Terri Moreau

Education: 
MA in Geography 
(East Carolina University 2008, advisor: Dr. Derek Alderman)

BA in Anthropology 
(East Carolina University 2005, advisor: Dr. Holly Mathews)

Funding: 
ORSAS Award (Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme) 

Thomas Holloway PhD Studentship

Awards:   
Lionel Butler Travel Bursary (2010, Royal Holloway University of London)

Creative Campus Initiative Group Project (2010, Royal Holloway University of London)

Association of American Geographers, Communication Geography Specialty Group, Stanley Brunn Student Paper Award runner-up (2008, Boston, MA)

SouthEastern Division of the Association of American Geographers, Best Masters Paper Award winner (2007, Charleston, SC)

Subversive Sovereignty:
Micropatrias Enclaved by the United Kingdom

Supervisor: Professor Tim Cresswell
Advisor: Professor Klaus Dodds

My Email: t.a.moreau@rhul.ac.uk
Website: www.nationofheliotrope.com

This research investigates how micropatrias enclaved by the United Kingdom digitally and materially represent themselves creating a subversive form of sovereignty.  According to the International Micropatrological Society (IMS) and founded on the work of Frederick Lehmann, micropatrology is the study of small nations regardless of sovereignty (Billington 2009).  For the purposes of this research, micropatrias are defined as little known nations, states, territories, and countries lacking sovereignty or general recognition by sovereign nations that work not to achieve sovereignty through constitutive efforts but to subversively use the sovereign as a parodic template of socio-political critique through declarative efforts.  They are often started by individuals and are usually small in scale.  Micropatrias exist in a variety of forms and have been founded for numerous reasons.  The practice of creating non-sovereign nations has existed for ages and the oldest recorded and still active micropatria was established around 950 BC. 

Yet, as long as this practice has existed, it has been largely ignored by governments of ‘sovereign’ nations.  Surprisingly, academics have also given little attention to these highly political and cultural entities.  In unpacking micropatrial formation and representation, I plan to answer the following research questions:

• How are micropatrias subversive sovereignties?
• How do micropatrias represent themselves?
• How does parody play a role in these subversive representations?
• What are the greater implications of micropatrias beyond their representations?

To accomplish this goal, I will be using a mixed methods approach including interviews, archival research, discourse analysis, and reflexive ethnography.  The liminal position of these nations offers an understanding of the larger geopolitical processes of constitutive sovereignty and international relations. 

Publications:
Moreau, Terri and Derek H. Alderman.  2011 (in press).  ‘Graffiti Hurts’ and the Eradication of Alternative Landscape Expression, in special issue Popular Icons of Political Identity, guest edited by Pauliina Raento.  Geographical Review 101 (1).
Moreau, Terri.  2010.  ‘Spaces of Difference’ in Encyclopedia of Urban Studies edited by Ray Hutchison.  London, UK: Sage Publications, Inc, pp 756-759.
Moreau, Terri.  2010.  Book Review on Everyday Culture in Europe: Approaches and Methodologies edited by Máiréad Nic Craith, Ullrich Kockel, and Reinhard Johler (Ashgate).  European Spatial Research and Policy 17 (1): 171-173.