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Professor Michael Pryke

Profile summary

Professional biography

Founding Head of School of Social Sciences and Global Studies from August 2019 to July 2020.

From 1st August 2016-2019 Founding Head of School, Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Development and Geography

I was Head of the Department of Geography from 2012-2016.

Before joining the Open University I worked in the School Management, UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, and the Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London.

In 2007 I was a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Durham. I have been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and UNSW, Sydney.

I was a founding editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy and editor-in-chief until 2017.

Over recent years I have contributed to Radio 4's 'File on 4' programme 'Liquid Assets' and Will Hutton's Channel 4 programme 'Selling Off Britain', as well as to articles in The Guardian and The Conversation

Research interests

My present research lies at the intersection of geographies of money and finance and cultural economy.

Recent grants

Australian Research Council 'Discovery – Project': 'Tracing modes of infrastructure financing and their effects on cities'. This was a three year project 2013-2016. The project team included Professor Phillip O’Neill (Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney) (PI) and Professor John Allen (Geography, Open University).

£2,545 from the British Academy. Project entitled Money's eyes: the visualisation of financial data, September 2006-December 2007.

£29,738 - part of successful bid to ESRC to undertake research entitled 'Berlin models: reconstructing European futures in the contemporary city'. The project began in September 1998 and was completed in December 1999.

£48,810 from ESRC for project entitled 'The changing pattern of financial land ownership'. 18 month project completed in December 1997.

£79,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for project entitled 'What private lenders require and housing associations provide'. The project ran from April 1993 to October 1994. This project was based in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.

I'm a member of the OpenSpace Research Centre.

PhD supervision

I am interested in supervising students with an interest in cultural economy, money and finance.

PhD completions

Carey Hardin (2011, completed 2015), I was on Carey's Doctoral Committee at the Dept. of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Carey’s work explored the integration of finance and politics in contemporary USA.

Billur Dokur (2008, completed 2012) (with Peter Jehlicka) Billur’s research investigated the 'Slow Food Movement' in Turkey.

Juan Arredondo (2002, completed 2011). With Prof Allan Cochrane. Juan’s subject was 'Spatial Entanglements and Visions of Change in La Coruña: An Ethnography of Place Making'.

David Uhlir PhD (1995, completed 1999), with Prof John Allen, 'The role of foreign direct investment and transnational companies in regional restructuring' Overseas Research Students Award, CVCP.

Alan Halner, PhD (1998, completed 2001) 'A study of the environmental consciousness of small and medium sized enterprises in the UK and Germany'.

Christian Weis, PhD (2001, completed 2005), with Prof Allan Cochrane, 'Urban development in old west and central eastern European cities'.

David Etherington, (2001, completed 2005) co-supervised with Prof Allan Cochrane, 'Producing new welfare spaces: local labour market policies in the UK and Denmark'.

Reprints

Pryke, M.D. 1994 / 2014 'Looking back on the space of a boom: redeveloping spatial matrices in the City of London', Environment and Planning A, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 235-64. Available as part of ‘Virtual Special Issue: Property and Finance’ made available by the publishers Sage / Environment and Planning ‘A’ as part of a Celebration of the Twentieth Anniversary of Double Issue on Property and Finance in ‘Environment & Planning A’ guest edited by the author.

Du Gay, P and M Pryke 2002 / 2011 ‘Cultural economy: an introduction’ Reprint in by Brian Moeran, Ana Alacovska eds. Creative Industries: critical readings (4 volumes) Berg. Oxford.

Pryke, M 2007 / 2010 'Geomoney: an option on frost going long on clouds', Geoforum 38, 576-588. reprinted in D Oswell ed. Cultural Theory (Sage Benchmarks in Culture and Society) London. Sage.

Pryke, M and J Allen 2002 / 2007 'Monetised time-space' Economy and Society reprinted in Angus Cameron, Anastasia Nesvetailova, and Ronen Palan eds. International Political Economy (Sage Library of International Relations) SAGE Publications, London.

