I am primarily driven by an interest in the relationship between society and nature. I take an interdisciplinary approach through my research, spanning cultural geography, sound studies, environmental philosophy, geohumanities, and landscape research. My research falls into the following two themes:
Sonic geographies
I am currently principal investigator on a three-year project titled ‘Networked through Sound: Listening to 20th Century Wildlife Sound Archives’, funded by the AHRC-DFG Funding Initiative in the Humanities (2025-28). In collaboration with the German geographer Prof. Sandra Jasper (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg), this project investigates the histories and contemporary relevance of a network of wildlife sound archives initiated in the mid 20th century in Europe and South Africa.
This follows on from a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust (2023-24) funded project, titled ‘Listening to the archive: A cross-cultural analysis of European wildlife sound archives, 1950 to the present’, which focused on the production and consumption of wildlife sound recordings held at the two largest wildlife sound archives in Europe: The British Library’s Wildlife and Environmental Sounds collection in London, and the Animal Sound Archive in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
Within this theme, I have also published extensively on the intersections between sound and geography, and phonographic methods (listening, soundwalking, audio recording) for geographical and broader social science and arts research. Publications within this theme are as follows:
- Hunter, H., Jasper, S. and Prior, J. 2024. Digital sonic ecologies: Encountering the non-human through digital sound recordings. In: Turnbull, J. et al. eds. Digital Ecologies: Mediating More-Than-Human Worlds. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 50-69.
- Bates, V., Hickman, C., Manchester, H., Prior, J. and Singer, S. 2020. Beyond landscape’s visible realm: Recorded sound, nature, and wellbeing. Health and Place 61: 102271.
- Prior, J., Gallagher, M., Needham, M. and Holmes, R. 2017. Listening differently: a pedagogy for expanded listening. British Educational Research Journal 43(6), pp. 1246-1265.
- Gallagher, M., Kanngieser, A. and Prior, J. 2017. Listening geographies: Landscape, affect and geotechnologies. Progress in Human Geography 41(5), pp. 618-637.
- Prior, J. 2017. Sonic methods in geography. Oxford Bibliographies.
- Gallagher, M. and Prior, J. 2017. Listening walks: a method of multiplicity. In: Bates, C. and Rhys-Taylor, A. eds. Walking Through Social Research. Routledge Advances in Research Methods London: Routledge
- Prior, J. 2017. Sonic environmental aesthetics and landscape research. Landscape Research 42(1), pp. 6-17.
- Prior, J. and Walton, S. 2017. The Bristol and Bath railway path: an ecopoetic sound collaboration. GeoHumanities 3(1), pp. 246-249.
- Gallagher, M. and Prior, J. 2014. Sonic geographies: Exploring phonographic methods. Progress in Human Geography 38(2), pp. 267-284.
Environmental values, restoration, and rewilding
Through this theme, I have studied the relationship between environmental values and the production of environmental policies, as a means to understand what motivates and underpins different ways of conceptualising the more-than-human world (animals, plants, ecological processes) when humans seek to implement ecological restoration, rewilding, or environmental management strategies. My first book, Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environments, co-authored with Emily Brady and Isis Brook, was published in 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield International. Other publications on this theme include:
- Prior, J. 2023. Rewilding and Olfactory Landscapes. In: Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. et al. eds. SMELL. Law and Senses London: University of Westminster Press, pp. 171-190.
- Prior, J. and Brady, E. 2022. Environmental aesthetics and rewilding. In: Boe, S., Faber, H. C. and Kasa, E. eds. Wild: Aesthetics of the Dangerous and Endangered.. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 11-30.
- Ward, K. J. and Prior, J. 2020. The reintroduction of beavers to Scotland: rewilding, biopolitics, and the affordance of non-human autonomy. Conservation and Society 18(2), pp. 103-113.
- Brady, E. and Prior, J. 2020. Environmental aesthetics: a synthetic review. People and Nature 2(2), pp. 254-266.
- Prior, J. and Smith, L. 2019. The normativity of ecological restoration reference models: an analysis of Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States. Ethics, Policy and Environment 22(2), pp. 214-233.
- Prior, J. and Brady, E. 2017. Environmental aesthetics and rewilding. Environmental Values 26(1), pp. 31-51.
- Prior, J. 2016. Urban river design and aesthetics: A river restoration case study from the UK. Journal of Urban Design 21(4), pp. 512-529.
- Prior, J. and Ward, K. J. 2016. Rethinking rewilding: A response to Jørgensen. Geoforum 69, pp. 132-135.
Please contact me if you would like access to any of these publications.