Prof Doreen Massey

Professor of Geography

Geography

Profile

Doreen is Professor in the Department of Geography. Her research over many years has focused on space and place and been recognised for its excellence through many awards. Throughout her career Doreen has also engaged actively in the world beyond the academy. She is co-founder and co-editor of Soundings: a journal of politics and culture, and presents and writes regularly in mainstream media on issues relating to globalisation, cities, regional inequality, and, in general, the significance of geography and of space and place in the currently globalised world.

Qualifications

BA (Oxon), MA (Phila)

Awards and Honours

2006 - Honorary DLitt awarded by the National University of Ireland
2006 - Honorary DSc awarded by Edinburgh University
2003 - Centenary Medal of Royal Scottish Geographical Society
2003 - Anders Retzius Medal in Gold, awarded by the Swedish Society of Anthropologists and Geographers.
2002 - Fellow, British Academy
2001 - Honorary Fellow, St. Hugh's College, Oxford University
2000 - Fellow of Royal Society of Arts
1998 - Awarded the Prix Vautrin Lud ('Nobel de Géographie')
1994 - Awarded Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society

Course Development and Teaching Commitments

Doreen has contributed significantly to several OU courses, as chair, editor and writer. Recent courses include: The shape of the world (D215), Understanding cities (DD304), and Living in a globalised world (DD205).

Research Interests

Doreen has long-term interests in the theorization of 'space' and 'place' and in demonstrating the importance to both everyday life and wider politics of how we conceptualise both space and place.

Empirically this work has engaged with a critique of current forms of globalisation, issues of regional uneven development, and of the city. In all of this the aim has been to work between, and to show the relationship between, philosophical and conceptual issues on the one hand and the directly political on the other. Her 2005 book For space laid out much of this groundwork, bringing together arguments formulated over many years. World city (2007) is a more immediately political work but which mobilises the same philosophical arguments. It argues strongly against the dominance in London and the UK of the finance and associated sectors and points to the effects around the world of activities that take place in London. It asks us to consider our responsibility for the effects of place, and argues for a politics of place beyond place. A forthcoming book (Voices of places) broadens this out to ask what role there might be in this globalised world for a radical politics of place.

Since 2007 Doreen has also been working in Venezuela, where her concept of power-geometry has been adopted as a means of thinking through the programme of decentralisation and equalisation of political power. In particular this involves affording the possibility of giving a meaningful political voice to both poorer regions and the previously excluded within the cities. In early 2007 5 'motors' of the revolution were outlined, including emphasis on constitutional reform and popular education. The fourth motor was defined as "The new power-geometry: the socialist reorganisation of the national political geography". The work has involved discussions, seminars, public meetings and tv appearances in Venezuela. The following publications, by Doreen Massey, are available on request:

• Geometrías del poder y la conceptualizacíon del espacio.
• Geometrías internacionales del poder y la política de una ciudad global: pensamientos desde Londres (forthcoming in Revista de Cendes, Caracas)
• Las geometríás del poder en el contexto de la Reforma Constitucional
• Notas sobre las geometrías del poder (forthcoming in Día-Crítica, Caracas)
• Hacia una nueva geometría del poder (being published as a mass-distribution pamphlet by El perro y la rana, Caracas).

Also since 2007 Doreen has been involved in a major AHRC project with Patrick Keiller and Patrick Wright. The project is entitled "The future of landscape and the moving image". For further information visit the project website.

Recent Publications

Books (2005 - )
World city (2007), UK: Polity Press (being translated into Spanish).

For Space, Sage, 2005 (also currently being translated into Portuguese and Greek.)

Journal Articles (2007 - )
'When theory meets politics', Antipode, vol.40, no.3, pp.492-497, 2008. Also published as a chapter in K. Mitchell (ed) Practising Public Scholarship: Experiences and Possibilities beyond the Academy, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

'What is social about social science?', 21st Century Society, vol.2, no.1, pp.100-105, February 2007.

Author's response to book review symposium on For space in Progress in Human Geography, Vol.31, no.3, June 2007.

'The world we're in: an interview with Ken Livingstone', Soundings: a journal of politics and culture, number 36, pp.11-25, Summer 2007.

 "Living For The City: an interview about World City", Socialist Worker, 10 November 2007, pp.8-9.

"Another Q and A: Doreen Massey on World city", The Big Issue in the North, issue 699, p.23, 2007.

Book Chapters (2007 - )
"Doreen Massey: Responsibilities over distance", Interview chapter in Globalizing the Research Imagination, eds, Kenway, J. and Fahey, J., Oxford: Routledge, New York: Taylor & Francis Inc., 2009, pp.73-85.

"Challenging spaces", in Shalev-Gertz, E. A Thread, Glasgow and Salford: Aye-Aye Books, 2008, pp.53-56.

"Geography of high-tech spaces: Some reflections", in High-tech urban spaces Asian and European perspectives, eds, Ramachandraiah, C., van Westen, A.C.M. and Prasad, S., New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2008.

