Jennifer Keating – författare

On Arid Ground focuses on the relationships between empire and environment in Central Asia, using environmental history to examine the practice of Russian imperialism in Turkestan at the end of empire, from the 1860s until 1916. It reveals for the first time a comprehensive assessment of the environmental imprint of Russian colonisation, and shows how local ecologies fitted into broader repertoires of imperial rule, accommodation, and resistance. Ranging widely above and below the surface in Turkestan, from the deserts of Transcaspia to the highlands and lowlands of rural Fergana and Semirech'e, Jennifer Keating explores infrastructure development, migrant settlement, land reclamation and dispossession, the commodification of nature, and environmental violence to reveal the ways in which ecological change was central to the building and breaking of empire. Attentive to connections, synchronicities and scale, On Arid Ground makes the case for looking beyond cotton and water in Central Asian context, for the powerful material role played by animals and plants, sand, silt, and salt in human histories, and for the less visible relationships between far-flung people and things within and beyond Turkestan's borders. Laying bare the political roots and repercussions of environmental change, the volume brings fresh perspectives both to the history of Central Asia and to that of the wider Russian empire across Eurasia.

This book mines the space where aesthetic expression meets lived experience for Irish artists Rita Duffy, Mairéad McClean, Paula McFetridge and Ursula Burke. Portrait essays woven with photographs, document each artist’s coming of age in Ireland and Northern Ireland, in the context of her emerging practice. As individuals, their work considers infringements on human rights, systemic violence, gender roles and the negotiation of figurative and literal borders and boundaries. Together, they interrogate past and present conflict and emergence from conflict, locally and globally. Their critical work is threaded with hope in the context of past and present political fragmentation. Works considered include Rita Duffy’s paintings, drawings and animation like Siege, The Emperor Has No Clothes and Anatomy of Hope; Mairéad McClean’s films No More, Broadcast and Making Her Mark; Paula McFetridge’s productions like convictions, staged at the Crumlin Road Courthouse, This is What We Sang, performed at the Belfast Synagogue and Belfast Quartered, A Love Story, a promenade through Belfast’s LGBTQ+ underground; and Ursula Burke’s sculptures like Bonfire, Blue Sphinx and Peach Caryatid, and embroidery like The Politicians Frieze.