RESEARCH PROFILE
My research actively explores how global networks are created and negotiated through (gendered) tourist-local encounters that take place in a variety of landscapes of culture and leisure (differently constituted forms of tourist space). My research methods rely heavily on the use of filmmaking as a valuable tool for the presentation of alternative ‘visual knowledges’.
I am currently completing a teaching guide Film as a Research Method: A Practice-based Guide (Sage 2015) and several journal articles on the potential (and challenge) of using films to produce knowledge. Future filmsin development include Looking for Go(l)d(Producer: Metafilmes Portugal)a experimental fictionalised documentary set in the Sinai and developed through collaborative storytelling workshops with local participants to explore the emotional geographies of love and greed. I have also just begun (June 2014) a two year research project (funded by the Leverhulme Trust) to digitise, document and map an previously unexplored set of Bedouin agreements housed in St. Katherine’s Monastery in south Sinai in order to trace the origin of tribal borders.Further research projects and international workshops on the Mediterranean are in also development with British and international partners, all of which explore past and presentEuropean relations with the Middle East and incorporate an element of filmic method and publication.
EDUCATION
BA (Hons) Politics with English Literature (1989) Upper Second (2:1) Sussex University, UK
PG Diploma Journalism (1990) Kings College, UK
MA Middle East Area Studies (1996) Modern Trends in Islam, Comparative Politics of the Middle East, Modern Standard Arabic, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK
PhD ‘The literature of sex tourism and women negotiating modernity in the Sinai’ (2003) Geography Department, Open University, UK Supervisors Professor Doreen Massey and Professor Steven Pile
inSTIL Programme of Skills of Teaching to Inspire Learning (2010)
Member of the Higher Education Academy
Languages: English (native speaker), Arabic (usable Colloquial Egyptian, Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian and Classical), Hebrew (basic)
Visual Methods Training and Development
1998 Experimental Cinema London Filmmaker’s Coop
2005 Digital Data Transfer Workshop Arts and Humanities Data Service
2006 Directors ‘Work in Progress’ Workshop OxDox Film Festival
2006 NCFE Video Production Notting Dale Technology Centre
2006 Final Cut Pro Working Men’s College
2007DVD authoringSpace Studios
2011 Final Cut Pro 101Royal Holloway Media Arts
2012 Storydocs Educational Institute (Athens)Documentary training and networking
2013 Coalab and Cinecoa Film Festival (Portugal)Pitching workshop and film festival
EMPLOYMENT
Teaching from September 2011 to present
Geography Department, Queen Mary, University of London
BA (Hons) Human Geography
1st Year: Geographical Ideas and Practice – weekly tutorials, setting and marking essays
2nd Year: Geographical Research in Practice – biweekly tutorials, degree project supervision and preparation for independent research projects.
Personal Tutor with weekly office hours
Research Fellow from September 2008 to September 2011
Geography Department, Royal Holloway University of London
Drafting a three-year international research grant proposal on heritage in Jordan and Syria, that was subsequently awarded by the ESRC. Designing and managing the project website, creating budget and purchasing equipment, carrying out fieldwork for nine months in Amman and Damascus based upon over 100 in-depth interviews, developing a research methodology based on the use of film as a research tool and publication, writing papers and screening the films at international conferences and curated events, writing up research findings for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Film-making (camera, editing)
Honorary Research Fellow from April 2003 to September 2007
Geography Department, Open University, UK
Between 2003-5, while based at CBRL I spent my three-month annual research leave at the OU, participating in the department activities, presenting my research and building cooperative networks between the OU and CBRL. Between 2005-7 I was Principal Investigator of a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council that was administered through the Open University who also provided additional support.
