Dr Al James

Dr Al James
Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography

Examinations Officer
Graduate Recruitment Officer

School of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Phone: 020 7882 2746
Fax: 020 7882 7032
Email: a.james@qmul.ac.uk


Al James is an economic geographer with research interests in: economic-geographical methodology and practice; gendered geographies of work-life and employment in the New Economy; hybrid ‘economic’/ ‘development’ geographies of India’s new service economy; and the regional cultural economy of learning, innovation and entrepreneurship.  His research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Nuffield Foundation, and Isaac Newton Trust.  Al is a member of the International Advisory Board for the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, and has served as Secretary of the Economic Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG (2008–2011). 

Research interests:

Current and recent research projects

Promoting Equality and Diversity Though Economic Crisis (PEDEC)


The PEDEC research network brings together scholars, practitioners and activists from the UK, Europe and the US through a series of workshops to explore the implications of the economic downturn, and cuts in public spending, for maintaining and progressing equality and diversity standards and for including marginalized groups in economic recovery.  The PEDEC network is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2010–12), and is organised with Kate Malleson and Lizzie Barmes (QMUL Law), Geraldine Healy and Hazel Conley (QMUL Business Management), and Aisling Lyon (PEDEC administrator).  More information on PEDEC’s activities can be found here.

 

The Impacts of Work-Life Balance on Learning & Innovation in High Tech Regional Economies


 


The shifting boundaries between work, home and family accompanying the transition to the ‘new economy’ are widely debated.  Based on a comparative study of IT firms in Dublin, Ireland and Cambridge, UK this research explores gendered work-life conflicts amongst IT workers; the kinds of WLB arrangements that different worker cohorts find most useful in reconciling those conflicts; and how worker uptake of those preferred WLB arrangements enhances learning and innovation processes within and across firms in regional industrial systems.   This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (2006–2008; project evaluated as ‘outstanding’) and was affiliated to the ESRC's Gender Equality Network (GeNet).  More information can be found here.  This research has been extended into the post-recessionary context (2010) targeting female IT workers through the London Girl Geeks and womenintechnology networking groups.  

 

Empowering Workers in the New Economy: Labour Market Intermediaries in the Call Centre Industry (India and the UK)


This joint research project by Al James with Bhaskar Vira (University of Cambridge) compares the everyday work-life experiences of call centre workers in India (Delhi, Noida, and Gurgaon) and the UK, and the role of different labour market intermediaries in mediating work and training practices, brokering employment relationships, and improving labour market outcomes for call centre workers in different national contexts.  The first phase of this research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation (SGS 32848; 2006–2008), Isaac Newton Trust and Smuts Memorial Fund, and developed a research partnership with the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB).  The second phase seeks to extend the analysis to other Tier II and Tier III cities, and to explore the labour market experiences of young professional workers across a range of growth sectors in India’s New Service Economy. 

 

Islamic Finance: Charitable Giving in London’s East End


In the post-recessionary context of radically reduced public expenditure, this joint research with Jane Pollard (Newcastle), Kavita Datta (QMUL) and Yara Evans (QMUL) beings to document empirically the scale and scope of Islamic philanthropic economic networks in London’s East End, and their crucial role in mobilising community assets to help the poor and to encourage learning, entrepreneurialism and social cohesion.  Rejecting the presumption that ‘the economy’ can and should be theorised solely from the perspective of the formal spaces of western economies, this research instead seeks to learn from ‘alternative’ models of Islamic philanthropy rooted in South East Asia and the Middle East in order to ‘theorise back’ from these different economic spaces, institutions and practices, to explore their geographical (re)configuration in the UK context. 

