Peter McGowran

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I am a Lecturer in Human Geography at Queen’s University Belfast concerned with the connections between disasters, politics, and development.

My research interests centre on the geographies of disasters and development. This not only involves understanding how disasters impact development, for example by negatively affecting people’s livelihoods and sense of place, but also how disasters are themselves outcomes of development processes. My research locates "everyday problems" in what are often framed as “exceptional” disaster events. My PhD research highlighted connections between landslide disasters and road infrastructure development across The Himalayas. My research at UNU-EHS showed that the everyday struggles of domestic migrants to assert their citizenship rights in India worsened their experience of the pandemic. My current research is focused on the coproduction of knowledge and policy about disaster preparedness in low-income contexts.

Experience

  • 2025–present
    Lecturer, Queen's University Belfast
  • 2024–2025
    Postdoctoral research associate, King's College London
  • 2022–2024
    Lecturer , Oxford Brookes University
  • 2022–2022
    Senior research associate, United Nations University: Institute for Environment & Human Security

Education

  • 2022 
    King's College London, PhD in Geography

Publications

  • 2026
    Reassembling Disaster Geographies Placing the Material and Discursive, Geography and Disasters: Places, Processes and the Human Geographical Imagination
  • 2026
    Hazards, Disasters, and Human Geography , The Encyclopedia of Human Geography"
  • 2025
    Interdisciplinary perspectives on the intersections of roads, sustainable development, and disaster resilience, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
  • 2024
    Investigating the conditions of vulnerability experienced by migrant workers during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Kerala, India, Disasters
  • 2024
    Landslide disasters in Kalimpong, India: Matters of time?, Geoforum
  • 2024
    Geopolitical assemblages and disasters-in-the-making in Kalimpong, India, Political Geography
  • 2023
    The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage analysis, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
  • 2022
    Local perspectives on landslide prevention and management in Kalimpong district, West Bengal, India, Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal
  • 2021
    Assemblage theory and disaster risk management, Progress in Human Geography

Professional Memberships

  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

Contact Peter for

  • General
  • Media request
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  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision