Professor Andrew E G Jonas

Professor of Human Geography

Personal profile and research interests

Andy Jonas is an urban political geographer, who also dabbles in economic geography and has substantive links to other social science disciplines. Born in southern England and raised within commuting distance of London, he went north to do his undergraduate degree in Geography at Durham University. Tempted by the chance to travel and broaden the mind, he moved to the USA in the 1980s and completed his doctorate in Geography from The Ohio State University under the supervision of Professor Kevin Cox. His PhD examined the relationship between schools desegregation, infrastructure provision, and the politics of urban development in metropolitan Columbus, Ohio. Andy went on from Ohio State to take up academic posts, first at Clark University in Massachusetts, and then at the University of California at Riverside, where he further developed his research and teaching interests in cities, suburban growth politics and regional development. After living the USA for nearly 14 years and enjoying almost every moment (not to say there were no challenging times!), Andy made the difficult decision to return to the UK to take up a post at the University Hull at the end of 1995, where he has since remained and enjoyed successive promotions. Whilst retaining his connections to geography in the USA, he has of late broadened his research portfolio to incorporate environmental and economic themes and a wider empirical focus on places in Europe, Australia and Asia. He has supervised and examined numerous undergraduate, masters and doctoral theses, published single and multi-authored papers in many of the very top geography and social science journals, and engaged in a range of editorial, peer review, external examining, and professional service activities as detailed below. He is married with three kids, none of whom enjoys going with mummy and daddy to academic conferences, which bodes well for their future happiness. Andy himself enjoys soccer, golf, novels and travel, having visited more than 30 countries and at least 40 of the 50 U.S. states.

• PhD in Geography, The Ohio State University, awarded 1989
• MA in Geography (minor in Urban Planning), The Ohio State University, awarded 1985
• BA (Hons., First Class) in Geography, Durham University, awarded 1982

• Visiting Fellow, Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2006
• Visiting Scholar, Department of Geography, University of Washington, 2003
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 1989-90

• External Examiner, Undergraduate Programmes in Geography, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2005-7
• Canada Research Chairs College of Reviewers, since 1999
• Senior Examiner and Examiner ESRC Studentship Competition, 1999-2002
• Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers
• Association of American Geographers, Overseas Member
• Member Advisory Board, RECOURSE, University of Gdansk, 2001-
• Editorial Board, The Social Science Quarterly, 2000-
• Reviewer and rapporteur for ESRC (UK), NSF (USA), SSHRC (Canada)
• Reviewer for 30 journals in geography and the social sciences

I have conducted a numerous case studies of urban growth politics, regional development, labour control and territorial governance in the USA (Columbus, Ohio, southern California, Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, and Seattle) and well as in select European cities and regions (Cambridge, Manchester, Leeds, Berlin, and Barcelona). Influenced by the work of Andrew Sayer (Lancaster) on critical realism, I use a variety of intensive and extensive methods, including face-to-face interviews, media analysis, archives, field surveys, and simple statistical analyses and tests. Recently I have developed an interest in contemporary debates about the governance of city-regions (see the special debates and developments forum edited by me and Kevin Ward, Manchester University, in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 31:1). Together with my colleague at Hull, David Gibbs, and Aidan While (Planning, Sheffield University), I am currently engaged in an international comparison of new economic spaces and the new (post neo-liberal) politics of collective provision, focussing on case studies in Europe, the USA and Asia. This project is funded by the British Academy and builds on earlier work, which we published on the environment and growth politics in English cities and regions. My most significant contribution under this theme has been to knowledge of the territorial and class politics of urban development and exploring spatial tensions around collective provision. I have further contributed to the study of the geography of labour through the concept of the local labour control regime.

My work on urban growth politics informs an interest in theories of state scalar-spatiality and in particular the local territorial structure of the American state. Substantive projects under this theme include: the new regionalism and state re-scaling (with Stephanie Pincetl, UCLA); regional conservation planning and the regulation of spaces for threatened and endangered species in California (for information on these and related plans go to links at: http://www.cvmshcp.org/); and the production of new state spaces within metropolitan areas as mediated by struggles around the workplace and living space (drawing upon and developing my PhD-related work with Kevin Cox, Ohio State). My most significant contributions have been to knowledge of the politics of state rescaling and to the so-called 'scale debate' in human geography.

This is a relatively new dimension to my work and is inspired in part by J.K. Gibson-Graham's innovative research on diverse economies. It includes a contribution with Duncan Fuller (Northumbria University) to the pioneering collection on Alternative Economic Spaces (Sage) by Leyshon, Lee, and Williams. Here I am interested in the opportunities for, and limits, to thinking about and practising economic diversity inside capitalism. I recently organised a conference with colleagues at Hull, which invites further debate and research in this topic. Duncan Fuller and I continue to monitor developments in the credit union movement in the UK, focusing upon conflicts around 'mainstreaming' the alternative sector. The latest project of ours is to prepare an edited collection with Roger Lee (QM, London) on interrogating diversity.

