The Global Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Adam's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
About Adam
Dr Guy is an Early Career Researcher (ECR) and Visiting Specialist based in the University of Plymouth’s Department of Architecture. He is currently undertaking consultancy work whilst preparing ECR funding bids.
Dr Guy’s doctoral research interests have centred around the deconstruction of the normalising paradigms that underpin current and emerging planning regimes in the built and natural environments. Academic output has focussed on a critical inquiry into the nature of the ubiquitous impasse in translating policy into meaningful action. Rather than simply reflecting conventional binaristic critiques of inaction, his work has sought to investigate alternative explanations that might challenge and disturb the ‘taken-for-granted’ assumptions that reinforce currently hegemonic social constructs.
Recent research consultancies and projects have sought to characterise multiple instances in policy of ‘fantastic projects.’ Such projects are dually fantastic, in both promising much, but delivering little meaningful material or social change. Empirical work has engaged with case-studies that include nature recovery/(re)wilding proposals and policy, the conundrum of opaque UK land ownership, and the often-muddled typifications of environmental values and natural (capital) assets. Concrete results have demonstrated that one consequence of unrealistic planning for restorative intervention is a widespread practical inability to monitor the current or changing quality and extent of UK natural habitats, and a systemic mismatch between nature recovery policies and existing planning regimes.
Critical theoretical inquiry has indicated that, rather than representing dysfunctionality, 'fantastic projects', 'policy overload', and 'celebratory reporting' of limited or notional successes are instead symptomatic of the prevalent neoliberal condition. Doctoral investigation has suggested future research avenues in exploring the consequences of systemic inaction upon actors in the fields of planning and nature recovery themselves, under the notion of 'ironic distance'.
The work builds upon many years of experience in the murky fields of environmental advocacy and the cultural politics of the UK’s ‘Dark Waters’, most notably in the Tidal Thames and its hinterlands.
Overall, Dr Guy’s research responds to Slavoj Žižek’s (2023) call to action that, in order to have any hope of changing the future, we must first learn how to change the past, and that we must re-examine historic missed opportunities for meaningful social change and action.
Academic qualifications
PhD in Architecture. PhD thesis title: “What role do metrics of value play in translating policy into action in partnership management of landscape restoration.” University of Plymouth, Department of Architecture.
MSc in Social Anthropology. Master’s thesis title: “The Circle and the Square; Divided social space in urban Los Angeles.” University College London, Department of Anthropology.
BSc in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. Specialising in Immunology, Microbiology, and Genetic Engineering. University College London, Department of Zoology.
Diploma in Czech Language. Institute of Linguists, London (with training in the Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic).
Dr Guy’s inquiries into planning realities build upon his training as a Social Anthropologist (MSc University College London). For his master’s dissertational work Dr Guy demonstrated that Los Angeles, widely cited as a primary example of emergent, rather than systemically planned urban space, is in reality a tightly-managed spatial configuration, organised specifically to exploit marginalised labour, and to physically separate the beneficiaries of these extractive practices, from their inevitable social and economic consequences.
Unusually for an urban/social researcher, or a critical social scientist, Dr Guy originally trained as an immunologist/microbiologist (BSc University College London). After a decade of medical research into the epidemiology and diagnosis of tuberculosis, he became convinced that pandemic diseases, such as TB, will increasingly require social rather than medical solutions.
Wider research interests
Whilst recent work has been UK-based, Dr Guy has a more than thirty-year relationship with Czech architecture, culture, and literature. Dr Guy is intrigued by recent developments in the planning paradigms that are transforming both the built and social environments of the states of former East-Central Europe.
Currently, Dr Guy is investigating the historical and emergent contradictions in planning and urban spatial management for the Czech capital city of Prague. Work includes the translation of key Czech documents and commentaries on the historical context that colours specifically Czech responses to currently widespread social, urban, and environmental issues.
Current projects
Research Fellow/Project Manager – Research and Innovation, University of Plymouth
Work commissioned by one of the English Protected Landscape organisations. A consultancy contract to assess the quantity and quality of evidence, gaps in this evidence-base, and the consequences of these findings for emerging national landscape change management and nature recovery policy.
