Staff Profile

Background

I am Professor of Economic Geography in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) and the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. I have an undergraduate degree in Geography from Sheffield University (UK), an MA in Geography from McMaster University (Canada) and a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California Los Angeles (USA). My research interests span geographies of money and finance, the role of financial intermediaries in regional economic development and the changing nature and practices of economic geography as a sub-discipline. Current research focuses on the geo-economic, political and social constitution of financial networks, sub-prime debt markets and questions around institutional diversity and credit provision for low income groups.

Roles and Responsibilities

Lead Editor for Economic Geography Sept 1 2015-

In 2012 I was commissioned by ESRC to author the Economic Geography submission to the International Benchmarking Review of UK Human Geography

Director of Research in Geography (2004-2009, 2010-2014)                                   

Qualifications

BA Geography, Sheffield University,UK
MA Geography, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
PhD Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles

Memberships

Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers
Association of American Geographers
Higher Education Academy

Honours and Awards

In 2019 I was awarded a Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS)

Visiting Faculty Fellow, Center for Place, Culture and Politics, City University New York 2014-
Visiting Professor Lewis Center, Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA 2014-15
Chair, Economic Geography Research Group, RGS-IBG (2003-6)

Google scholar: Click here. 

Research Interests

Geographies of money and finance; regional economic development; postcolonial economies; diverse economies; economic geography as a sub-discipline.

I am an economic geographer with interests in three broad areas of activity. First, I am interested in geographies of money and finance. A second, related, stream of work concerns the construction of diverse economies. Some of this work, undertaken with Nick Henry (Newcastle) and Cheryl McEwan (Durham), explored some of Birmingham’s transnational trading networks responsible for producing commodities such as Bhangra music and a wide range of Asian foods. Finally, I am interested in the changing nature and practices of economic geography as a sub-discipline. The theoretical concerns that pull these strands together include theorising the status of finance in economic development, geographical political economy and what are being called the 'new economic geographies'.

Recent and ongoing Work

Recent and ongoing work includes:

(1) Financialisation in Higher Educational Institutions in the US (with Ishara Cassellas Connors, Jessa Loomis and Emily Rosenman)

(2) The resurgence of subprime debt in auto loan markets in the US (with Evelyn Blumenberg and Stephen Brumbaugh)

I have also worked on a project entitled "Charitable giving practices amongst Somali migrant communities in London's East End"  (with Kavita Datta and Al James in the School of Geography at Queen Mary University, London). The project, funded through Queen Mary's centre for the Study of Migration, is part of a larger programme of research and is exploring Somali practices of charitable giving, community building and mutual support in the aftermath of recession. 

I have completed an ESRC funded project on the regulation of small firms (with Simon Down, Institute for International Management Practice, Anglia Ruskin University, Paul Richter (Newcastle University Business School) and Monder Ram (Centre for Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, De Montfort University). This interdisciplinary research adopted a longitudinal, multi-method framework to explore how small firms understand and respond to different forms of regulation in contrasting sectoral and geographic contexts. The research is being disseminated to academic audiences, policy makers in regional and national government, small business support organisations, consultant/lobbying bodies, legal organisations and trade unions. The initial tranche of writing for this will focus on the regulatory power of finance in shaping small firm behaviour.

Other work has explored the growth of Islamic financial markets and how their construction varies in different regional, regulatory, political and cultural contexts. I am also interested in the capacity of Islamic finance - whether delivered through banks, charities or other agencies- to support job creation and empowerment in low income areas.

I have also worked with colleagues (Alex Hughes, Uma Kothari, Nina Laurie, Cheryl McEwan and Alison Stenning) to explore different ways of thinking about the economic. Through our ESRC seminar series on Postcolonial economies, we brought together a dispersed international and interdisciplinary group of scholars from Geography, Economics, Development Studies, Anthropology, History, Cultural Studies and elsewhere to explore some of the challenges and possibilities of using postcolonial approaches to think about contemporary economies.

Research Roles

I sit on the Editorial Boards of:

Environment and Planning A

Growth and Change 

Geography Compass: Economic Geography

Postgraduate Supervision

Geographies of money and finance; regional economic development; diverse economies; entrepreneurship.

