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Alan Nash, PhD

  • Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment

Research areas: Cultural geography, Restaurants in Montreal, Gravestones in Iceland and the Caribbean.

Contact information

Email:

alan.nash@concordia.ca

Biography

Dr Nash obtained his PhD in historical geography from the University of Cambridge and, after a spell as a Junior Research Fellow in geography at the University of Sheffield in England, came to Canada in the early 1980s. He taught population geography and historical geography at Queen’s University in Kingston, and then held research associate positions at the University Of Western Ontario’s Centre for Canadian Population Studies, and at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Ottawa. Since joining the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, Dr Nash has served, on two occasions in the past, as the department chair and has also been the Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Association of Geographers. He currently teaches the introductory undergraduate course “Place, Space and Identity” (GEOG 220) and an upper-level course on the geography of food (GEOG 321: “A World of Food”). His current research focuses on two projects: the patterns of cultural diffusion (or spread) of gravestone designs (using Caribbean and Icelandic examples), and the development of restaurants in Montreal – with case studies so far completed on the increase in restaurants serving international cuisine between 1951 and 2001, and on those restaurants that by delivering meals to the home, brought “the world on a plate” into the domestic sphere.

Professional affiliations

Fellow at Concordia's School of Community and Public Affairs
Member of the Montreal Institute of Genocide Studies

Teaching activities

Undergraduate

GEOG 220 - The Human Environment: Place, Space and Identity
GEOG 321 - A World of Food

Graduate

HENV 605 - Research Concepts and Design

Course materials and other documents

The Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Immigration Research 1982-1992

The Economic Impact of Canada's Business Immigration Program

Graduate Student Supervision (recently completed masters theses)

  1. 2009. Alan Dabrowski, "Home, Green Home: Evolving the Suburban Image of Home to a Deeper Ecology" MSc (Geography, Urban and Environment Studies).
  2. 2009. Jonathan Roux, "Telling Lives, Making Place: The Narratives of Three Haitian Refugees in Montreal" MSc (Geography, Urban and Environment Studies).
  3. 2009. Isabelle Kapiga, "Agents of Change, Colours of Resistance: The Socio-Economic Integration of Filipina Live-In Caregivers in Montreal" MSc (Geography, Urban and Environment Studies).
  4. 2008. Sean Bennell, "Going Local for a Change: Towards a Community Food Security Approach to Farm-to-University Development at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec" MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration: Geography Option)
  5. 2007. David Hammer, "Landcare in Australia: Is it an Effective Means of Achieving Sustainable Development?" MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration: Geography Option)
  6. 2005. Iqbal Shailo, "Empowering Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs): A Case Study of Sandwip (an Island in Bangladesh)" MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration: Geography Option)
  7. 2004. Karine Arakelian, "The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration: Geography Option)
  8. 2002. Stefania Kologeridis, "Geographic Information Systems within the UNHCR for Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: The Kosovo Case Study". Jointly supervised with Dr David Frost. MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration: Geography Option)

Undergraduate supervision (recently completed honours essays)

  1. 2008. Melanie Langlois: "The environmental impact of food distribution in Montreal: a food miles analysis of shepherd's pie".
  2. 2007. Peter Heikamp: "Agricultural adaptation in the vicinity of a new ethanol production plant".
  3. 2006. Bronwen Agnew: "Barriers to a potential sanctuary movement in Montreal".
  4. 2005. Darrell St-Georges: "Community supported agriculture in Montreal: a feasible alternative to the current food system?"
  5. 2004. Megali Chevalier: "Geographers and public policy: mediating the immigration and refugee debate in Canada".
  6. 2002. Marie-Michelle Belanger: "Ethnic restaurants in Montreal".

