Publications

Both educational policies and academic literature assume that students take an instrumental approach to their studies at university. However, despite wide-ranging discussions in the academic literature about contemporary arrangements and practices in higher education, empirical examinations of these conditions are notably scarce. This article reports on a comparative qualitative study into undergraduate students’ accounts of…

This comment explores the relation between geoeconomics and geopolitics from a critical realist, strategic-relational, and cultural political economy perspective. We disambiguate the ‘geo-’ family of concepts; introduce a more complex view of sociospatiality that enables a taxonomy of approaches to geopolitical analytical objects and inquiries; and illustrate this from China’s Belt and Road Initiative seen…

This paper offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of belonging in local communities. To do so it draws on a broad existing literature which argues that comfort is a key dimension of our attachments to place. The argument that experiences of local belonging (or otherwise) are related to a person’s sense of comfort is…

A prominent feature of media coverage during the UK’s referendum on European Union (EU) membership was the stark difference between the pro-EU young and their Eurosceptic elders, widely assumed to reflect a generational divide. The positive relationship between age and hostility towards the EU is well established in academic research, however only Down, and Wilson…

Over the last 20 years, the use of administrative data has become central to understanding pupil attainment and school performance. Of most importance has been its use to robustly demonstrate the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on pupil attainment. Much of this analysis in England and Wales has relied on whether pupils are eligible for free…

This ‘in perspective’ piece addresses the (re-)positioning of civil society within new structures of city-region governance within Greater Manchester. This follows on from the processes of devolution, which have given the Greater Manchester City-Region a number of new powers. UK devolution, to date, has been largely focused upon engendering agglomerated economic growth at the city-region…

This paper makes the case for the conceptual use of the everyday in economic geography. It does this by firstly demonstrating the explanatory potential that lies in attending to the lived experience of economic development and, secondly, the ability of the everyday to occupy a meso-level analytical position that is sensitive to the agency of…

Film as a research method for collecting and analysing visual data has a long and rich history within the fields of anthropology and ethnography. This approach is less commonly used within the social sciences and still less within the political sciences. This paper goes some way towards defining the parameters of visual methodology in the…

Despite clear linkages between conceptualisations and perceptions of politics, society, culture and territorial rescaling, research into young people’s political engagement, participation and representation is underrepresented in the field of social and cultural geography. Here the gap is addressed using perceptions of devolved politics, as a form of territorial rescaling, among young people living in Wales….

Public libraries make an important contribution to the wellbeing of local people often acting as community hubs by reducing the isolation felt by vulnerable members of society through promoting social interaction and supporting the wider needs of local communities. However, access to libraries is threatened in Wales, as elsewhere in the UK, by uncertainty stemming…