Research
Architecture and Political-Economy
One of the main things I do research on is the affinity between architecture and urban political-economy. Recently I have studied: i) medical architecture, and accessible design/urban space; ii) the relationship between architecture, political-economy, and time; and iii) models and modelling.
Relatedly, I am very interested in the ‘political economy of the local’ (my colleague Dr Michael Mair is to credit for that nice formulation). Recently Michael and I have together carried out a number of studies of local capitalisms in a range of sites and settings, addressing variously: the scale and scope of Private Finance Initiative; the embedding of the Localism Act; private sector conferences; and supermarkets as political actors.
I'm very happy to consider supervising PhD candidates researching in urban sociology in general, and particularly those who focus on: i) the entanglements between culture and political-economy in what is often called urban regeneration; and/or ii) the relationship between architecture, power, and social change. I have supervised successful PhD projects on: peer-to-peer file-sharing and intellectual property; regeneration discourse in Liverpool; participation and public art; gender and privatised urban space; urban revanchism and homelessness; the normalisation of personal credit and debt; student mobility and residential patterns; and green infrastructure and social capital. Currently I am lucky to be involved in projects studying the contemporary arts centre (Laura Harris), and the time and place of Port Sunlight (Ronnie Hughes).
Please do just get in touch if you feel like we have any research interests in common - I’d love to hear from you!