Sarah Whatmore (geographer)

Sarah Whatmore
Nationality	British
Institutions	Oxford University
Alma mater	University College London
Known for	Critical geographer

Sarah Whatmore, FBA FAcSS is a Professor of Environment and Public Policy at Oxford University and from 2012, Head of School. She received her PhD in geography in 1988 at University College London, and previously taught for 12 years at Bristol University and briefly at the Open University. In 2014 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Whatmore is a critical geographer, questioning Marxist materialist approaches in favour of actor-network theory and feminist science studies. Her approach, laid out in her 2002 book Hybrid Geographies, attempts to develop what she terms "more than human" modes of inquiry, and question the relationship between science and democracy. Hybrid Geographies has been cited over 1,000 times.

Her ideas have been well received by critical theorists, but less so by policy-oriented environmental thinkers and traditional geographers less inclined to "theorise" human-environment relationships.

Recognitions

• Ellen Churchill Semple award, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, 2013