Research Officer September 2003 to December 2005
Council for British Research in the Levant, (CBRL) Amman, Jordan
Carrying out my own research project on ‘Geographical Imaginations of the Levant’, supervising visiting graduate students research, line manager to librarian and computer officer, running social science reading groups and seminar series, liaising with Jordanian and Syrian universities, representing the Institute when Director was absent at official functions, running two fieldwork stations in Jordan and Syria, maintaining vehicles, taking hostel bookings, managing rental of archaeological and other fieldwork equipment.
PUBLICATIONS
Monographs
Jacobs, J. (2010) Sex, Tourism and the Postcolonial Encounter: Landscapes of Longing in Egypt AshgateLondon & New York (Geographical Perspectives On Women 2011 Award)
Journal Articles
Jacobs, J (forthcoming 2014) ‘Visualising the visceral: using film to access beneath the surface geographies
Article and Associate Editor of AREA special edition on the use of film and video for research and publication
Jacobs, J. (2013) Listen with your eyes: towards a filmic geographyGeography Compass7: 10, 714-728
Jacobs, J (2011) ‘Visualising the Visceral: Exploring the role of filmmaking in the (re)production of Intangible Heritage’ in Sharing Cultures Green Lines Institute Barcelos
Jacobs, J. (2010) ‘Re-branding the Levant: contested heritage and colonial modernities in Amman and Damascus’ Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 8: 4, 316-326
Jacobs, J. (2009) ‘Have sex will travel: romantic sex tourism and women negotiating modernity in the Sinai’Gender, Place and Culture 16: 1, 43-61
Book Chapters
Jacobs, J. (2006) ‘Tourist Places and Negotiating Modernity: European Women and Romance Tourism in the Sinai’ in Travels in Paradox: Remapping Tourism Claudio Minca & Tim Oakes (eds) Rowman & Littlefield, New York and London
Films
Jacobs, J. (2010) Visualising the Past: Rebranding the PresentI, II & III (9mins, 10mins & 2mins) with Zaher Al Saghir, Dalia Salem, Kieron Teather, Michael Ho
Jacobs, J. (2010) Visualising the Past: Rebranding the Present IV Bitter Coffee (12mins) with Zaher Al Saghir, Kieron Teather and Eduardo Vidal
Jacobs, J. (2007) Sinai Sun: Traditional Tourists and Modern Bedouin (34mins) with Alexa Firat, Hussein Abu Ahmed, Kieron Teather, Napoleon Stratogiannakis
Other Publications
Jacobs, J. (2011) ‘Postcolonial Encounters’ Creative Practice Primer (Eds, Michael Gallagher & Jonathan Prior)
Jacobs, J. (2010) 'Queens of the Desert and the Ethnomasquerade' in Go Down Moses: A book on the South Sinai (Ed, Ahmad Hosni) European Commission
Jacobs, J. (2009) Damascus in Encyclopedia of Urban Studies (Ed, Ray Hutchison) Sage London
Jacobs, J (1997, 1999 & 2003) The Sinai Desert, Suez Canal and Red Sea Coast chapters in The Rough Guide to Egypt by Dan Richardson, Penguin, London & New York
Conference or symposia papers (selected)
2013‘Film as a Critical Methodology in the Social Sciences’ International Visual Sociology Association; The Public Image,Jul 8-10 Goldsmiths University of London
2012‘Visualizing the Visceral: Film as Research Output’ Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting 24-28 Feb, New York, USA
2011‘What are you looking at?’ Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers Aug 31 – Sep 2 as part of Moving Geographies: Film and Video as Research Method
‘Visualising the Visceral: Exploring the role of filmmaking in the (re)production of Intangible Heritage’ Sharing Cultures – 2nd International Conference on Intangible Heritage Tomar, Portugal 3-6 July
2010‘Re-branding the Arab City: Modernity and Heritage in Amman and Damascus’ World Congress for Middle East Studies, Barcelona 19-24 July
‘Visualising the Past, Re-Branding the Present’ Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting Washington DC 14-18 April
‘Re-placing the Past’ Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting Washington DC 14-18 April
‘Re‐Visioning the Levant: Film as Participatory Practice’ Cultural Studies Association meeting 18-20 March, 2010 Berkeley, California
2009‘Re-branding the Levant – Heritage and Tourism in Amman and Damascus’Cairo Congress Cultural Heritage, Science and Technology 6–8 December Sama’ Khana Theater
2009‘Re-branding the Levant: contested heritage and colonial modernities in Amman and Damascus’ Traditions and Transformations: Tourism, Heritage and Cultural Change in the Middle East and North Africa 4–7 April Amman, Jordan
2006‘Drama Queens of the Desert: Romance/Sex Tourism as Time Travel’ Travelling Sexualities Canadian Anthropological Society 9-14 May Montreal, Canada
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH AWARDS
A Different Sense of Space: How Bedouins mapped the Sinai(20014-16) Principle Investigator
British Academy/Leverhulme Trust
This project will digitize, collect, translate and film an under-researched series of documents housed in St. Katherine’s monastery in order to build up a historical geography of the Bedouin in South Sinai and assess how the tribal territories that developed over time relate to the boundaries that are present today.
