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Mark J Smith (D.Phil., University of Sussex 1997) joined the Open University in 1995, after study and teaching at the Universities of Essex, London and Sussex. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo, the Norwegian School of Management (BI) and Queen's University (Canada) as well as Honorary Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University.

Course development and teaching

Mark J Smith has headed and/or contributed to a range of OU course teams including Understanding the Social Sciences, Governing Europe, Power Dissent Equality, A World of Whose Making, The Challenge of the Social Sciences, Ecology Justice and Citizenship, Environmental Decisions and Conflict Resolution, Environmental Responsibility, Earth in Crisis, Ethnography, Business and Human Rights, and International Development. His work includes published chapters, study guides, audio interviews, videos and TV programs in these and other courses. Recently he celebrated the completion of 21 presentations of the OU course The Challenge of the Social Sciences (an OU record!). Currently he is working with colleagues in POLIS and Development Studies on a new level 3 course on International Relations.

Research interests

Mark J Smith's recent work in citizenship studies has focused on the links between empirical and theoretical research on environment and citizenship, virtue ethics, political responsibility, the global politics of obligation, and corporate responsibility in many regions of the world. He has published widely on these and other themes. He has recently extended his empirical research on environmental issues to the Caribbean, collaborating with networks in Latin American Studies and research institutes at the University of West Indies. Recent projects include Environment and Citizenship: Integrating Justice, Responsibility and Civic Engagement, Zed Publications (2008), updated for readers in Chinese in 2012, and Responsible Politics: Bringing Together Human Rights, Labour Standards and Environmental Sustainability, Palgrave Macmillan (2013), researched and written with Piya Pangsapa. He has also co-edited Environmental Responsibility, Zed Publications (2009) with Martin Reynolds and Chris Blackmore.

On civil society organisations and transnational networks he has written two chapters on human rights and labour standards as well as two contributions to debates on the Big Society programme. He also maintains a steady output of news articles on civil society, electoral politics (including a series on the 2012 US election) and political participation for the wider public. Recent research outputs also include 'Territories of Knowledge', International Studies in Philosophy 37 (2), 2005, 'Obligation and Ecological Citizenship', Environments 33 (3), 2006, and 'The Political Economy of the Southeast Asian Borderlands', Journal of Contemporary Asia 38 (4), 2008. In the last year he has published a chapter on practical utopianism in the bestselling What are we fighting for?, and a second on world risk and vulnerability in developing society contexts. Following up on recent publications in Caribbean Studies, he is currently completing two journal articles based on recent fieldwork in small island developing states. Mark's work on citizenship explores the connections between the first order constructs of everyday life and the second order constructs of social science research. His editorial work also includes the eight-volume collection Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences (Sage). As a writer, campaigner and academic, he seeks to explore how ideas can make a difference in politics, global society and the environment.

PhD research supervision

Mark J Smith welcomes PhD research proposals on civil society organisations, ecological citizenship, environmental justice, rights and duties, social movements, social and political theory, as well as Asian Studies and Caribbean Studies. He has supervised research in citizenship studies, civic engagement, political participation and electoral campaigns, ideology and discourse, international development and the philosophy & methodology of the social sciences.

Recent publications

A selection of my research publications can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

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

Last updated: 12 April 2013