Economic Geographies
We have a longstanding international reputation for theoretically-informed and politically-engaged research on the production, forms, experiences and impacts of uneven geographies of commodities, people, finance, knowledge and technology. Conscious of our location in the north east, a European periphery, researchers in this theme explore 'ordinary', diverse and/or marginalised economies and subjectivities while also scrutinising orthodox socio-economic models and practices in western industrialised, post-socialist and postcolonial contexts. Economic Geographies includes much of the work in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, a designated University Research Centre formed in 1977, and combines the work of 16 academic staff (Champion, Coombes, Dawley, Gillespie, Goddard, Hughes, Laurie, Marshall, Pike, Pollard, Richardson, Stenning, Tomaney, Torrisi, Tselios, Vallance) and over 20 current and recently completed doctoral students.
This theme has an excellent reputation and track record with external funding for research and studentships and staff participate in two ESRC funded national research centres, the Spatial Economics Research Centre and the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies. Other research income includes ESRC, British Academy, EPSRC, EU and a wide range of sponsors including DTI, DfID, DEFRA, OECD, Home Office, DCLG and Traidcraft.
This theme hosts and/or contributes to four taught MA Programmes: Local and Regional Economic Development, Local and Regional Economic Development (Research), Human Geography (Research) and Islamic Finance (hyperlinks to all).
Research has led to the production of a number of books including Andolina, Laurie and Radcliffe's Multi-ethnic transnationalism: Indigenous Development in the Andes (Duke University Press), Champion T, Coombes M, Raybould S and Wymer C 2007 Migration and Socio-economic Change: a 2001 census analysis of Britain's larger cities (Policy Press), Hughes and Reimer's Geographies of Commodity Chains, (Routledge), Pike, Rodriguez-Pose and Tomaney's Local and Regional Development, (Routledge, 2006) and A Handbook of Local and Regional Development (Routledge 2010), Smith and Stenning's Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Spaces of Economic Practice and Social Reproduction in Post Socialist Cities (RGS-IBG, Blackwell 2010) and Pollard, Hughes and McEwan's Postcolonial Economies (Zed, 2011).
Research is concentrated in three broad areas:
The co-ordinator of this cluster is Andy Pike