Early Careers Research (ECR) and other bid preparations
Collation of sources and documents in Czech and English in advance of an ECR project to be based in the Department of Architecture, University of Plymouth.
Preparation of peer-reviewed papers based on doctoral research findings and current consultancy roles.
Consultancy and grant-supported work
Published policy reports (Main author)
The ‘Landscape’ of Landscape Monitoring, a survey of England’s protected landscapes. University of Plymouth research commissioned by Natural England (2022).
A national study of landscape change and environmental monitoring. The key findings were collated and distributed in a publication written in the Policy Brief format that is recommended for communication with policy-makers, project sponsors and participants, academics, third party organisations (NGOs), and the informed or interested public.
The Framework for Monitoring Environmental Outcomes in Protected Landscapes (FMEOPL): An analysis of trends 2013-19. University of Plymouth research commissioned by Natural England (2020).
A systematic analysis and report of the FMEOPL data(sets) that will underpin any UK nature recovery exercise. This was the first such review since the introduction of the framework in 2013. Sections of the report findings were included in the highly-influential ‘Glover Review’ of protected landscapes: Landscapes review: National Parks and AONBs (HM Government, Independent Report) (2019).
Revealing, measuring, and communicating the ‘value’ of water quality to the viability of agricultural landscapes and estuary seascapes of South Devon. Adam Guy for the Seale-Hayne Educational Trust (2019).
A small-scale pilot study that contributed to winning funding for later national-scale studies. Work involved field-testing of surveys, semi-structured interview protocols, and the communication of results through facilitated participant workshops.
Published policy reports (Contributory author)
Social barriers and opportunities to the implementation of the England Peat Strategy: Final Report to Natural England and Defra. Newcastle University with collaboration from the University of Plymouth. Research commissioned by Natural England (2020).
Development of a work package using a mobile phone application to explore place-related environmental values in situ. Dr Guy was also a facilitator in a national series of participant workshops and contributed a section of the final report.
Peer reviewed papers (Contributory author)
Sally Rangecroft & Rosa Maria Dextre, Isabel Richter, Claudia V. Grados Bueno, Claire Kelly, Cecilia Turin, Beatriz Fuentealba Durand, Mirtha Camacho Hernandez, Sergio Morera, John Martin, Adam Guy, Caroline Clason. (2023) ‘Unravelling and understanding local perceptions of water quality in the Santa basin, Peru’.
Contribution to a collaborative project based around use of a tablet-based survey for exploring place-related environmental values in a remote in situ field setting. Work involved survey development, data collation and analysis, and contribution to the final paper.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129949
Martin, J., Williamson, D., Łucznik, K. & Guy, J. A. (2021) 'Development of the My Cult-Rural Toolkit'. Sustainability, 13 (13), 7128.
Development of a work package using a set of practice-based exercises for exploring place-related environmental values in situ. Work also incorporated contribution to the final paper.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137128
Horswill, E., Martin, J. & Guy, J. A. (2020) 'Establishing a functional framework for monitoring protected landscapes; with a case study of English Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)'. Ecol Indic, 119 pp. 106806.
A review of candidate environmental indicators that might underpin active nature recovery interventions. Dr Guy co-edited the paper in response to reviewers' comments.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106806
Singh, G. G., Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Swartz, W., Cheung, W., Guy, J. A., Kenny, T.-A., McOwen, C. J., Asch, R., Geffert, J. L., Wabnitz, C. C. C., Sumaila, R., Hanich, Q. & Ota, Y. (2017) 'A rapid assessment of co-benefits and trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals'. Marine Policy, 93 pp. 223-231.
An innovative, review of potential effects between co-located Sustainable Development Goal instances or projects. This paper has now been cited many hundreds of times.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.05.030
Teaching
Dr Guy has taught undergraduate and postgraduate architecture students in urban sociology, social theory, and methodology, including tutorial and project assessment work.
Contact Adam