Italian translation of Ken Livingstone interview published in il manifesto, March 17, 2008, p.6.

"Is the world getting larger or smaller?" in openDemocracy, 15th February 2007.

"Foreward", to Politics and practice in economic geography, eds, Tickell, A., Sheppard, E., Peck, J. and Barnes, T., London: Sage, 2007 (with Richard Meegan).

Edited extracts of World city published in Red Pepper, issue 155, August/September 2007, pp.30-32.

"Trading places" published in Times Higher Education Supplement, issue 1,802, July 13, 2007, pp.16-17.

"The mutuality of movement", Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007: Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, Lars Muller Publications, Serpentine Gallery, 2007, pp.74-78.

Presentations (2007 - )
"Power-geometries, Laclau and Negri in the Bolivarian revolution", Humanities and Arts Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London, 24 January 2008.

"Geographies of responsibility in a globalised world", Department of Geography and Sociology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 6 February 2008.

"Cities in a global world: Caracas Venezuela – London UK", The Paul Hirst Memorial Lecture, Birkbeck College University of London, 11 February 2008.

"The politics of place in a globalised world", Foundation Lecture Series, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, 20 February 2008.

"Suggestions for political approaches" at The financialisation of capitalism, Soundings Seminar Series, 22 February 2008.

"The responsibilities of global citydom", Department of Planning, Oxford Brookes University, 28 February 2008.

"My life and times in space, place and politics", University of Tampere, Finland, 11 April 2008 (on occasion of launch of new book Samanaikainen Tila).

"London – New York – and outwards", Welcome to NY-LON? New York and London as neo-liberal cities, London Social Forum, London, 9 June 2008.

Contributor to "financing inequality: the credit crunch, the City and the problem of capitalism", Compass Annual Conference, 14 June 2008.

"What price the City and how might we respond?", Taking Soundings, Leeds, 18 June 2008.

Panel member: "Landscape and the Moving Image", at Landscape in theory: a multidisciplinary symposium, AHRC, Nottingham, 26 June 2008.

"London as a world city", LSE Summer School Public Lecture, London, 31 July 2008.

"Politico-economic changes since the 1980s", in New geographies of the UK Economy, Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference, London, 27 August 2008.

'Geometrías del poder y la conceptualización del espacio', Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 17 September 2007.

'Las políticas de una "ciudad global": pensamientos desde Londres', CENDES, Caracas, 18 September 2007.

'La geometría del poder', public meeting, Café Literario la Comuna, Parque los Caobos, Caracas, 19 September 2007.

"Relational space and the politics of local responsibility" Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden, Norrkopping, 2 October 2007.

"The conceptualisation of space and place and why it matters politically", Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden, Norrkoping, 4 October 2007.

Panel member, 'Creating Futures': Opening Session, Faculty Conference, 8 October 2007.

"Engaging as a geographer with radical democracy", Space-time and the political, Newcastle University, 12 October 2007.

"Living within a city", Methodist Urban Group (London), Kings Cross Methodist Church, London 19 November 2007.

"Las geometrías del poder: reflexiones teóricas y políticas", Caracas, Venezuela, 28-29 November, 2007.

Other media
Appearances on radio and television include (UK only):

The BBC World Service Forum, discussing how we think about space and the city in global terms, and if global cities exist what responsibility do such places have towards the spaces between them (15 October 2008). Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1246_the_forum/page13.shtml (Accessed 4 December 2009)

'Imagination and the City', a panel discussion with Will Self and Richard Sennett, on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed series, 27 August 2008.

A live essay on the geographies of greenhouse gas emissions on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, 1 January 2007.

An interview on 'Start of the Week', BBC Radio 4, in conjunction with the launch of the book World City, 25 June 2007. This was followed by a BBC Radio 3 interview on 'Nightwaves', 2 July at 09:45 and an appearance on You and Yours BBC Radio 4, 20 July 2007, transmitted 27 August 2007.

'Sixty minutes to save the world', recorded at the Royal Geographical Society and broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Material World, 6 July 2006.

The Festival of Ideas, 9 November 2006, BBC Radio 3 Production. Professor Doreen Massey, a winner of geography's "Nobel" prize, presents the first Open University Radio Lecture - Globalisation gurus tell us that the world is getting smaller and local places are all becoming the same. Not so, says Doreen Massey. She lays out a manifesto for an alternative global vision. Download the lecture mp3 or read the transcript at www.open2.net/freethinking.

Appearances on television (overseas) include:

Diálogo Abierto, Canal 8, Venezuela, and Interview on Ávila tv, Caracas, Venezuela, 20 September 2007.

Reforma consticional: el proceso del referendo, tv discussion, Ávila tv, Caracas, Venezuela, 2 December, 2007.

Forthcoming
Doreen will be giving the Clarendon Lectures ("Voices of Places") at Oxford University 21-23 October 2008. Further information can be found on www.geog.ox.ac.uk

A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.