Andrew E.G. Jonas, David C. Gibbs and Aidan While "Making space for the new economy: investigating the politics of collective provision" British Academy, Grant No. SG-45293, January 2006-December 2008.

Robert H. Fagan and Andrew E.G. Jonas, "Reconsidering the scale politics and policies of urban and regional development: a comparison of Australian, European and North American experiences" Macquarie University, Sydney, Visiting Fellow Research Award, July-August 2006.

RGS-IBG Research Group Small Grant to support the International Conference on Alternative Economic Spaces: New Political Stories, Hull, July 11-12, 2005, Andrew Jonas, David Atkinson, Elizabeth Gagen and Mitch Rose (conference organisers)

David C. Gibbs and Andrew E.G. Jonas, 1999-2002. "Governance and regulation in local environmental policy making." Economic and Social Research Council. Award no. R-000237997.

Andrew E.G. Jonas, David Counsell, and Trevor Hart, 2002-03. "Integrated regional strategies for the Yorkshire and Humber region: an evaluation" Yorkshire Futures and Yorkshire Assembly.

Modules taught

• 16100 : Introduction to Geographical Methods
• 16111 : Introducing Human Geography
• 16141 : World Cities
• 16275 : Economies, Politics and Space (leader)
• 16280 : Field Study and GIS (leader)
• 16329 : Space and Power in the North American City (leader)
• 16463 : Contemporary Research in Human Geography (leader)
• 16425 : Sustainable Cities and Regions

Publications

Teaching

• Introducing Human Geography (module leader on rotating basis)
• World Cities (module leader on rotating basis)
• First year Field Class and Tutorials (Key Skills)

• Economies, Politics and Space (module leader)
• Barcelona Field Class (module leader on rotating basis)

• Space and Power in the North American City (module leader)
• Dissertation supervision

• Contemporary Research in Human Geography (module leader on rotating basis)
• Sustainable Cities and Regions (occasional lecture)

• Tom Feldman 'Property rights and the US Endangered Species Act' (1995, UC Riverside) (main supervisor)
• Amer Althubaity 'Redevelopment as a new urban regime in Southern California' (1995, UCR) (main)
• James Chagala 'Modeling land use change in San Diego County' (1994, UCR, co-)
• Ray Dezzani 'Modeling regions in the global space economy' (1996, UCR) (co-supervisor)
• Liza Tonkin 'Unions and sector steel restructuring in Australia' (Macquarie, 1997) (external)
• Ahmad Muhammed Al-Shabaan 'Muslim education in Bradford' (2000, Hull) (internal)
• Duncan Fuller 'Credit unions and financial exclusion' (2000, Hull) (internal)
• Stephen Greasely 'Politics of business organisation in UK and USA' (2003, Sheffield) (external)
• Patrick Collins 'Regional information society in Ireland' (2004, Hull) (co-)
• Andy Horrocks 'Environmental policy in food sector SMEs' (2004, Hull) (co-)
• Abdullah Al-Ahmadi 'Geography of health service consumption in Medina' (Saudi Arabia) (co-)
• Alison Williams 'Technogeopolitics: representations of the Pacific as US space' (ESRC) (co-)
• Wendy Mendes 'Food policy and just sustainability in Vancouver' (2006, Simon Fraser, external)
• Michael Labelle 'Spatial political economy of electricity regulation in the USA' (2006, Bristol, external)
• Jorge Salgado 'Cross-border environmental policy in Mexico' (internal)
• Felicity Powell 'Social issues in UK regional planning' (ESRC Case) (2006, Hull, co-)
• Andrew Hewitson 'Telecities network and multiscalar governance' (2006. Hull, internal)

• Felicity Powell 'Social issues in UK regional planning' (ESRC Case) (co-)
• David Haigh 'Social enterprise in the UK' (ESRC Case) (co-)
• Richard Newman 'Environmental policy in the US military' (RAF) (co-)
• Rob Stevens 'City-regionalism and the new urban privatism' (main)
• Maksudur Rahman 'Urban residential environment in Bangladesh' (co-)
• Marcela Shehu 'Post-socialist urban spatial form in Tirana' (main)
• Andrew Kythreotis 'Voluntary sector sustainability and scalar politics' (co-)
• Marcela Mele 'Post-socialist politics of urban development in Tirana city-region' (main)

• city-regionalism and the changing geography of the state
• urban politics: conflicts around urban growth and regeneration
• local and regional development in Europe and North America
• territorial management in new economic spaces
• regional land use and conservation plans: policies and structures
• alternative economies, currencies and trading systems
• the geography of social movements and citizenship
• the geography of property rights
• labour geographies: labour control spaces and labour-community coalitions
• new environmental politics and issues

Other information

• Director, Human Geography Research
• Publicity
• Quality Officer