Maria Fannin
B.A.(Kentucky), M.A., Ph.D.(Wash.)
Expertise
Current positions
Professor of Human Geography
School of Geographical Sciences
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Research interests
My research interests include feminist theoretical approaches to health and new medical technologies and empirical research on the ‘tissue economies’ of health and medicine. Current research projects include a collaborative study on the making of the placenta as a scientific object in contemporary midwifery practice and medical research. I am also interested in the social and governmental dimensions of pregnancy and childbirth, and more recently, the intersections of motherhood and entrepreneurialism in the UK.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Does Motherhood Need Mitigating? A Collective Examination of Parenting and Academic Practice
Principal Investigator
Role
Collaborator
Managing organisational unit
Department of History (Historical Studies)Dates
01/01/2023 to 31/07/2023
WOVEN
Principal Investigator
Description
Brigstow Institute Ideas Exchange to create a public facing theatrical experience or artwork which raises awareness of the hormonal shifts and empowers women to understand their own bodies and to…Managing organisational unit
School of Geographical SciencesDates
21/03/2022 to 31/07/2022
Holding my heart
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
This is an interdisciplinary exploration of the role that 3D medical technologies can play in exploring one’s identity 3D medical models and the emotional implications that these can carry. We…Managing organisational unit
Bristol Medical School (THS)Dates
01/03/2022 to 28/10/2022
Motherhood in a Climate Crisis
Principal Investigator
Description
This project will use therapeutically-informed participatory theatre techniques to collaboratively explore concerns around reproductive decision-making for women in an era of unfolding climate crisis. We will test a research methodology…Managing organisational unit
School of Geographical SciencesDates
14/01/2022 to 31/07/2022
FirstTalk Introductions
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
The aim of FirstTalk Introductions is to bring together the team of experts to develop the main multi-disciplinary FirstTalk research project funding bid. The FirstTalk project will develop a wearable…Managing organisational unit
Department of Engineering MathematicsDates
23/03/2020 to 22/03/2021
Thesis supervisions
Un-earthing synthetic biology ‘natural’ products. A global ethnography of stevia / ka’a he’ê.
Supervisors
Breathing Shared Worlds
Supervisors
The Writing-Machine as Method
Supervisors
Exploring the gender income inequality and the motherhood penalty in China from an intersectionality perspective
Supervisors
More-than-Human Geographies of Antibiotic Consumption
Supervisors
The microbial human
Supervisors
Discourse and practice : the constitution and deployment of contemporary learning disability care
Supervisors
Developmental Politics and Everyday Life
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
01/01/2016Making Bodily Commodities
Handbook of Neoliberalism
Belly casts and placenta pills
Australian Feminist Studies
Revisiting a Bodily Commons
Releasing the Commons
Origin stories from a regional placenta tissue collection
New Genetics and Society
Placental relations
Feminist Theory
Recent publications
03/02/2025The construction and politics of the ‘birth experience’ in Britain, 1948–93
Cultural History
Fluid Modernities
Medical Humanities
Power, intersectionality and stigma
Health and Place
Historicising ‘Birth Trauma’ and ‘Birth Experience’: Lessons for an Incoming Government
History and Policy
Feminism, resistance and the archive
Critical Geographies of Resistance
Related people
Ms Sara Davies
Associate Professor in Household Finance
School of Geographical Sciences
Professor Julie MacLeavy
Professor of Economic Geography
School of Geographical Sciences
Dr Maud Perrier
Senior Lecturer
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Dr Victoria Bates
Associate Professor in Modern Medical History
Department of History (Historical Studies)
Dr Jennifer Crane
Senior Lecturer
School of Geographical Sciences