WHO WE ARE
The Politics, Economies and Place research group aims to create friendly spaces for the sharing of ideas and, ideally, baked goods. We are a group of postgraduate students and staff at the University of Auckland. Our research interests are diverse, but we find common ground in how the stuff of politics and/or economies ‘take place’. Check out what we’ve been doing on our Publications page and Blog. You can also hear from a few of our former postgraduate students on our Our Graduates page.
WHAT WE DO
We study the ways in which political and economic practices are entangled in their spatial contexts, from cities and regions, to the nation and beyond. Politics (how we make collective decisions) and economy (how we steward resources to generate livelihoods and reproduce society) are central to the organisation of social and cultural life. We examine their spatiality as both source and outcome of social change at multiple scales. Our staff and postgraduate students research assemblages of practices and actors in both micro (eg. events, organisations) and macro (eg. cities, regions, nations) spaces. We draw on insights from urban, economic and political geography, and are particularly interested in how post-structural ideas and practice-centred methodologies can enrich political economy critique of social change.
PEP ACADEMIC RESEARCH STAFF
Dr Tom Baker
Associate Professor in Human Geography
Tom researches the politics and practice of policy-making and the governance of socio-economic marginality.
Dr Nick Lewis
Professor of Human Geography
Nick researches the knowledge infrastructures of economisation by which social, political and economic practices and relations are assembled into material and discursive formations such as industry or national economy, and in turn made available for politics, management and policy making.
Dr Emma Sharp
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography
Emma’s research focusses on food politics and systems, the diverse economies of environment, care, and, intersectionality.
Professor Laurence Murphy
Professor of Human Geography
Larry’s research interests include finance capital and the built environment, globalisation and world cities, housing finance, and housing policy and urban change.
Professor Robin Kearns
Professor of Geography
Robin researches the politics and human experience of place and the links between place and wellbeing.
Dr Valentine Ibeka
Lecturer Human Geography - University of Wellington
Valentine’s ongoing research which is situated at the intersection between Human Geography and Development Studies comparatively examines educational migrations to Denmark and New Zealand. In using theoretical framings from Pierre Bourdieu and by following the lives of educational migrants in Denmark and New Zealand, Valentine explores the intersection of education, migration and development.
Dr Salene Schloffel-Armstrong
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Georgia McLellan
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Georgia’s PhD examined Māori kuku economies with Nick Lewis and Emma Sharp. Her PhD title is: From taonga species to high-value export Commodity, the transformation of Māori kuku economies.
CURRENT PEP POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS
Ingrid Petersen
PhD Student
Ingrid is a PhD candidate in the School of Environment exploring the ways Aotearoa New Zealand might move towards just food futures. Her research focusses on alternative biological economies, feminist and more-than-human geography, food sovereignty, and just transitions.
Bethany Cox
PhD Student
Georgia McLellan
PhD Student
Georgia is doing doing her PhD on Māori kuku economies with Nick Lewis and Emma Sharp. Her tentative PhD title is: From taonga species to high-value export Commodity, the transformation of Māori kuku economies.
Larissa Naismith
PhD Student
Larissa is a PhD student exploring how Auckland residents experience place attachment in the context of neighbourhood intensification. She has broader research interests in housing, urban change, place-making and innovative qualitative methodologies.
Angus Dowell
PhD Student
Angus is a PhD candidate examing the economization and extra-state dimensions of relations between cloud computing providers and the US, Australian and New Zealand governments.
Eleanor Buttle
PhD Student
Ellie is a PhD student researching the social aspects of ‘forever chemicals’. She is also more widely interested in issues of environmental management and chemical geographies of ubiquity
Nikolai Siimes
PhD Student
Nikolai is a doctoral researcher whose work sits across more-than-human geography and science and technology studies. He aims to present a cultural biological economy of wine, one that takes seriously the role of microbes and other non-humans as cultural and economic agents in the world.