Allen J and M Pryke 1994 / 1995 'The production of serveice space' Society and Space 12.4: 453-76 reprinted in S Daniles and R Lee eds. Exploring Human Geography: A reader (Arnold Readers in Geography) Hodder Education. London

Current publications

Philip Mader, Kate Bayliss, Pranjal Deekshit, Michael Pryke 2023 Contested geographies of water financialisation in the ‘global South’, Geoforum, Volume145, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103784

Pryke, Michael and Allen, John (2022) The everyday construction of value: A Canadian investment fund, Chilean water infrastructure, and financial subordination. Finance and Society URL: http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/new-articles

Paul du Gay, Michael Pryke & Toby Bennett (2022) Cultural revolutions: interview with Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke, Journal of Cultural Economy, DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2021.2021970
 
Pryke, Michael and Allen, John (2018) Financialising Urban Water Infrastructure: Extracting Local Value, Distributing Value Globally, Urban Studies http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098017742288
 

Pryke, M  (with John) Allen 2016 'Offshoring the Nation's water' in M Paco ed. Britain for Sale? Smith Institute/Regional Studies Association see http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/book/britain-sale-perspectives-costs-benefits-foreign-ownership/

Pryke, Michael (with John Allen) 2013 "Financilaizing Household Water: Thames Water, MEIF, and 'Ring-Fenced' Politics" in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society.

Pryke, Michael (2012) "Joining the Dots" part of a collection of short essays on 'Theorizing the Contemporary: Finance' Cultural Anthropology Online with an introduction to the collection by Guest Editor Prof Bill Maurer.

Pryke, M (2011) 'Introducing Andrew Haldane' Journal of Cultural Economy 4.4:365-369

Pryke, M (2011) 'Geographies of economic growth: money and finance' in Compendium of Economic Geography Edited by R. Lee, A. Leyshon, L McDowell and P. Sunley (London. Sage)

Pryke, M (2010) 'Money's eyes: the visual preparation of financial markets' 2010 Economy and Society 39.4: 427-459. Available as part of 'Celebrating 40 years of Economy and Society'.

Pryke, M and P DuGay (2007) 'Take an issue: cultural economy and finance' Economy and Society 36.3, 339-354. Introduction to a themed section of E&S.

Pryke, M (2007) 'Geomoney: an option on frost going long on clouds', Geoforum 38, 576-588.

Pryke, M (2007) 'Counting: finance, debt, banking and the global casino' in Companion Encyclopaedia of Geography: From Local to Global Edited by Ian Douglas, Richard Huggett, and Chris Perkins (London. Routledge) 2nd edition

Pryke, M (2006) 'Making finance, making worlds' in Nigel Clark, Doreen Massey and Phil Sarre A world in the making (Milton Keynes. Open University)

Pryke, M. (2003) 'Introduction' in Pryke, M et al eds. Using Social Theory, pp. 1-8, London, Sage.

Pryke, M. (2003) 'Situated Audiences' in Pryke, M et al eds. Using Social Theory, pp. 163-180, London, Sage.

Pryke, M, Rose, G and Whatmore, S. (2003) eds. Using Social Theory, London, Sage.

Pryke, M. and P.L.J.DuGay (2002) 'Property companies and the remaking of markets: stories from the 1990s' in S Guy and J Henneberry eds., Development and Developers, Oxford, Blackwell Science.

Pryke, M. (2002) 'The white noise of capitalism: audio and visual montage and sensing economic change' Cultural Geographies (formerly Ecumene), Vol.9, No.3.

Du Gay, P.L.J and Pryke, M. (2002) eds. Cultural Economy: cultural analysis and commercial life, London, Sage.

Pryke, M. (2000) 'Tracing economic rhythms through visual and audio montage'

Sidaway, J.D. and Pryke, M.D. (2000) 'The strange geographies of 'emerging markets', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, NS, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 187-201.

Pryke, M. and Allen, J. (2000) 'Monetized time-space: derivatives - money's "new imaginary"?', Economy and Society, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 264-84

Sidaway, J. and Pryke, M. (2000) 'The free and the unfree: 'Emerging markets', the Heritage Foundation, and the 'Index of Freedom' ' in J Bryson, P Daniels, N Henry and J Pollard eds. Knowledge, Space, Economy, London, Routledge, pp.176-190

Allen, J., Massey, D. and Pryke, M. eds. (1999) Unsettling Cities: movement/settlement, London and New York, Routledge.

Allen, J. and Pryke, M. (1999) 'Money cultures after Georg Simmel: mobility, movement and identity', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 51-68.

Pryke, M. (1999) 'The economic rhythms of cities' in D Massey, J Allen and M Pryke eds. Unsettling cities, London, Routledge, Chapter 4.

