Born in Victoria, BC, I moved to Montreal in my late teens, where I pursued a BFA in design art and material culture studies at Concordia University. I also completed a minor in urban studies at Concordia, which, together with my design education, inspired my focus on the material and social production of space, urban economies, and local identities. To further untangle connections between community and urban spaces, I then completed an MSc in Planning at the University of Toronto, where I maintain academic and professional ties.
After completing my Master’s, I spent two years discovering how my interests in social justice, research, and community engagement could be developed in non-academic settings. While this experience was rich and satisfying, I was sucked back to academe -- to the exchange of ideas in academic settings and to continue my investigations of space as a product of individuals, economics, politics, stuff, and culture. London, and Royal Holloway more specifically, is proving an ideal place for this exploration.
You can download a complete cv here, which includes details of my published work concerning: photography as a method in cultural geography research; the "Impact Agenda" in UK higher education; the production of gay space; accommodating families in gentrifying cities; sustainable building and planning policies; exclusion in artistic communities; community arts programs and creative city policies; walkability, diversity, and the inner-suburbs; and gender, home, and identity.
If you want to get in touch, please email me at Maria.Hunt.2010@live.rhul.ac.uk.
Thanks for your interest in this project.
