Staff profile

Academic Employment:

October 2013 -Associate Professor in Human GeographyDepartment of Geography, Durham University

September 2005 - September 2013Lecturer in Human GeographyDepartment of Geography, Durham University

September 2002 - September 2005Lecturer in Human Geography,Department of Geography, University of Liverpool

PhD (1999 -2003) Department of Geography, University of Sheffield

MA in Social and Cultural Geographies Department of Geography, University of Sheffield

Research Interests

1) Geographies of 'the body'

My interest in 'the body' is present in all of the research, impact work and writing that I do. It is grounded in a commitment to theorising and researching the specificities of  embodied and emotional experiences accross a range of spatial contexts.  Intially, my doctoral work utilised the context of clothing consumption for eliciting the multiplicities of female embodied experience as produced through clothing and focused on the modalities of bodies which are felt, negotiated and materialised through clothing. Further work has explored the experiences of young people being weighed and measured, engaging with literatures on bodily surveillance and morality. Recently I have been Co-I on a project which researches parents' and carers' experiences of parental leave which uses collage and indepth interviewing to capture their embodied experiences of leave but also their emotional relationships to paid 'work and their expectations about 'the return'.

My work is inspired by and draws upon feminist and queer theories including the work of Elizabeth Grosz Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed, Luce Irigaray and Margrit Shildrick. I am also interested in exploring the critical  potential of material feminism  for contributing to non-representational work in human geography which takes account of embodied difference. More recently I have become interested in exploring  the critical potential of  'negative geographies' for feminist geographies per se; this includes a new and exciting opporunity to engage with feminist work on fascism.

 

2) Fat Bodies and Critical Geographies of Fatness

My ongoing work on geographies of the body has galvanised into a particular interest in  'obese' or fat bodies. This is situated  within broader critical interdisciplinary work in Fat Studies which centres the ways that fat bodies and fatness is deemed as problematic within policy, popular, everyday  and academic (including some geographical research)  contexts alongside documenting the discrimination stigma  and resultant moralising that fat people are subject to in their everyday lives. This has culminated in a growing body of work  my co-writer, Dr Bethan Evans, and I refer to as 'Critical Geographies of Fatness'.  Related research  in this area includes exploring children's  experiences of the being weighed and measured during the National Child Meaurement Programme (NCMP) in England  and  critically analysing UK government anti-obesity policies such as Change 4 LIfe. Moreover, this approach demands that we orientate our critiques internally to normative work on fatness in Geography which has led to  evaulative work on key concepts and measures such as the 'obesogenic environment' and the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a measure of health.

Another strand of my work centres fat lives and subjectivities through the narratives and practices of self-defined fat men and women, for example through etrhnogrpahic work with size acceptance movement in the UK and through a theoretical interrogation of what constitutes bodily matter or ‘flab’, in relation to both experiences and representations of women's bodies in art. More recently, I am developing work which engages with creative methods and specifically  theatre-based practice  to document fat peoples everday lives with the aim of developing a radio play. The Weight Of It All seeks to move beyond framing fat peoples' experiences only through the lenses of stigma and discrmination to  instead make space for  fat joy, hope and community.

 

3) Weight Stigma and Discrmination in Healthcare

Over the past three years, my work on fatness  has developed to  consider the manifestation of weight stigma and discrimination in healthcare spaces, the fitness industry and within public health settings. In collaboration with Dr Kim Jamie in Sociology (Durham) we have conducted research with healthcare practitioners (HCPs) to understand the form and extent of weight stigma which has led to the  ceration  of awareness  training  delivered through our spinout company Eqweighty Training.

The develpoment work was funded at first through  a range of small grants, but then after benefiting from the support  and momentum gained from  joining the 2025 cohort of  ARC Accelerator programme, we were  awarded a UKRI Proof of Concept grant  which has allowed us to  bring Eqweighty Training to life.  We are now  developing e-learning, CPD accredited modules on weight discrminaition awareness  in healthcare whilst also offering  bespoke online and in-person training accross a range of contexts. For example, we are working with North Northamptonshire Council to develop a more 'compassionate' and weight inclusive approach to delivering their public health services.

This work provides us with the opportunity to deliver real world impact by not only raising awareness of weight discrimination but by changing people's practices and making in roads into make fat people's experiences of healthcare more equitable, safe and inclusive.

 

4) States of Precarity Project (2022 - current).