 

Demystifying Regional Cultural Economy: Salt Lake City (High Tech Meets Mormonism)


T here is a consensus that we cannot fully understand the relationship between innovation and regional growth outside of the sociocultural conventions, norms, and values which facilitate and regulate the economic behaviour of firms.  Nevertheless, these links remain poorly understood, with references to 'culture' still seen by many as appealing to a mystical set of forces, or else a 'dustbin category'.  This doctoral research project (1999-2003) sought to demystify these links, focusing on the cluster of software firms in Salt Lake City, Utah and their differential degrees of embeddedness in the distinctive regional culture associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism).  This work was funded by the ESRC (grant #: R00429934224) and awarded the prize for ‘Best PhD 2003’ by the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (Economic Geography Research Group). 

Postgraduate supervision:

Josh Phillips (with Kavita Datta) ‘Exploring the geographies of credit amongst entrepreneurial new migrant groups in London’ (PhD QMUL 2010–13).

Supriti Bezbaruah (with Cathy McIlwaine) ‘The evolving relationship of work, women and the State in India: the experience of the banking sector’ (PhD QMUL 2009–2011).

Laurent Frideres (with Ron Martin). ‘Spatial industrial clustering and competitive advantage: comparing firms inside and outside industry clusters’ (PhD University of Cambridge, 2006–2010).  Awarded prize for Best PhD 2011 by RGS-IBG (Economic Geography Research Group).

Publications:

Journal papers and book chapters

Review articles

Undergraduate teaching:

GEG5111: Spaces of Uneven Development (convenor)
GEG61--:  Mobile Mumbai (new field-based course for 2012)
GEG6103: Geographies of Labour

Postgraduate teaching:

GEG7120: Geographical Thought and Practice
GEG7110: Globalisation and Development in Practice (convenor)

Professional activities and outreach:

Recent seminars and presentations

Offshoring Call Centre Jobs to India: Dead-End Work or Career Escalators? The Experience of Delhi’s Urban Middle Class Youth.  Invited paper to The Geographical Association, The Judd School, Tonbridge, November 21 2011.

Work-life 'balance' and the gendered geographies of recession.  Invited seminar to the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, 14 November 2011.

Women, work-life ‘balance’ and recession.  Paper presented in ‘Life’s Work in Crisis II: Social Reproduction and the Contemporary Moment', Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers 2011, London, 2 September 2011.

Offshoring Call Centre Jobs to India: Dead-End Work or Career Escalators? The Experience of Delhi’s Urban Middle Class Youth. Invited paper to The Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester, 27 April 2011.

Gendered work-life conflict and the limits to learning in IT (or, why it pays employers to care). Invited paper to the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Society, Queen Mary University of London, 10 February 2011.

Work-life conflict and the limits to learning (or, why it pays employers to care). Paper presented as part of the AHRC Research Network PEDEC: Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis, Seminar 1: Mapping the Equality and Diversity Challenges of Economic Crisis. Queen Mary University of London, 15 December 2010.

Sustaining high tech regional economies? Work-life balance, care and gendered (im)mobilities of learning. Invited seminar to the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES), Institute of Education, London, 6 December 2010.

Researching Hybrid ‘Economic’ / ‘Development’ Geographies in Practice: Methodological Reflections from a Collaborative Project on India’s New Service Economy (with Bhaskar Vira).  Invited lecture to the School of Geography, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany, 25 November 2010.

Work-life ‘balance’, learning and organizational performance (or, why it pays employers to care). Invited paper to the ESRC Seminar Series on ‘Feminism and Futurity: New Times, New Spaces’ (‘New Welfare Regimes’ session), Department of Geography, University of Bristol, 18 June 2010.

Work-life (im)‘balance’ and its workplace consequences in the Knowledge Economy: working parents in the IT sector (Dublin, Ireland and Cambridge, UK). Paper presented to the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, 8 July 2008.

Invisible career staircases in India’s New E-Service Economy (with Bhaskar Vira). Paper presented to the London Economic Geography Seminar, London 12 May 2008.

The operation and outcomes of labour market intermediaries in India’s E-services sector (Bhaskar Vira and Al James). Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers 2008, Boston 15-19 April, 2008.