Rate My Professor Connor Goddard

His PhD project, spanning 2020 to 2024, is titled "How are sea/tree change rural communities sustained? Exploring how place attachment is formed and how community is performed." This research seeks to identify elements of place and local community key in developing and sustaining attachments to place within rural and remote areas of Western Australia. Drawing on case studies from Hopetoun and Kalbarri, the study utilizes qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, to delve into concepts such as place attachment, belonging, post-productivism, community, and path dependence. It further investigates personal narratives, experiences across the life-course, transitions, and factors influencing counter-urbanisation flows alongside prolonged place attachments. The work aims to extend theoretical understandings within human geography and rural geography. Goddard presented related research at the 2024 American Association of Geographers annual meeting with the paper “Is it too late to move – again?” Two-step migration and decision-making in non-traditional rural retirement destinations. He also contributed a book review of Thinking Geographically to Geographical Research, published online in June 2025.