Rebranding the Levant: Contested Heritage and Colonial Modernities in Amman and Damascus (2008-2011) £399,000 (Co-Investigator) Economic and Social Research Council (UK)
Using collaborative film as a primary research method, this project explores the rise of new local postcolonial discourses on cultural heritage in the region and the ways in which such local re-imaginations of the past intersect with globalised understandings of local and regional political identities.
Sinai Sun: Traditional Tourists and Modern Bedouin (2007) £20,000 (plus OU support)
Principal Investigator (Arts and Humanities Research Council UK)
This 34-minute collaborative film adopted a range of perspectives to investigate how western imaginations of the desert and nomad influence the local development of the Sinai tourist industry.
Legend, History, Hospitality: Exploring Geographical Imaginations of the Levant (2004-5) £3,500 Funded by Council for British Research in the Levant (British Academy)
This study investigated geographical imaginations in tourist-local encounters. Empirical research (qualitative interviews in situ) focused on tourist sites in Jordan and Syria.
INTERNATIONAL LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS (Invited participant)
Tourism in the Global South: Landscapes, Identities and DevelopmentLisbon 24-25 Jan, 2013
Keynote speaker for the 5th International Seminar on Tourism and Spatial Planning organised byTERRiTUR, Centre for Geographical Studies, University of Lisbon, Portugal
I ♥Egypt: Sex, tourism and landscapes of longing in the Sinai14 Feb 2012Dickinson College Pennsylvania USAInvited speaker for a mixed Middle East Studies/ Gender Studies Lecture
Working Creatively with Sound and Image Nov 2010 Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, UK
All participants documented their work to produce an online ‘Creative Practice Primer’, a resource for researchers who wish to experiment with creative methods and need advice on techniques and technology. Funded by a Vitae Innovate Award (£10,000).
Documentary film in teaching and scholarship18-20 March, 2010 Berkeley, California, USA
Cultural Studies Association meeting
Invited participant for seminar organized by the Media and Cinema Division; with the Critical Feminist Division & Media Interventions Division; in collaboration with Women Make Movies
Constructing the Past in the Middle East 4-31 July, 2004 Istanbul, Turkey
UCLA International Institute /Getty Museum
One of 23 experts selected by UCLA/Getty Institute to attend a four-week Summer Institute on heritage with ZeynepCelik (New Jersey School of Architecture), Derek Gregory (British Columbia), Zahi Hawas (Egyptian Minister of Antiquities) and Muayyed Said Damerji (former director of Department of Antiquities in Iraq).
TEACHING PROFILE
I have designed short course on the use of film as a research method.I have experience of supervising, teaching and examining undergraduate and masters level students through lectures, seminars, coursework and tutorials. I have marked practice essays and assessed essays, held regular office hours and maintained consistent contact with my students. As someone who has lived outside of the UK for extended periods I have particularly useful transferable skills for student fieldtrips.
