Statement of Research Interests

My research interests have developed over the course of many years’ study in three broad areas of inquiry - political economy, social theory, and urban geography. It is, therefore, hard to classify my interests as limited to one particular stream of thought or segment of geography. Instead, my work is synthetic and integrates insights from various schools of thought both inside and outside geography. Moreover, in my doctorate I used several different types of research methods and materials - such as interviews, archival materials, and secondary resources - to explore the effect of the European City of Culture festival on Glasgow, Scotland's urban-renewal efforts in the 1980s.

My current research interest and work fall within the following areas:

1. Urban Governance: In urban studies issues of governance, or how certain groups gain the capacity to govern a city, has long been a topic of inquiry. While most studies are concerned with local actors and governments, many geographers have stressed the importance of institutions at other geographical scales in influencing urban governance. I argued in a recent paper (to be published in the Journal of Urban Affairs) that the capacity of the ruling coalition in Glasgow to govern during the 1980s was shaped by how the city and the particular configuration of its ruling urban coalition were related to and enmeshed in a wider institutional context. In particular, I criticized urban regime theory for failing to take into account the role of intergovernmental relations and geographical scale in its characterization of urban governance.
2. Political Economy of Culture: Culture is often an underappreciated target of government policy, subsidy, and regulation. Most literature on the relationship between the state and culture focuses on the importance of culture policy for the development of new modes of subjectivity and governmentality, while sidelining questions related to the political economy of culture. In a recent paper on the European Community, titled “The Fight for European Culture,” I focused on how the Europeanization of cultural policy unevenly affected countries across the Community and how the politics of the development of Europe reflected various countries’ perceived economic returns.
3. Culture and Urban Renewal: The significance of culture in urban-renewal efforts has been the subject of numerous studies. Currently, I am revising a paper for Antipode that investigates the relationship between culture and urban renewal by focusing on the increasing valuation of "cultural assets." I contend that cultural assets, because they are distinctive, are always monopoly goods and that cities have used this monopolistic potential in urban-revitalization programs. At the same time, however, much of a city's cultural infrastructure is held as part of the common, and in order to exploit this monopolistic potential, these assets have to be privatized. Using my doctoral research from Glasgow, I explore a number of tensions, such as: (1) why it is that the exploitation of the monopolist potential of a city’s culture often leaves that city less unique; (2) what happens if there are interruptions in the transformation of the commons into private assets; and (3) why so many fierce political disputes emerged over who controlled Glasgow's cultural assets.

Future Research Plan

My future research will be in the following areas:

1. Governance and Urban Renewal: I am in the process of drafting a book proposal of a revised version of my dissertation for Ashgate Publishing. Following my doctoral research, the manuscript is about the urban governance of Glasgow, with particular attention paid to the politics of scale. The manuscript elaborates on how the history of the European Union - taking into account the many issues associated with the formation of the "European ideal" and with specific attention paid to the idea of cosmopolitanism - set the stage for this European City of Culture festival. Nevertheless, when the Community's policy initiatives interacted with the government of the British nation-state, under the leadership of Prime Minister Thatcher, that vision was perverted and thwarted. The result, fortuitously, created the situation that led to the urban transformation of Glasgow, not necessarily in the way the Europeans or the Conservatives envisaged but along more conventional urban entrepreneurial lines.
2. Culture and Urban Renewal: I would like to extend my research to conduct cross-geographical comparisons and explore other cities that have recently been hosting the City of Culture festival, such as Weimar, Germany, which held the festival in 1999. In order to conduct this research, I intend to apply for a Deutsche Akademisher Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Faculty Research Visit Grant to conduct further research in Weimer, Germany, in the summer of 2008, preparing for an article to be submitted to Urban Affair Review in the spring of 2009. Preliminary research conducted in Germany revealed a number of noticeable similarities to Glasgow but also a number of important differences. Some of these differences seem to be related to how the European City of Culture festival changed over time within the context of the growing importance of the European Community. Other contrasts seem to be related to the particular relationship between the national government and the city. However, there were remarkable similarities in the kinds of issues that emerged around culture as it was put into the service of urban revitalization.
3. Race and Urban Change: The importance of alternative and minority forms of commemoration and place-naming has been the focus of numerous studies that explore the relationship between memory and political representation, both inside and outside geography. Using a variety of mapping tools, I have collected an extensive data set on the regional variation of the commemoration of 30 famous African-Americans (15 men and 15 women). The research aims are to see how regional characteristics might affect where African-Americans are commemorated, how geographically dispersed their commemoration is, and whether there is a gender bias. I intend to submit an article to Professional Geographer early next spring.