Bethan Evans is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Liverpool.

Bethan has previously worked as Lecturer in Human Geography and Medical Humanities at Durham University and Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. Bethan’s research cuts across social, cultural and political geographies and is, broadly speaking, driven by a concern with the ways in which particular spaces and institutions produce and reinforce ideas about acceptable forms of embodiment, and how we might create more inclusive spaces and institutions.

Bethan’s previous work has explored this in relation to fatness, including work on the (bio)politics of anti-obesity policies in schools, public health, urban planning, and geographic scholarship, and on the ways in which social, material and political economic factors interact in spaces of commercial air travel in ways that produce symbolic and material violence for fat passengers. Bethan’s research has also considered the role of friendship and curiosity in relation to place-based understandings of wellbeing, has explored the geographies of youth and engaging young people in political histories, has considered the embodied politics of anti-fatness research, and the potential for fat studies and fat activism to play a part in the development of the critical medical humanities. Most recently, Bethan has been working with ‘Chronic Illness Inclusion’ (CII) to look at gendered experiences of disbelief and disregardwithin health and social care for people in England living with Energy Limiting Chronic Illness (ELCI).

Biographical details correct as of 27.08.25