2003-2005 Fieldwork and supervision (Social Sciences)
While at CBRL I supervised Masters students based in the Institute working on a wide range of subjects ranging from Neolithic tools of the Levant, to intergenerational expectations of education among contemporary Syrian women.I organised a reading group and visiting lecture series for visiting scholars and students and lecturers from local Jordanian universities.
2009-11Royal Holloway University of London
Designed Seminars
2008-11 MA Cultural Geography seminar ‘Film as a Research Method’ I also designed and ran a session for PhD students on ‘How to manage your supervisor’.
Lectures
May 2011 ‘The Arab Spring, social networking and changing the terms of 'Us' and 'Them'.
Open Lecture
Oct 2010 Departmental seminar and film screening ‘Rebranding the Levant’.
Nov 2011Departmental lecture ‘Participatory video as creative practice: Collaborative filmmaking among Bedouin communities in Jordan’. Invited by Politics, Development and Sustainability Group.
2011-2014Queen Mary University of London
BA Geography (first and second year students)
1. Introduction to Geographical Ideas and Practice – weekly tutorials and seminars
(2 hours), setting and marking essays
2. Geographical Research in Practice – biweekly tutorials, degree project supervision and preparation for qualitative research projects
Personal Tutor with weekly office hours
2012Birkbeck, University of London
Workshops - Practical approaches to using filmas a research method
Part of the ‘Doing Critical Research series’ this two-hour workshop was oversubscribed so a second workshop was added.
BEYOND THE ACADEMY
I have particular experience in reaching an audience beyond the classroom. My filmed output is also usedto reach out to other disciplines, policy-makers and anengaged non-academic audience.
June 2010 Rebranding the Levant – Visualising the Past, Rebranding the Present Workshop I Amman, hosted by Council for British Research in the Levant
Attended by participants who had been interviewed for the ESRC ‘Rebranding the Levant’ research project. The workshop was also filmed. Followed by a screening and discussion of the films open to all.(Second workshop in Damascus, organised with British Council cancelled.)
2009BEDU International– Filmmaking Workshops in Jordan – a series of innovative collaborative creative filmmaking workshops among Bedouin communities. Pilot study funded by Royal Film Commission
Selected Screenings
2013 Coalab - Cinecoa 3rd International Festival of Cinema Foz Coa
Looking for Gold was one of nine film projects in development selected to participate in a series of pitching sessions, round tables and case studies as part of this three day film festival.
2012 London Middle East and North Africa Film Festival
Leighton House Museum, London UKOctober 2012
Visualizing the Past, Rebranding the Present II
In a dusty corner of this ancient world, if we turn down an alleyway, just past the Omayyad mosque, we find a antique shop and art gallery run by Zaher, a young Syrian whose family own a string of shops in the Old City. Here, as we sip our tea and listen to a neighbouring musician play the oud, we meet some of Zaher's customers and begin to discover what draws them to this city. Among them is a Texan doctor searching for an encounter, a Dutch postwoman clutching her Lonely Planet guide, a Sky TV cameraman coming for a wedding and two ex-US soldiers on an Arabic language programme with ‘diplomatic’ passports.
2012 Alwan for the ArtsNew York, USA
The City – Visualising the Past, Rebranding the Present I, II, III & IV
Screening & Discussion Invited as part of their series on the Arab city
2010 Tate Britain
The lure of the lens in art practice and research methods: Cultural Heritage, Mobility and Visual Practices Although much has been written about the lens as a colonial tool, film and other lens-based media remain the media of choice for many contemporary artists and are increasingly being used as an alternative methodology within the research community. This symposium and screening explored the impact of my films with invited artists and filmmakers. This event sold out before it was properly advertised. Supported by London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange, The Delfina Foundation and Research and Enterprise, Royal Holloway, University of London
1