The States of Precarity Project focuses on documenting and understanding how academic Geographers in the UK experience precarity which takes on numerous forms including but extending beyond those working on part time, short term and fixed term contracts. We are interested in the impact of precaarity on people's wider lives as well as their career trajectories within or moving out with academia. Moreover the research, has been used to develop resources for colleagues, departments and Universities to better support and advocate for  those working on precarious contracts. For example this includes awareness raising posters and a toolkit for precarious colleagues.

The research, funded by The Royal Geographical Society and Antipode) is based on data collected from a survey of 364 participants and seven online focus groups; the latter of which were used to gain feedback on best practice action plans.   I work alongside a team of UK based Geogaphers (Rachael Squire, James Esson, Johanne Bruun, Anna Jackman, Peter Forman and Jasmine Joanes) who have differential experiences of precarity and/or working with and mentoring precarious colleagues.

This research has been and continues to be personally and politically significant to me. The research gives voice to a cohort of colleagues who are often managing  has allowed us to speak back to the discipline in ways which call for more consideration of and sensitivity around who we work alongside and what kind of departments and schools we want to work in.

 

• geographies of 'the body', feminist theories of embodiment, emotions, fat, academic precarity, maternity

Chapter in book

• Fat Lives
  
  Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2026). Fat Lives. In P. Merriman, A. Secor, & S. Sumartojo (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Geographies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003450887
• Obesity
  
  Colls, R. (2025). Obesity. In L. Holloway, M. K. Goodman, D. Maye, M. Kneafsey, A. E. Sexton, & A. Moragues-Faus (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Food and Society (pp. 366-369). Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Geographies of Bodies
  
  Nieuwenhuis, M., & Colls, R. (2025). Geographies of Bodies. In B. Warf (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Human Geography (pp. 1-6). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25900-5
• Intra-body touching and the over-life sized paintings of Jenny Saville.
  
  Colls, R. (2012). Intra-body touching and the over-life sized paintings of Jenny Saville. In M. Paterson & M. Dodge (Eds.), Touching Space, Placing Touch. Ashgate Publishing.
• ‘Doing more good than harm’? The absent presence of children’s bodies in (anti)obesity policy'.
  
  Evans, B., & Colls, R. (2010). ‘Doing more good than harm’? The absent presence of children’s bodies in (anti)obesity policy’. In L. Monaghan, E. Rich, & L. Aphramor (Eds.), The Obesity Debate. Palgrave.

Edited book

• Obesity Discourse and Fat Politics: Research, Critique and Interventions
  
  Monaghan, L., Colls, R., & Evans, B. (Eds.). (2014). Obesity Discourse and Fat Politics: Research, Critique and Interventions. Routledge.
• Contested Bodies of Childhood and Youth.
  
  Hörschelmann, K., & Colls, R. (Eds.). (2009). Contested Bodies of Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Article

• Pushing Boundaries: Reflections on the 2022 International FEMGEOG Conference
  
  Colls, R., Fluri, J., Boonabaana, B., Coddington, K., Datta, A., Williams, J., Faria, C., Klosterkamp, S., Meletis, Z., Trauger, A., & Worth, N. (2025). Pushing Boundaries: Reflections on the 2022 International FEMGEOG Conference. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 24(4), 464-487. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.zr3mcv-2444
• 'Getting in and going': Access to onboard toilets for fat and disabled people on commercial aircraft
  
  Evans, B., Colls, R., & Bias, S. (2024). ’Getting in and going’: Access to onboard toilets for fat and disabled people on commercial aircraft. Geoforum, 148, Article 103908. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103908
• The Dys-appearing Fat Body: Bodily Intensities and Fatphobic Sociomaterialities when Flying Whilst Fat
  
  Colls, R., Evans, B., & Bias, S. (2021). The Dys-appearing Fat Body: Bodily Intensities and Fatphobic Sociomaterialities when Flying Whilst Fat. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1866485
• Generative Spaces: Intimacy, Activism and Teaching Feminist Geographies
  
  Burke, S., Carr, A., Casson, H., Coddington, K., Colls, R., Jollans, A., Jordan, S., Smith, K., Taylor, N., & Urquhart, H. (2017). Generative Spaces: Intimacy, Activism and Teaching Feminist Geographies. Gender, Place and Culture, 24(5), 661-673. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369x.2017.1335293
• Making space for fat bodies?: A critical account of ‘the obesogenic environment’
  
  Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2014). Making space for fat bodies?: A critical account of ‘the obesogenic environment’. Progress in Human Geography, 38(6), 733-753. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513500373
• Placental surfaces and the geographies of bodily interiors
  
  Colls, R., & Fannin, M. (2013). Placental surfaces and the geographies of bodily interiors. Environment and Planning A, 45, 1187-1104. https://doi.org/10.1068/a44698
• Moving beyond walkability: On the potential of health geography
  
  Andrews, G. J., Hall, E., Evans, B., & Colls, R. (2012). Moving beyond walkability: On the potential of health geography. Social Science and Medicine, 75(11), 1925-1932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.08.013
• Feminism, bodily difference and non-representational geographies.
  
  Colls, R. (2012). Feminism, bodily difference and non-representational geographies. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37(3), 430-445. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00477.x
• BodiesTouchingBodies: Jenny Saville’s over-life sized paintings and the ’morpho-logics’ of fat, female bodies.
  
  Colls, R. (2012). BodiesTouchingBodies: Jenny Saville’s over-life sized paintings and the ’morpho-logics’ of fat, female bodies. Gender, Place and Culture, 19(2), 175-192.
• 'Big Girls Having Fun': Reflections on a fat accepting space.
  
  Colls, R. (2012). ’Big Girls Having Fun’: Reflections on a fat accepting space. Somatechnics, 2(1), 18-37.
• 'Change4Life for your kids': embodied collectives and public health pedagogy
  
  Evans, B., Colls, R., & Horschelmann, K. (2011). ’Change4Life for your kids’: embodied collectives and public health pedagogy. Sport, Education and Society, 16(3), 323-341. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2011.565964
• Challenging Assumptions: Re-thinking the obesity 'problem'.
  
  Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2010). Challenging Assumptions: Re-thinking the obesity ’problem’. Geography, 95(2), 99-105.
• Measuring Fatness, Governing Bodies: The Spatialities of the Body Mass Index(BMI) in Anti-Obesity Politics
  
  Evans, B., & Colls, R. (2009). Measuring Fatness, Governing Bodies: The Spatialities of the Body Mass Index(BMI) in Anti-Obesity Politics. Antipode, 41(5), 1051-1083. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00706.x
• Critical Geographies of Fat/Bigness/Corpulence. Introduction: Questioning Obesity Politics
  
  Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2009). Critical Geographies of Fat/Bigness/Corpulence. Introduction: Questioning Obesity Politics. Antipode, 41(5), 1011-1020. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00705.x
• The geographies of children's and young people's bodies
  
  Colls, R., & Hörschelmann, K. (2009). The geographies of children’s and young people’s bodies. Children’s Geographies, 7(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733280802630882
• Materialising bodily matter: Intra-action and the embodiment of 'Fat'
  
  Colls, R. (2007). Materialising bodily matter: Intra-action and the embodiment of ’Fat’. Geoforum, 38(2), 353-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.09.004
• Embodying responsibility: children's health and supermarket initiatives
  
  Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2007). Embodying responsibility: children’s health and supermarket initiatives. Environment and Planning A, 40(3), 615-631. https://doi.org/10.1068/a3935
• Outsize/Outside: Bodily bignesses and the emotional experiences of British women shopping for clothes
  
  Colls, R. (2006). Outsize/Outside: Bodily bignesses and the emotional experiences of British women shopping for clothes. Gender, Place and Culture, 13(5), 529-545. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690600858945
• 'Looking alright, feeling alright': emotions, sizing and the geographies of women's experiences of clothing consumption
  
  Colls, R. (2004). ’Looking alright, feeling alright’: emotions, sizing and the geographies of women’s experiences of clothing consumption. Social and Cultural Geography, 5(4), 583-596. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464936042000317712

Report

• A pilot study to examine school-based aspects of the BMI surveillance programme in NE England.
  
  Shucksmith, J., Colls, R., McNaughton, R., Ells, L., & Wilkinson, J. (2007). A pilot study to examine school-based aspects of the BMI surveillance programme in NE England. NEPHO.
• Transformations: changing careers, meanings and experiences of women’s political activism. A report commissioned from The University of Liverpool by UNISON North West.
  
  Colls, R., Featherstone, D., O’Brien, M., & Sadler, D. (2005). Transformations: changing careers, meanings and experiences of women’s political activism. A report commissioned from The University of Liverpool by UNISON North West.