2006) explores the long history of practicing geography in Sweden, and the edited collection Reanimating Places (Ashgate, 2004) deals with place and ideas of rhythm. I have a longstanding interest in historical geographies of land draining on Gotland, processes of primitive accumulation, planning and environmental justice. I served as an associate editor of Landscape Research and member of the editorial board of Cultural Geographies.