David Dodds Tech Nation UK? 'Placing' the local geographies of path creation in the digital sector (ESRC)

Tom Strickland "Financialising urban development? A US-UK comparison" (ESRC)

Charlotte Johnson "Private spaces and public utilities: Studying socioeconomic change in Serbian homes" (ESRC)

Emile Boustani " Financialisation, industrial activity and local development in Central Europe" (ESRC)

Liam Keenan " Financialisation and the decline of the local pub: an Anglo-German comparison" (ESRC)

Gemma Bone "The politics of debt: the struggle for social utility" (ESRC)

Waziri Galadima "Islamic home finance in the UK"

Ayham Rezk "Syrian population geography"

Gisela Zapata "Gender and social dimensions of migration and remittances"

Sam Randalls “Firms, finance and risk: hedging against the weather" (ESRC-NERC)

Jon Swords "Developing Northumberland’s Natural Heritage Cluster: Potentials, Problems and Pitfalls"(ESRC-CASE)

Paul Vallance "Knowledge in the UK videogames development sector: a practice based approach"(ESRC)

Lalith Welamedage "Developing technological capabilities in small and medium-sized enterprises: a study of the role of technology policies and support agencies in Sri Lanka”

Felicity Wray "Venture capitalism in the North East of England" (ESRC).

Research Funding:

2015 British Academy Geographies of Mobility: subprime debt in US auto loan markets (with Evelyn Blumenberg)

2011 - Centre for the Study of Migration, QMUL, Somali migrants' charitable giving practices in London's East End  (with Kavita Datta and Al James)

2009-2012 ESRC, Situating small business regulation: A longitudinal study of how small firms receive, understand and respond to regulation (with Simon Down & Paul Richter (Newcastle University Business School) and Monder Ram (De Montfort University))

2007-2008 British Academy, The production of trust: making Islamic finance in the UK and US (with Michael Samers, University of Kentucky)

2005-2007 ESRC Seminar Series, Postcolonial Economies, with Alex Hughes (GPS), Nina Laurie (GPS), Alison Stenning (CURDS), Uma Kothari (Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester), Cheryl McEwan (School of Geography, University of Durham).

2003-2004 ONE North East, Strategic Futures: The North East’s Financial Markets

2003 Faculty of Arts and Humanities Research Fund, University of Newcastle - Postcolonial economic geographies: mapping minority ethnic banks in the UK

2000-2001 Nuffield Foundation -Financial networks in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter 1750-2000 (with Francesca Carnevali, School of History, University of Birmingham)

