Fields of enquiry in my writing

My academic work has used, and sought to develop, Marxist spatial political economy. It is politically and morally partisan, for socialism. I have published in the following fields:-

1. Local and regional political-economic governance in contemporary developed countries
2. Industrial geography, labour processes and industrial relations
3. The present era of global capitalism, and the nature of neoliberalism
4. Poverty, disadvantage, and social exclusion
5. Marxist geographical theory
6. Brexit and British politics since 2015
7. Gay life, capitalism, and gay liberation
8. Working class consciousness and understandings

The final research theme concerns not subject matter but methodology:-

 9. Totalities, dialectics and comprehensive analyses in my work

My main arguments in each of these fields, and the relevant publications, are described below.  There are, of course, considerable overlaps between these fields.  The fields are given in alphabetical order of their title.

• Brexit and British politics since 2015

  Since the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, a main focus in my writing has been on British politics. This has been prompted by horror at the advance of neoliberal authoritarian populism in Britain (the Brexiteer wing of the Conservative Party, the Leave vote in the referendum, the…

• Gay and lesbian life, capitalism, and liberation

  In the 1970s there was a flowering of the Gay Liberation Movement, and subsequently the Lesbian and Gay movement, in Britain. This produced a considerable literature analysing the roots of homophobia, lesbian and gay life and identities, and strategies for liberation. Strongly influenced by the Women’s Movement in the US…

• Industrial geography, labour processes and industrial relations

  Economic and industrial geography of the last thirty years has had little interest in the organisation of work (‘the labour process’) and management-employee relations within workplaces. Much of my work has focused on this workplace level, while relating it to economic and social processes at larger spatial scales. My major…

• Local and regional political-economic governance in contemporary developed countries

  This has been the centre of my intellectual contribution in the last twenty years.  Much of this work has been done in collaboration with Aram Eisenschitz.  It encompasses work on local and regional economies, the nexus of local economy and social life, and the role of levels of the state…

• Marxist geographical theory

  All my work has argued for the importance of space (territory, distance, scale) in the construction of the social world. It has also argued that this spatial-social world is best understood in terms of social relations as conceived by Marxism. Three articles (Workers strategies to secure jobs, Changing scale as…

• Poverty, disadvantage, and social exclusion

  Most of my work has been concerned with inequality of power and resources, along lines of class, gender, ‘race’ and sexuality. Local economic policies (field 2 above) are strongly, though not exclusively, focused on poor areas, and my work in this field has been correspondingly concerned with poverty. My major…

• The present era of global capitalism and the nature of neoliberalism

  I have contributed to debates on the nature of the present era of capitalist development and its forms of spatial governance. This work has proceeded from a close engagement with, and critique of, the two dominant approaches to this subject within geography and economics since the 1980s: institutionalist work on…

• Totalities, dialectics and comprehensive analyses in my work

  Note: All the publications in this section have been referred to in the preceding sections. Here I examine a methodology used in many of these publications. A fundamental principle of Marxism, which has affected both the form and content of my writing, is that society is a totality. To enable…

• Working class consciousness and understandings

  Note: All the publications in this section have been referred to in the preceding sections. Here I examine a theme of these publications. A constant, major thread of my work has been the ideas, perceptions, understandings and projects of working class people (the 90%). This is, in part, because of…