EmmaLucy Cole is a UK-based writer, speaker, explorer and researcher. She is a PG fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy as a lecturer, and is currently studying towards a PhD at the University of Bristol researching how travel writers represent the Middle East.
With a habit of visiting places and forgetting to leave, she has become interested in the idea of Downward Exploration: rather than travelling long distances and seeing many places, this type of exploration allows us to focus in-depth on communities and local environments, learning about the cultures, habits, food and history – and forming close friendships which allow for deeper understanding and more ethical representations.
EmmaLucy has been studying and representing North African and Middle Eastern cultures for two decades, and in 2011 she decided to sell everything she owned in order to spend six weeks with a Bedouin tribe in Sinai, learning Arabic and researching local culture. Two years later she finally left, not only having gained a ginger Bedouin cat (called Bryan) and a myriad of stories, but also witnessing first-hand some of the ways in which marginalised nomadic groups can be misrepresented and manipulated. Her PhD is based on this fieldwork and her public lectures draw from these direct experiences and observations.
In 2018 she attended the Adventure Travel Film Festival in London and decided that motorcycles could be a powerful way to connect with women in marginalised cultures; crossing gender divides and enabling mobility and independence whilst on the road researching. She passed her test within a few months, bought a Triumph, and is now creating collaborative films about the joys and challenges of being a solo woman biker and researcher.
Since 2006 EmmaLucy has published online and in print, spoken at international conferences and events, been interviewed on BBC radio, provided research consultation for articles by fellow adventurers, and lectured at venues such as the Royal Geographical Society in London and the Jersey Arts Centre on the Channel Islands.
“You have a unique talent for teaching, especially a difficult subject, and I do hope we meet again in the future.” Mary, workshop in Sheffield
Audience members often comment on how ‘brave’ it was to live in the desert, or learn to ride a motorcycle, and this is one of the themes which EmmaLucy is particularly interested in discussing during public events. What does it mean to be brave and go on adventures? Can anyone do so? How can we encourage women to explore more? Should women – or indeed men – be courageous enough to travel solo?