1998 HSBC Holdings Small Research Grant - The circulation of conventions of restructuring in the banking industry

Undergraduate Teaching

GEO2099 Economic Geography

GEO3160 Economies in Crisis: Money and Labour

GEO334 Local and Regional Development

GEO3099 Dissertation module

Postgraduate Teaching

GEO8016 Philosophies in Human Geography
GEO8017 Concepts in Action

• Pollard JS, Blumenberg E, Brumbaugh S. Driven to debt: social reproduction and (auto)mobility in Los Angeles. Annals of the Association of American Geography 2021, 111(5), 1445-1461.
• Marshall N, Dawley S, Pike A, Pollard J, Coombes M. An Evolutionary Perspective on the British Banking Crisis. Journal of Economic Geography 2019, 19(5), 1143-1167.
• Gray M, Pollard JS. Flourishing or floundering? Policing the boundaries of economic geography. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 2018, 50(7), 1541-1545.
• Poon J, Pollard J, Chow YW. Resetting Neoliberal Values: Lawmaking in Malaysia's Islamic Finance. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 2018, 108(5), 1442-1456.
• Pollard JS. Brexit and the wider UK economy. Geoforum 2021, 125, 197-198.
• James A, Datta K, Pollard JS, Akli Q. Building Financial Resilience: Migrant Economies of Charitable Giving. Financial Geography Working Paper Series 2018, 25.
• Pollard JS, Richter P, Down S, Ram M. Financialisation and small firms: A qualitative analysis of bio-science and film and media firms. International Small Business Journal 2018, 36(3), 247-264.
• Marshall JN, Dawley S, Pike A, Pollard JS. Geographies of corporate philanthropy: The Northern Rock Foundation. Environment and Planning A 2017, 50(2), 266-287.
• Martin RL, Pollard JS, ed. Handbook on the Geographies of Money and Finance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017.
• Martin RL, Pollard JS. The geography of money and finance. In: Martin, RL; Pollard, JS, ed. Handbook on the Geographies of Money and Finance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017, pp.1-26.
• Henry ND, Pollard JS, Sissons P, Ferreira J, Coombes M. Banking on exclusion: Data disclosure and geographies of UK personal lending markets. Environment and Planning A 2017, 49(9), 2046-2064.
• Poon J, Pollard JS, Chow J, Ewers M. The rise of Kuala Lumpur as an Islamic financial frontier. Regional Studies 2017, 51(10), 1443-1453.
• Aalbers MB, Pollard JS. Geographies of Money, Finance and Crisis. In: Daniels, PW; Bradshaw, MJ; Shaw, D; Sidaway, JD; Hall, T, ed. An Introduction to Human Geography. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2017, pp.365-378.
• Pollard JS, Datta K, James A, Akli Q. Islamic charitable infrastructure and giving in East London: everyday economic-development geographies in practice. Journal of Economic Geography 2016, 16(4), 871-896.
• Henry N, Sissons P, Coombes M, Ferreira J, Pollard JS. Tackling Financial Exclusion: data disclosure and area based lending data. London: Community Development Foundation, 2014.
• Dawley S, Marshall JN, Pike A, Pollard J, Tomaney J. Continuity and Evolution in an Old Industrial Region: The Labour Market Dynamics of the Rise and Fall of Northern Rock. Regional Studies 2014, 48(1), 154-172.
• Pollard JS. Gendering capital: Financial crisis, financialization and (an agenda for) economic geography. Progress in Human Geography 2013, 37(3), 403-423.
• Christopherson S, Martin RL, Pollard JS. Financialisation: roots and repercussions. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2013, 6(3), 351-357.
• Pollard JS, Samers M. Governing Islamic Finance: Territory, Agency, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Financial Geographies. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2013, 103(3), 710-726.
• Pollard JS, Leyshon A, Henderson G, Christophers B. Book review symposium: Locating banks, tracking money: Banking across Boundaries: Placing Finance in Capitalism. Progress in Human Geography 2013, 1-12.
• Marshall JN, Pike A, Pollard JS, Tomaney J, Dawley S, Gray J. Placing the run on Northern Rock. Journal of Economic Geography 2012, 12(1), 157-181.
• Dawley S, Marshall JN, Pike A, Pollard J, Tomaney J. The Labour Market Impact of the Run on Northern Rock: Continuity and Evolution in an old Industrial Region. Utrecht, Netherlands: Utrecht University, 2011. Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography.
• Pollard J, McEwan C, Hughes A, ed. Postcolonial Economies. London, UK: Zed Books, 2011.
• Benner C, Berndt C, Coe N, Engelen E, Essletzbichler J, Glassman J, Glückler J, Grote M, Jones A, Leichenko R, Leslie D, Lindner P, Lorenzen M, Mansfield B, Murphy JT, Pollard JS, Power D, Stam E, Wòjcik D, Zook M. Emerging Themes in Economic Geography:Outcomes of the Economic Geography 2010Workshop. Economic Geography 2011, 87(2), 111-126.
• Wray F, Marshall N, Pollard J. Finance and local and regional economic development. In: Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J, ed. Handbook of Local and Regional Development. London and New York: Routledge, 2011, pp.356-370.
• Pike A, Pollard JS. Economic Geographies of Financialization. Economic Geography 2010, 86(1), 29-51.
