Summer Institute in Economic Geography 2008

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, 2008

The fourth Summer Institute in Economic Geography will take place in Manchester, England, July 13th - 18th 2008.

http://www.wun.ac.uk/economicgeography/Manchester2008/manchester2008.html

The local organizers of the meeting are Neil Coe and Kevin Ward of the University of Manchester, Geography, School of Environment and Development. For more information on Neil and Kevin visit: http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/

Speakers

> Harald Bathelt
> Sue Roberts
> Jane Wills
> Henry Wai-chung Yeung

Harald Bathelt

Harald Bathelt is Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, Canada where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Innovation and Governance. He is also Research Associate of the Viessmann Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Harald Bathelt received both his PhD and Habilitation (Post-doctoral degree) at the University of Giessen, Germany in 1991 and 1997, respectively. Before joining the University of Toronto in 2006, he was Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany (1998 through 2002) and the University of Marburg, Germany (2002 through 2006). He was also Visiting Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada and East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. His research interests are in the areas of industrial and economic geography, political economy and methodology. In his research, he has developed a conceptual basis for a relational economic geography which overcomes deterministic implications of traditional regional science through an agency-centred, interdisciplinary approach, which emphasizes the contextuality, path-dependence and contingency of economic action in global perspective. Harald Bathelt has published extensively on topics such as relational economic geography, knowledge-based conceptions of clusters, local buzz and global pipelines, temporary clusters, innovation systems and socio-economic impacts of regional and industrial change. He has published books on Schlüsseltechnologie-Industrien (Key technology industries) (1991), Chemiestandort Deutschland (German chemical industry) (1997) and a relational approach in Wirtschaftsgeographie (Economic geography) (2003, jointly with Johannes Glückler). Additional information on his present research activities and publications can be found at http://www.harald-bathelt.com.

Sue Roberts

Sue Roberts is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky. She is interested in political economy, and does research in economic, political and development geography. She also is interested in social theory, particularly feminist theory. Sue did her undergraduate studies at the University of Leicester and her graduate work at Syracuse University. Some of Sue’s work has concerned the international financial system, especially the development of offshore financial centers. She also has published work on international financial regulation. More recent work, in collaboration with others and funded by the US National Science Foundation, has focused on the globalization of non governmental organizations (NGOs) with an emphasis on NGOs working in Oaxaca, Southern Mexico. Current work includes a study of the role of governance in regional integration in the South Pacific; a project on the tensions between trade liberalization, freight logistics, and security concerns in US port security policy; and a paper on the changing nature of development aid as it is more closely tied to security. Sue teaches a range of course, from large introductory lecture courses, to graduate seminars. She has supervised seven PhD students to completion and is currently advising seven doctoral students and serves on the advisory committee of many others. For more, see: http://www.uky.edu/AS/Geography/People/Faculty/Roberts/.

Jane Wills

Jane Wills is Professor of Geography and Director of The City Centre: Researching city lives and connections at Queen Mary, University of London. She has long-standing research interests in the geo-politics of work. This includes research into the impact of globalisation on work and labour organisation including subcontracted capitalism and migrant labour; and the geography of trade union organisation and new forms of labour organisation (including community unionism, labour internationalism and networked politics). Jane is currently working on two ESRC-funded research projects. One explores the role and experiences of migrant workers in low paid employment in London (see http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/). The other explores the development of the London living wage campaign and its wider implications for labour organisation, political identity-making and urban policy (see http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/livingwage/).

Jane is co-author (with Alison Blunt) of Dissident Geographies: Radical ideas and practice (Longman, 2001); co-editor (with Peter Waterman) of Place, Space and the New Labour Internationalisms (Blackwell, 2001); author of Union Futures: Building networked trade unionism in the UK (2002, Fabian Society); and co-editor (with Angela Hale) of Threads of Labour: garment industry supply chains from the workers’ perspective (Blackwell, 2005).

Through the work of The City Centre: Researching city lives and connections, Jane is also seeking to develop new ways of doing geographical research and teaching. The City Centre provides a space for collaborative projects to understand and improve our cities (see http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/citycentre/).

Henry Wai-chung Yeung

Henry Wai-chung Yeung is Professor of Economic Geography at the National University of Singapore. He was a recipient of the National University of Singapore Outstanding University Researcher Award (1998), the Institute of British Geographers Economic Geography Research Group Best Published Paper Award (1998), the Commonwealth Fellowship (2002), the Fulbright Foreign Research Award (2003), and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Team Residency in Bellagio (2005). His research interests cover broadly theories and the geography of transnational corporations, Asian firms and their overseas operations and Chinese business networks in the Asia-Pacific region.

Professor Yeung is the author of Transnational Corporations and Business Networks (Routledge, London, 1998), Entrepreneurship and the Internationalisation of Asian Firms (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2002) and Chinese Capitalism in a Global Era (Routledge, London, 2004), and co-author of Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction (Blackwell, Oxford, 2007). He is also the editor of The Globalisation of Business Firms from

Emerging Markets, Two Volumes (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 1999) and Handbook of Research on Asian Business (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2007), and co-editor of Globalisation and the Asia Pacific, (Routledge, London, 1999), Globalization of Chinese Business Firms (Macmillan, New York, 2000), Remaking the Global Economy (Sage, London, 2003).

He has over 75 research papers published or forthcoming in internationally refereed journals and 30 chapters in books. He is Editor of Environment and Planning A, Economic Geography, and Review of International Political Economy, Asia-Pacific Editor of Global Networks, and Business Manager of Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. He sits on the editorial boards of ten other international journals, such as Asia Pacific Journal of Management, European Urban and Regional Studies, Journal of Economic Geography, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, and Eurasian Geography and Economics. For more, see: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/geoywc/henry.htm.