Research

Research interests

I have a long-standing research interest in understanding the reconfigurations of public life. This includes work on:

• Geographies of Public Life and Spaces of Democracy: including theories of the public sphere, geographies of representation, urban and transnational democracy, emergent forms of public action.
• Social Theory: including Critical Theory, democratic theory, ethics, media theory, normative political philosophy, postcolonalism, poststructuralism, pragmatism, theories of action.
• Changing Cities: including urban politics and transnational mobilization, the urbanization of responsibility, alternative urbanisms, and the geographies of contentious public action.
• Learning from South Africa: including popular culture, media and cultural policy, environmental and urban politics, and southern urbanism.

ORCID: 0000-0002-1291-1421

Long ago, my doctoral thesis, Impure and Worldly Geography, explored understandings of the politics of representation in postcolonial theory and poststructuralism, and looked at nineteenth-century public discourses about African geography as an example of ‘white writing‘. 

Since then, my research has included further work on the textual-institutional geographies of colonial and postcolonial public spheres, including research on the construction of transnational literary publics around the Heinemann African Writers Series; research examining relationships between social movements, media and democratization in South Africa since the end of apartheid; and critical engagements with the conceptualization of ‘neoliberalism’ and other key concepts in and around human geography.

Much of my research has focussed exploring the geographies of  public life, including conceptualising the challenges of developing critical perspectives on new practices, sites and norms of public action (see the edited collection Rethinking the Public). My research on public formation is part of a long standing interest in understanding the spaces of democratic politics (including the books Culture and Democracy and Spaces of Democracy). This includes work that theorises the relations between urbanization and democratic mobilization, focussing on re-conceptualizing the geographical aspects of the democratic principle of ‘all affected interests’. It has also informed the development of the argument presented in my latest book, The Priority of Injustice: Locating Democracy in Critical Theory. My work on these issues draws on empirical projects, including research on new spaces of democracy in post-apartheid Durban; research on transnational HIV and AIDS advocacy networks; research on 'the urbanization of responsibility'; and research on ethical consumption exploring the place-based problematization of everyday consumption practices as a strategy for mobilizing local networks of global solidarity (see the book Globalizing Responsibility), which overlapped with an interest in the development of social theoretical perspectives on ordinary practices of virtue, such as care, generosity, hospitality, justice, and responsibility (see the edited collection Extending Hospitality). 

Research projects

My current research focuses on developing themes that arise from various projects: 

- further work on the geographies of public life, focussing on understanding popular responses to discourses of risk and responsibility during the Covid-19 pandemic, supported by a British Academy research award.

- further work on 'logical geographies of action' arising from The Priority of Injustice: Locating Democracy in Critical Theory.

- work on the geographies of urban social science, including work supported by a British Academy/Newton project on South African urban thought since the 1970s.

- further work on the theme of 'the urbanization of responsibility', seeking to make sense of why and how everyone loves cities these days. 

Grants/Funding

Funded research projects include:

• Learning to Live with Risk and Responsibility: Understanding Popular Responses to COVID-19. (British Academy Special Research Awards: Covid-19 Scheme, 2020-2022). 
• South African Urban Imperatives Past, Present and Future. (British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship Scheme, 2015-2018).
• The Urbanization of Responsibility (Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, 2014-2016).
• ESRC-NCCPE Research Synthesis on Segmentation Methods in Public Engagement (2010-2011).
• Emergent Publics (ESRC Research Seminar Series, 2008-2010)
• Governing the spaces and subjects of ethical consumption (ESRC/AHRC Cultures of Consumption Programme, 2003-2006).
• New Spaces of Democracy in Post-Apartheid Durban (Leverhulme Trust, 2003-2004).
• Recontextualising Post-Colonial African Literature (British Academy, 2001-2003).
• Media and Citizenship in South Africa (Leverhulme Trust, 2000-2001).
• Restructuring Mass Media and the Transformation to Democracy in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Ohio State University, 1997-1998).

Publications

Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year

Refresh publications

External Engagement and Impact

Editorial responsibilities

Editor, Progress in Human Geography

Series Editor, Routledge Research in Place, Space and Politics Series. 

Editorial Board, Dialogues in Human Geography

Ediitorial Board, Urban Forum

Editorial Advisory Board, New Formations

Membership of Research Council committees

Member of ESRC Grant Assessment Panel, 2017-2020.

Member of ESRC Peer Review College, 2010-Present.

Teaching

I am currently Convenor for the following modules:

Level 1 - GEO1106: Geographies of Global Change

Level 2 - GEO2311: Ideas in Geography

Level 2 - GEO2327: Geographies of Justice

And I also contribute to GEO2132: Global Urban Futures

Details of previous teaching at The Open University, including links to open access resources, can be found here:

http://clivebarnett.wordpress.com/teaching/

I remain actively interested in adult education, as a member of the South West Regional Committee of Workers’ Educational Association.

Modules

2020/21

• GEO1106 - Geographies of Global Change
• GEO2311 - Ideas in Geography
• GEO2327 - Geographies of Justice: Research Methodologies in Action

Supervision / Group

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni