Stewart is employed with the school on a fractional appointment. He is usually found on the Hobart campus most days either teaching or pursing activities related to his research as well as professional and community engagement.
Community Engagement
Stewart has a strong belief in the importance of community engagement. His involvement here in the past has included roles in management and on steering committees in such areas of public health as housing and drug & alcohol support. Community engagement now has a strong professional slant for Stewart. He is currently Honorary Treasurer for the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG Inc.) and a reader and reviewer for the following international journals: Geographical Research; Housing Studies; Housing Theory & Society; Urban Policy & Research; and Cultural Studies Review.
Research Interests
A cultural geographer grounded in critical social theory, Marxian political economy, feminism and post-structural philosophy, Stewart is trained in the use of qualitative approaches and methodologies. He has therefore deployed methods as diverse as auto-ethnography and textual analysis to explore – from a cultural studies perspective – the intersections between geography and literature, history, psychoanalysis, sociology, environmentalism and philosophy.
His research interests concern the constitution of different subjects and spaces, and their representation as particular sorts of identities and communities, and how it plays out geographically in relation to matters of governance and power. He is conducting research at present in three specific areas. This work concerns a re-spatialisation of psychoanalytic theory following Lacan’s reading of ‘The Purloined Letter’; the application of post-social theory in relation to housing policy and practice and natural disaster mitigation across Australia; and an analysis of the representations and realities of islands, insularity and islandness in the Tasmanian opium poppy industry.
Grants
2008: AHURI (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute) Grant #40520 with Jacobs, K.A., Blakeley, E. and Newman, P., “Natural Disaster Preparation and Response” $67,000 over 2 years
Teaching
Stewart is the unit coordinator and lecturer for KGA373 Sustainable Settlements and the lecturer for KGA513 Professional Placement. He also assists in the design and delivery of other units including KGA205 Human Geography and the supervision of honours and postgraduate degree students.
UnitsSelected Publications:- Williams, S., 2009, 'On islands, insularity and opium poppies: Australia's secret pharmacy', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, in review.
- Jacobs, K.A. and Williams, S., 2009, 'Natural Disaster Preparation and Response: A Guide for State Housing Authorities', AHURI - Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Final report, (peer reviewed publication),
- Williams, S., Jacobs, K.A., Newman, P. and Blakeley, E. , 2009, 'Natural Disaster Preparation and Response: A Guide for State Housing Authorities', AHURI - Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Positioning paper , (peer reviewed publication)
- Williams, S., 2008, 'Rethinking the Nature of Disaster: from failed instruments of learning to a post-social understanding', Social Forces, 87 (2), pgs. 1115-38
- Bradshaw, M. and Williams, S., 1999, 'Scales, Lines and Minor Geographies: Whither King Island?', Australian Geographical Studies, 37(3), pgs. 248-267
- Williams, S., 2008, 'Book review of Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and geography', Housing Theory and Society , 25 (3), pgs. 220-23
- Williams, S., 2008, 'Book review of Stretching beyond the Horizon: A multiplanar theory of spatial planning and governance', Housing Theory and Society , 25 (3), pgs. 223-26
Full Publication List
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