Theme: Just Geographies
We build upon human geography’s long-standing concern with the production and consequences of inequality and uneven development. This agenda is pursued through theoretically-informed and politically-engaged research. We have analytical concerns with housing, health and well-being, class and gender. Our work has developed novel qualitative and quantitative approaches to identifying and understanding social justice concerns. We prioritise transformative and participatory approaches to understanding the spread of injustice at a variety of spatial scales, guided by a critical imagination.
Cities
The oft-repeated United Nations statistic that over half the world’s population is now urban obscures a set of important qualifications. The pressures of urbanization are most keenly felt in cities of the Global South where rates of urbanisation are at their steepest. These pressures produce complex problems in areas such as environmental sustainability, urban-rural linkages, socio-economic equity, citizenship and political representation. In cities of the Global North, where rates of urbanization are relatively stable, neoliberalisation has generated new complexities. As historical ties between city and (regional and national) hinterlands begin to loosen, cities begin to fragment, residualising urban space and generating new, ‘advanced’, forms of marginality. Our research addresses these concerns by focusing on inter alia, gentrification and displacement, territorial stigmatisation and symbolic defamation, and on urban social movements fighting for the rights of those living at the bottom of the urban class structure in a variety of contexts.
Development
The consequences of development are somewhat contested at the start of the 21st century, but development itself remains amongst some of our most powerful ideas for social change. It is an innately ethical concept, for it is built upon a range of assumptions about what is necessary to ensure a just and dignified life. Our research explores how communities, civil society organizations, and states mediate processes of development, and draws upon a range of theoretical foundations in order to understand the structures and the human experiences of uneven development. Our publications include work on post-conflict state transition in the global south; young people in deprived communities; religion and development in the global south; development organizations and development processes; the relationships between social inequalities, development and environments; and normative political theory. We work closely with other colleagues across the University through the coordinated activities of the Centre for South Asian Studies, the Centre for African Studies and the Global Development Academy
Health and Inequality
Socio-spatial inequalities in health are ubiquitous in most countries. Our concern is with understanding and explaining the growing health divide. We are interested in examining the social, political and physical processes that work to link the environment and health. Our published research includes: environmental justice as a framework for understanding health inequalities; multiple environmental deprivation and health; geographies of health related behaviours (e.g. nutrition, physical activity and smoking); healthy built environments; ethnicity and health; and indigenous health. In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Glasgow, staff in Human Geography have established the Centre for Research on the Environment, Society and Health (CRESH). This collaboration explores how physical and social environments can influence population health, for better and for worse. Our research has been funded by agencies including ESRC, MRC, Chief Scientists Office and the Scottish Government.
People
This article was published on May 11, 2011