• Pollard JS, McEwan C, Laurie ND, Stenning AC. Economic geography under postcolonial scrutiny. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2009, 34(2), 137-142.
• Pollard JS, Storper M. A tale of twelve cities: Metropolitan employment change in dynamic industries in the 1980s. Economic Geography 1996, 72(1), 1-22.
• Pollard JS. Feminism and work. In: Kitchin R; Thrift NJ, ed. The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Oxford: Elsevier, 2009, pp.29-36.
• Pollard JS, Oldfield J, Randalls S, Thornes J. Firm finances, weather derivatives and geography. Geoforum 2008, 39(2), 616-624.
• Pollard JS. The global financial system: worlds of monies An introduction to Human Geography: issues for the 21st century, 3rd edition, Pearson. In: Daniels PW; Bradshaw MJ; Shaw DJB; Sidaway JD, ed. An introduction to Human Geography: issues for the 21st century. Harlow: Pearson, 2008.
• McEwan C, Henry ND, Pollard JS. The non-global city of Birmingham UK: a gateway through time. In: Benton-Short L; Price M, ed. Migrants to the Metropolis: the rise of immigrant gateway cities. Syracuse: University of Syracuse Press, 2008.
• Pollard JS, Samers M. Islamic banking and finance: Postcolonial political economy and the decentring of economic geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2007, 32(3), 313-330.
• Pollard JS. Making money, (re)making firms: Microbusiness financial networks in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. Environment and Planning A 2007, 39(2), 378-397.
• Henry N, Pollard JS, Benneworth P. Putting Clusters in Their Place. In: Asheim B; Cooke P; Martin R, ed. Clusters in Regional Development. London: Routledge, 2006.
• McEwan C, Pollard JS, Henry N. The 'global' in the city economy: Multicultural economic development in Birmingham. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2005, 29(4), 916-933.
• Pollard JS. From industrial district to 'Urban Village'? Manufacturing, money and consumption in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. Urban Studies 2004, 41(1), 173-193.
• Pollard JS. Manufacturing culture in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. In: Power D; Scott AJ, ed. Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture. London: Routledge, 2004, pp.169-187.
• Pollard JS. Small firm finance and economic geography. Journal of Economic Geography 2003, 3(4), 429-452.
• Pollard JS, Sidaway JD. Euroland: economic, political and cultural geographies. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2002, 27(1), 7-10.
• Henry N, McEwan C, Pollard JS. Globalization from below: Birmingham - postcolonial workshop of the world?. Area 2002, 34(2), 117-127.
• Pollard JS, Sidaway JD. Nostalgia for the future: the geoeconomics and geopolitics of the Euro. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2002, 27(4), 518-521.
• Henry N, Pollard JS, Sidaway J. Beyond the margins of economics: Geographers, economists, and policy relevance. Antipode 2001, 33(2), 205-207.
• Alexander AF, Pollard JS. Banks, grocery retailers and the changing retailing of financial services. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 2000, 7(3), 137-147.
• Leyshon A, Pollard JS. Geographies of industrial convergence: the case of retail banking. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2000, 25(2), 203-220.
• Pollard JS, Henry ND, Bryson J, Daniels PW. Shades of grey? Geographers and policy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2000, 25(2), 243-248.
• Pollard JS. Globalisation, regulation and the changing organisation of retail banking in the United States and Britain. In: Martin RL, ed. Money and the space economy. Chichester: Wiley, 1999, pp.49-70.
• Lee R, Clark GL, Pollard JS, Leyshon A. The remit of financial geography - before and after the crisis. Journal of Economic Geography 2009, 9(5), 723-747.
• Pollard JS, Lim H, Brown R. Muslim economic initiatives: global finance and local projects. In: Phillips R, ed. Spaces of Hope for Muslims: Geographies of Possibility in Britain and the West. London: Zed Books, 2009.
• Dawley S, Marshall JN, Pike A, Pollard J, Tomaney J. Placing Labour Markets in the Evolution of Old Industrial Regions: the Case of Northern Rock. Institute of Education, London: Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies, 2012. LLAKES Research Paper Series 38.
• Henry N, Pollard JS, Sidaway J. The status of knowledge: policy relevance, economic geography and economics. Antipode 2001, 33(2), 200-207.
• Pollard JS, Leyshon A. Worlds in motion? ‘Worlds of production’, evolutionary change and contemporary retail banking. In: Bryson J; Daniels PW; Henry N; Pollard JS, ed. Knowledge, space, economy. London: Routledge, 2000, pp.142-156.
• Bryson J, Daniels P, Henry N, Pollard JS. Knowledge, Space, Economy. London: Routledge, 2000.
• Pollard JS. Banking on the margins: Geographies of financial exclusion in Los Angeles. Environment and Planning A 1996, 28(7), 1209-1232.
• Pollard JS. European financial systems. In: Unwin T, ed. A European Geography. Harlow: Longman, 1998, pp.186-202.
• Pollard JS. Lloyd’s of London: Some urban and regional implications of (re)insurance losses. European Urban and Regional Studies 1996, 3(4), 346-353.