Pryke, M. (1999) 'On the openness of cities' in D Massey, J Allen and M Pryke eds. Unsettling cities, London, Routledge, Chapter 8.

Pryke, M. (1998) 'Thinking social policy into housing' in G Hughes and G Lewis eds. Unsettling Welfare, London, Sage, Chapter 4.

Pryke, M.D. and Whitehead, C.M.D. (1995) 'Post 1989: a radical change in the provision of social housing in England?', Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, vol. 13, pp. 217-52.

Pryke, M.D. and Lee, R. (1995) 'Place your bets: towards an understanding of globalisation, socio-financial engineering and competition within a financial centre', Urban Studies, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 329-44.

Allen, J. and Pryke, M.D. (1994) 'The production of service space', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 453-76.

Pryke, M.D. and Freeman, T. (1994) 'Mortgage-backed securitization in the UK: the background', Housing Policy Debate, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 307-42.

Pryke, M. D. and Whitehead, C.M.E, (1994) 'Some thoughts on the provision and management of social housing in a private sector environment in England' Netherlands Journal of Housing and the Built Environment: Special Issue: Social Housing in the 1990s, 9(4) pp. 357-380.

Pryke, M.D. (1994) 'Coping with some of the new risks of social housing' in W Bartlett & G Bramley eds. Single market or mosaic? Innovation and Instability in European Housing Finance, Bristol, SAUS/ENHR.

Pryke, M.D. & Whitehead, C.M.E. (1994) 'An overview of mortgage-backed securitization in the UK' Housing Studies 9(1) pp. 75-101.

Pryke, M.D. (1994) 'Commentary: property, finance and layers of newspaper ironies', Environment and Planning A, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 167-70.

Pryke, M.D. (1994) 'Looking back on the space of a boom: redeveloping spatial matrices in the City of London', Environment and Planning A, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 235-64.

Pryke, M. (1994) 'Urbanizing capitals: towards an integration of time, space and economic calculation' in S Corbridge, R Martin and N Thrift eds. Money, space and power, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 218-252.

Pryke, M.D. & Whitehead, M.D. (1993) 'The provision of private finance for social housing: an outline of recent developments in funding existing housing associations in England' Housing Studies, 8(3) pp. 274-291

Pryke M.D 1991 'The money programme' Roof, January/February pp.18-19

Pryke, M.D. (1991) 'An international city going global: spatial change in the City of London', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 197-222.

Working papers/discussion papers/monographs

Pryke, M (2008) 'Money's eyes' University of Manchester/OU CRESC WP Series, Theme 1, WP 42.

Pryke, M (2006) 'Speculating on geographies of finance' University of Manchester/OU CRESC WP Series, Theme 1, WP 24.

McGrail, B. and Pryke, M. (1998) Surviving and negotiating a property crash, Working Papers on The changing pattern of financial landownership (ESRC Grant 0000236259) No.2

McGrail, B. and Pryke, M. (1997) Bank finance, UK commercial property investment & urban regeneration, Working Papers on The Changing Pattern of financial landownership (ESRC Grant 0000236259) No.1

Pryke, M.D. and Whitehead, C.M.E. (1994) Private finance and the risks of social housing provision, DP 46, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.

Pryke, M.D. and Whitehead, C.M.E. (1991) An overview of recent change in the provision of private finance for social housing, DP 28, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.

Pryke, M.D. and Whitehead, C.M.E. (1991) Mortgage-backed securitization in the UK: A wholesale change in housing finance? Monograph 22, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge/Granta.

Recent Seminars and Conferences

2017 Invited speraker at 'Financial Markets and the digital economy: an exploratory workshop' School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. May 

2016 Discussant ‘Economy and film’, UCL/ British Film Institute, London, May, 

2016 Invited speaker ‘Manchester Ethnography Network’ Manchester Business School, March 

2016 Conference presentation 'Finance topologies and infrastructure investment' Association of American Geographers, Chicago, April, 

2015 Invited speaker 'Cultural Studies of finance' Symposium, Deprtment of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina, USA, April 

2015 Invited speaker at ‘Financialisation of financial and real estate markets’ Frankfurt am Main: Goethe-University, Institute of Human Geography, March 

2013 Seminar presentation (with John Allen) on 'Financializing Household Water: Thames Water, MEIF, and 'Ring-Fenced' Politics', Deportment of Geography, University of Durham, February .