Selected publications

Books

  1. Paul Knox, Sallie Marston and Alan Nash. 2009. Human Geography: Places and Regions in a Global Context. Third Canadian Edition. Toronto: Pearson, 578 pp.
  2. Paul Knox, Sallie Marston and Alan Nash. 2006. Human Geography: Places and Regions in a Global Context. Second Canadian Edition. Toronto: Pearson, 584 pp.
  3. Paul Knox, Sallie Marston and Alan Nash. 2003. Human Geography: Places and Regions in a Global Context. First Canadian Edition. Toronto: Pearson, 577 pp.
  4. Nash, A.E. 2003. Canadian edition of Knox P. and Marston, S. Human Geography: Places and Regions in a Global Context. Pearson: Toronto.
  5. Nash, A.E. 2003. Editor, Special Issue of Geojournal, “Geography and Refugees” (In press)
  6. Nash, A.E. 1999. “Environmental Refugees: Consequences and Policies from a Western Perspective” Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, 3, 227-238.
  7. Nash, A.E. 1997. “Business Migration Programmes and Gender: The Canadian Experience” In Migration and Gender: Place, Time and People Specific edited by Joan Fairhust, Ingrid Booysen and Philip Haitingh. Pretoria: Department of Geography, University of Pretoria (on behalf of the International Geographic Union’s Commissions on Population Geography and on Gender and Geography) 1997, pp. 333-349.
  8. Nash, A.E. 1994 (with Allan Borowski) in Adelman H., Borowski A., Burstein M., and Foster Lois (eds.) Immigration and Refugees Policy: Australia and Canada Compared. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1, pp. 227-252.
  9. Nash, A.E. 1994. “Recent Canadian Refugee Policy: Into the 1990s,” Migration, 21(21), pp. 111-136.
  10. Nash, A.E. 1994. “Recent Trends in Canadian Immigration Policy,” in “Focus” section ed. Hiebert D., The Canadian Geographer, 38, pp. 258-261.
  11. Nash, A.E. 1993. “Hong Kong’s Business Future: The Impact of Canadian and Australian Business Migration Programs” in Yue-Man Yeung (ed.) Pacific Asia in the 21st Century: Geographical and Developmental Perspectives, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, pp.309-339.

Refereed publications

  1. Alan Nash. 2010 (forthcoming). "The Impact of Restaurant Delivery on Montreal's Domestic Foodscapes, 1951-2001", Material Culture Review (paper accepted for publication) .
  2. Alan Nash. 2009. ""From Spaghetti to Sushi": An Investigation of the Growth of Ethnic Restaurants in Montreal, 1951-2001", Food, Culture and Society 12(1) 5-24. 2007.
  3. Alan Nash and Kieran Nooney-Mooney, "Environmental Refugees", in Paul Robbins (ed.) Encyclopedia of Environment and Society (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage) Vol 2: 590-591. 2006. Alan Nash, "Railway to Heaven: The Use of Railroad Analogies in Tombstone Epitaphs" Proceedings New England-St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society 35, 1-13.

Non-refereed publications

  1. Alan Nash. 2006. "The Urban Sensorium: Making Sense of the City" Senses & Society 1 (2), 283-286 [exhibition review]
  2. Alan Nash. 2004. "The diffusion of gravestone iconography in the North Atlantic: a case study of the spread of Bertel Thorvaldsen's Night" Proceedings New England-St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society 33, 71-83.
  3. 2002. Alan Nash, "Geography and Refugees", GeoJournal, 56 (1), 1-2 (editorial)
  4. 2002. Alan Nash, "Review of Peter Redfield's "Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana" (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2000)", Geojournal 56 (3), 241-242.

Participation activities

Selected conference papers presented

  1. 2009. Alan Nash. "Not Set in Stone: Scale and Memory in Colonial Cemeteries - a Case Study of the Ochterlonys in the Caribbean, Canada and India from 1765 to the present." Conference on Local memory in a Nationalizing and Globalizing World (1750 to present). University of Antwerp, Belgium. October 2009.
  2. 2009. Alan Nash, "The spread of Thorvaldsen's tombstone designs Night and Day around northern Iceland, 1870-1930."Annual Conference, American Association of Geographers. Las Vegas. May 2009
  3. 2008. Alan Nash. "The significance of David Ochterlony's Caribbean grave", Mid Atlantic Popular Culture Association, Philadelphia, November 2008.
  4. 2007. Alan Nash. "The spread of Thorvaldsen's tombstone designs Night and Day into North America 1870-1930." Mid Atlantic Popular Culture Association, Philadelphia, November 2007.
  5. 2006. Alan Nash. "The evolution of ethnic restaurants: a case study of Montreal 1951-2001", Canadian Association of Food Studies, York University, May 2006.
  6. 2006. Alan Nash. "Ethnic restaurants in Montreal". Canadian Association of Anthropologists (CASCA), Concordia University, May 2006
  7. 2005. Alan Nash. "Geography of Food: a case study of ethnic restaurants in Montreal", Annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers, University of Western Ontario, London Ont., June 2005.
  8. 2003. Alan Nash. "The diffusion of gravestone iconography in the North Atlantic: a case study of the spread of Bertel Thorvaldsen's Night" Annual Conference New England-St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society, Portland Maine, October 2003
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