Tom Mels

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; planning and resource contestation in the Swedish part of Sápmi. I teach courses on e.g. environmental justice, planning , landscape, natural resources.

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Biography

PhD in Human Geography 1999 (Lund University); Associate Professor 2009; Professor of Human Geography 2026. Lund University, Malmö University, Kalmar University, University College Dublin (postdoc), Stockholm University (guest lecturer), Gotland University, Uppsala University (Campus Gotland).

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 served as an associate editor of Landscape Research (Routledge/Taylor Francis) and as a member of the editorial board of Cultural Geographies (Sage).

Research

My work is mainly in the field of historical landscape studies and environmental justice, 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, and the intersection of planning and environmental justice. More recently, I have been working on indigenous land rights, the green transition, and conflicts over resources in the Swedish part of Sápmi. I served as an associate editor of Landscape Research and member of the editorial board of Cultural Geographies.