2012 Invited speaker (on visualisation and financial markets) at 'Innovation information Infrastructures' Joint Informatics and Business School Workshop, University of Edinburgh, October .

2012 Invited Panel Session 'Cultural Studies and Economies/Economics' (with Larry Grossberg, Fiona Allon, John Clarke, Randy Martin) at Crossroads, International Cultural Studies Conference, Paris, July

Teaching interests

During my time with the Open University I have been involved in production and presntation of a number of modules including: Introducing the social sciences (DD101); Social Policy: Welfare, Power & Diversity (D218); Living in a globalized world (DD205); Understanding cities (DD304), and DD213 'enviornment and Scoiety'. I am currently leading the Geography strand in the School's new interdispclianry level 1 module, DD113, due for first presentation in October 2023.

At post graduate level I have been involved in D849, a 30 point masters module, Social Research Methods and chaired the production of Human Geography, Philosophy and Social Theory (D834) an ESRC recognised research masters module; the core text, Using Social Theory (2003), is published by Sage and is included in the Sage Research Methods online. I have previously served as chair of the MRes Management Group.

 

Publications

Cultural revolutions: interview with Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke (2022)
Du Gay, Paul; Pryke, Michael and Bennett, Toby
Journal of Cultural Economy ((Early Access))


The everyday construction of value: A Canadian investment fund, Chilean water infrastructure, and financial subordination (2022)
Pryke, Michael and Allen, John
Finance and Society, 8(2) (pp. 189-208)


Financialising Urban Water Infrastructure: Extracting Local Value, Distributing Value Globally (2019-05-01)
Pryke, Michael and Allen, John
Urban Studies, 56(7) (pp. 1326-1346)


Financializing household water: Thames water, MEIF, and 'ring-fenced' politics (2013-11)
Allen, John and Pryke, Michael
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 6(3) (pp. 419-439)


Joining the dots (2012-05-17)
Pryke, Michael
Cultural Anthropology


Money's eyes: the visual preparation of financial markets (2010)
Pryke, Michael D.
Economy and Society, 39(4) (pp. 427-459)


Take an issue: cultural economy and finance (2007-08)
Pryke, Michael and du Gay, Paul
Economy and Society, 36(3) (pp. 339-354)


Geomeoney: an option on frost, going long on clouds (2007-05)
Pryke, Michael
Geoforum, 38(3) (pp. 576-588)


‘This time it’s different’ . . . and why it matters: the shifting geographies of money, finance and risks (2017-03)
Pryke, Michael
In: Martin, Ron and Pollard, Jane eds. Handbook on the Geographies of Money and Finance. Research Handbooks in Geography (pp. 105-121)
ISBN : 978-1-78471-899-2 | Publisher : Edward Elgar


Offshoring the Nation's water (2016-05)
Allen, John and Pryke, Michael
In: Raco, Mike ed. Britain For Sale? Perspectives on the Costs and Benefits of Foreign Ownership (pp. 34-41)
Publisher : The Smith Institute | Published : London


Geographies of economic growth: money and finance (2011)
Pryke, Michael D.
In: Lee, Roger; Leyshon, Andrew; McDowell, Linda and Sunley, Peter eds. SAGE handbook of economic geography (pp. 286-302)
ISBN : 9781848601147 | Publisher : Sage | Published : London


Counting: finance, debt, banking and the global casino (2006-11-27)
Pryke, Michael
In: Douglas, Ian; Huggett, Richard and Perkins, Chris eds. Companion Encyclopedia of Geography: from Local to Global, second edition(2nd editio) (pp. 887-903)
ISBN : 9780415339773 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London


Property companies and the remaking of markets: stories from the 1990s (2002-05)
Pryke, Michael and Du Gay, Paul
In: Guy, Simon and Henneberry, John eds. Development and Developers. Real Estate Issues (pp. 267-284)
ISBN : 632058420 | Publisher : Blackwell | Published : Oxford, UK


Cultural economy: cultural analysis and commercial life (2002-01-31)
Du Gay, Paul and Pryke, Michael eds.
Culture, Representation and Identity Series
ISBN : 761959939 | Publisher : Sage Publications Ltd | Published : London, UK