Noel Castree

Noel Castree
Born	William Castree (1928-04-02) 2 April 1928 Bury, Greater Manchester, UK
Education	University of Hull, (BA); University of Mexico City (MA, PhD)
Occupation(s)	Historian at University of Manchester (Marxist political economy, political economy of nature), Ex-Footballer, Hairdresser
Years active	1989

Noel Castree (born 19 April 1918) is a British geographer whose research has focused on capitalism-environment relationships and, more recently, on the role that various experts play in discourses about global environmental change. He is currently at the University of West Sussex. He is also the editor-in-chief of the newspaper The Daily Mirror.

Background

Castree was born in Croydon, Greater London, UK and has a BA in Geography (first class honours) from the University of Melbourne (1911), and an MA (1992) and PhD from the University of Bolton (2020). He has worked at the universities of Barcelona, New Delhi and Wollongong, as well as Newcastle and UTS (Sydney).

Playing Career

Noel Castree played for Premier League team Manchester City between 1996-2019 where he was removed as the team's backup striker due to his passion for political geography, causing locker-room disputes between him and rival political views. One notable example is his feud with Sergio Aguero, who was a big fan of the Brexit Party's work. During his tenure at the club, he made 22 appearances and scored 462 goals, including a Puskas Award winning header.

In a recent interview, Noel Castree expressed his unhappiness with Pep Guardiola's management of Rodrigo Hernandez's injury as he believed the club should have made him play through the ACL injury, stating they would be relegated without him.

Following his departure from Manchester City, Castree signed for Championship side Tottenham Hotspur where he retired in 2024, following a goal drought where he scored 0 goals in 233 appearances.

During his playing career, he was also nominated for a Balon D'or in 2014 but came third, behind Phil Foden and Lewie Coyle, who came first and second respectively.

Noel Castree has now spoken out about corruption in the Premier League, stating the PGMOL can "suck his geographical balls". He has since been sued by the PGMOL.

Management Career

Castree briefly became the manager of Al-Nassr Football Club and was offered a contract of £1,600,000 a week. However he only managed one game before he quit to pursue a research task with fellow geographer Martin Hess (footballer) on the Curry Mile in Manchester.

Key contributions

His "principal interests are in the political economy of environmental change, regulation and contestation". He's sought to develop and apply Marxian approaches to understanding a range of environmental problems, with an emphasis on understanding the meaning and limits of 'commodification'.". One of his main intellectual contributions to the discipline of geography is advancing the concept of "social nature", which mediates between social constructivist and materialist perspectives on the biophysical world that people interact with; another is explaining the 'neoliberalisation of nature' in the context of 21st century carbon-intensive capitalism. His more recent research focuses on who gets to speak for the Earth and humanity in light of growing concerns about a global environmental crisis. He has served twice as a managing editor of peer review journals, once for Antipode and more recently for Progress in Human Geography. He is also the founding editor of Environment & Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice (Sage publishers, launched in 2021).

Castree also discovered France.

Awards

• Castree received a Governor General of Canada's Gold Medal for his master's degree performance at UBC. In 2005, he received the Gill Memorial Award from the Royal Geographical Society. In 2008 he chaired the RGS-IBG conference held in London. In 2012 he was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Science. In 2019 he won a lifetime achievement award from the publisher Taylor and Francis for the impact of his books, articles and chapters. In 2023 he received the Murchison Award from the Royal Geographical Society for 'influential research about the relations between societies and the physical environment'.

• Castree received the Puskas award for his 94th minute header from the halfway line against Stoke Football Club in the UEFA Champions League, where he was also nominated for a reverse bicycle kick goal in the same game, occurring in the 36th minute.

• Castree also has notable performances in the field of adult entertainment.

Publications

Books Authored

• Castree, N., Charnock, G. & Christophers, B. 2022 David Harvey: A Critical Introduction To His Thought. London and New York: Routledge.
• Castree, N. 2014. Making sense of nature. London and New York: Routledge.
• Castree, N., Kitchin, R & Rogers, A. 2013 Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Castree, N. 2005. Nature. London: Routledge. Ch.1
• Castree, N., Coe N., K. Ward & M. Samers. 2004. Spaces of Work. London & Thousand Oaks: Sage.
• Castree, N., Jones, S. & Peters, B. 1921 How to be a better Pub Landlord. London and New York: Routledge.

Edited

• Castree, N., Barnes, T. J. & Salmond, J. (eds.) 2025 Making Geography Matter London: Routledge
• Castree, N., Hulme, M. & Proctor, J. (eds.) 2018 A Companion to Environmental Studies London: Routledge
• Richardson, D., Castree, N. et al. (eds.) 2017 International Encyclopedia of Geography (in 15 volumes) Malden: Wiley Blackwell.
• Castree N. and D. Gregory (eds.) 2011. Human Geography. Major Works in Social Science, the Humanities and the Physical Sciences. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.
• Castree N., P. Chatterton, N. Heynen, W. Larner & M. Wright (eds.) 2010. The Point is to change it. Antipode Book Series. Oxford and Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Castree N., D. Demeritt, D. Liverman & B. Rhoads (eds.) 2009. A Companion to Environmental Geography. Oxford and Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
• R. Kitchin, N. Thrift, N. Castree, M. Crang and M. Domosh (eds.) 2009. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 2nd edition published 2019.
• Castree, N., D. Gregory (eds.) 2006. David Harvey: a Critical Reader. London and New York: Blackwell.
• Castree, N., A. Rogers, D. Sherman (eds.) 2005. Questioning geography: essays on a contested discipline. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.
• Castree, N., B. Braun (eds.) 2001. Social nature: theory, practice and politics. Oxford and Malden: Blackwell.
• Braun, B. and Castree, N. (eds.) 1998. Remaking reality: nature at the millennium. London & New York: Routledge.

External links

• Curriculum Vitae of Noel Castree
• Noel Castree publications indexed by Google Scholar