Professor
Ron Lister Chair of Geography
Contact Details
Room 4C19, Richardson Building
Email jab@geography.otago.ac.nz
Tel 64 3 479 5356
Fax 64 3 479 9037
Background
Tony Binns graduated from the University of Sheffield, UK with BA (Hons) in Geography and Diploma in Education (with Distinction). After a period of school teaching in South Yorkshire (UK), he then graduated from the University of Birmingham with MA and PhD in Geography and African Studies. He was appointed to the University of Sussex (UK) in 1975 as Research Fellow in Economic Geography, and in 1976 as Lecturer in Geography in the School of African and Asian Studies. He was subsequently promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1994, and to Reader in 2000.
Tony took up the position of Ron Lister Chair of Geography at the University of Otago in October 2004, and was Head of the Department of Geography from July 2005 to December 2007. He has held Visiting Lectureships at Bayero University, Nigeria (1984), Witwatersrand University, South Africa (1993) and Rhodes University, South Africa (1996, 1998 and 2006). He spent the 2000-2001 academic year at Rhodes University, South Africa on a Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellowship.
Among his appointments outside the university, Tony was Honorary Secretary of The Geographical Association (1985-89), its first elected President (1994-95), Honorary Vice-President (1997-2002) and Chair of the Association's International Committee (1999-2004). He was also Chair of the Institute of British Geographers, Higher Education Study Group (1988-93). From 1995 to 2004, he was a Director and Council member of Worldaware, a UK-based development education organisation, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education. More recently, he has served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Applied Geography, New Zealand Geographer and Progress in Human Geography, and since 2000 he has been Editor of the successful Routledge Perspectives on Development series of books. In 2001, he was elected President of the Geographical Field Group, and in 2005 was elected Honorary Secretary (2005-8) of the Commonwealth Geographical Bureau. Tony was elected in 2004 as a member of the Steering Committee of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission: C04.27, Marginalization, globalization and regional and local responses. In 2008, he was elected President of the Commonwealth Geographical Bureau (2008-2012), and in 2009 was elected President of the New Zealand Geographical Society (2010-2011).
Tony has acted as external examiner at Undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral levels at many universities in UK, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He was external examiner (2002-4) for the Masters programme in Development Studies at Royal Holloway (University of London). Since 1998, in addition to presenting numerous papers at international conferences, he has also led workshops and delivered keynote lectures in Nairobi (Kenya), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Kano (Nigeria), Grahamstown, Stellenbosch, Matjhabeng (South Africa), Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada), Delhi (India), Rajshahi (Bangladesh), Brisbane (Australia), Lusaka (Zambia) and at the National University of Ireland (Maynooth).
Inaugural Professorial Lecture
Tony's Inaugural Professorial Lecture, "Marginal Lands, Marginal People, Marginal Geographies", is available as a video and audio file. Please follow the links below.
IPL Audio podcast (MP3)
IPL Video Pocast (MP4)
