ABSTRACT
Broadly speaking, non-representational theory (NRT) has enabled a shift of geographical focus to the realms of the practical, the bodily and the material. A way of thinking and doing that largely stemmed from Thrift’s writings in the 1990s and 2000s (e.g., Thrift, 1996, 2000), NRT has grown and diversified to be an influential reference point in contemporary human geography. Drawing on a range of post-structural and practice theorists (see Thrift, 1996, for a detailed treatment of these points of reference), NRT has been seen to have consequences theoretically and practically. These include a shift in focus toward the “practical rather than cognitive” (Thrift, 1997, p. 126) aspects of life, marking a turn toward the embodied and experiential aspects of life and refiguring what we might consider to be valid academic knowledges.
