Queen Mary, University of London Spacer image Spacer image
Professor Jon May

Professor Jon May
Professor of Geography, Director of Graduate Studies

Department of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Phone: 020 7882 8925
Fax: 020 7882 8106
Email: j.may@qmul.ac.uk

NEW BOOK (December 2009): Global Cities at Work: New Migrant Divisions of Labour

for a 20% discount and a chance to buy this new book at just £16, please download this form and return to Pluto Press

External Appointments

2006–Editor (Social Geography) Geography Compass
2006–Chair, Royal Geographical Society Urban Geography Research Group www.urban-geography.org.uk

Research interests:


Research Interests
I am a social and cultural geographer with a particular interest in (global) cities. My work uses an ethnographic approach to explore questions of inequality and social justice in an era of rapid urban chance, social and economic restructuring and welfare reform. For the past decade or so my research has mainly been focused around two key substantive issues: the geographies of homelessness, and migrant labour in the global city.

On the first of these issues, early work explored the life histories of homeless people; media and legislative constructions of homelessness (especially those concerned with the construction of ‘homeless places’ and questions of geographical mobility); and homeless people’s own experiences of movement and of place. More recently, I have worked with Paul Cloke (University of Exeter) and Sarah Johnsen (University of York) on the Homeless Places Project (ESRC, 2001-3). Our work on the project has extended the rather narrow accounts of homelessness and of the ‘revanchist city’ found in the geographical literature, exploring instead the various and complex experiences of and responses to street homelessness in the UK – examining the changing face of homeless services in an era of neo-liberal welfare ‘reform’; the geographies of voluntarism; and homeless people’s own understandings and experiences of voluntary service spaces and of the streets. In relation to my second major area of interest, work with colleagues (Jane Wills, Cathy McIlwaine, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans and Jo Herbert) in the Global Cities at Work (ESRC, 2004-7) team at Queen Mary has explored the practices and politics of ‘travelling neoliberalism’ – charting the processes behind and formation of a distinctive ‘migrant division of labour’ in the London low-wage economy, the diverse experiences of low-paid migrant workers themselves, and the politics attendant to such divisions. Outputs and further details of each of these projects can be found below:

www.homeless-research.org.
Global Cities at Work

Teaching and Graduate Supervision
My research interests are reflected in my undergraduate and graduate teaching. I currently teach two undergraduate and three graduate courses:

Society, Culture and Space
Urban Futures: Los Angeles and Las Vegas

Culture, Space and Power
Cities, Empire and Modernity
Social Science Research: Methods and Methodologies

Publications:

Virtual Geographies
Virtual Geographies
timespace
timespace
Cultural Geography in Practice
Cultural Geography in Practice

Selected Publications

Books

Wills, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and McIlwaine,  C. (in press, 2009) Global Cities at Work: New migrant divisions of  labour. Pluto Press, London.

Blunt, A., Gruffudd, P., May, J., Ogborn, M. and Pinder, D. (eds) (2003) Practising Cultural Geography. London, Arnold. 330pp.

May, J. and Thrift, N. (eds) (2001) TimeSpace: geographies of temporality. London, Routledge. 323pp.

Crang, M., Crang, P. and May, J. (eds) (1999) Virtual Geographies: bodies, space, relations. London, Routledge. 322pp.

 

Journal Papers and Book Chapters (2005-)

Geographies of Homelessness

May, J. (in press) ‘Foreword’ in Hill, H. Rock Bottom: Pictures of London’s homeless. Books and Life Limited, London.

Devertueil, G., May, J., and Von Mahs, J. (in press) ‘Complexity not collapse: recasting geographies of homelessness in a ‘punitive age’’, Progress in Human Geography

May, J. ‘Homelessness’, in Kitchin, R. and Thrift, N. (eds) (in press) International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, London.

Johnsen, S., May, J. and Cloke, P. (2008) ?Imag(in)ing homeless places: Using auto-photography to (re)examine the geographies of homelessness?, Area 40(2): 194-207

Cloke, P. May, J. and Johnsen, S. (2008) ‘Performativity and affect in the homeless city’, Environment and Planning: Society and Space 26 (2): 241-263

May, J. (2008) ‘Of Nomads and Vagrants: Single Homelessness and Narratives of Home as Place’, in Oakes, T. S. and Price, P.L. (eds) The Cultural Geography Reader. Routledge, London: pp334-342

Cloke, P., Johnsen, S. and May, J. (2007) ‘The periphery of care: emergency services for homeless people in rural areas’, Journal of Rural Studies 23: 387-401

May, J., Johnsen, S. and Cloke, P. (2007) ‘Alternative cartographies of homelessness: rendering visible British women’s experiences of ‘visible’ homelessness’, Gender, Place and Culture 14 (2) 121-40

Cloke, P. Johnsen, S. and May, J. (2007) ‘Ethical citizenship? Volunteers and the ethics of providing services for homeless people’, Geoforum

May, J., Cloke, P., and Johnsen, S. (2006) ‘Shelter at the margins: New Labour and the changing state of emergency accommodation for single homeless people in Britain’, Policy and Politics 34 (4): 711-30

May, J. and Cloke, P. (2006) ‘Homelessness’, in Warf, B. (ed) The Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Sage, London. pp. 226-7.

Cloke, P. and May, J. (2006) ‘Home’, Warf, B. (ed) The Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Sage, London. pp. 225-6.

May, J., Johnsen, S. and Cloke, P. (2005) 'Re-phasing neo-liberalism: New Labour and Britain's crisis of street homelessness', Antipode 37 (4): 703-30

May, J. (2005) ‘Exclusion’ in Cloke, P., Crang, P. and Goodwin, M. (eds) Introducing Human Geography (2nd Edition). London, Arnold. pp. 411-24

Cloke, P., Johnsen., S. and May, J. (2005) ‘Exploring ethos? Discourses of charity in the provision of emergency services for homeless people’, Environment and Planning A 37 (3): 385-402

Johnsen, S., Cloke, P., and May, J. (2005) ‘Day centres for homeless people: spaces of care or fear?’, Social and Cultural Geography 6 (6): 787-811.

Johnsen, S. Cloke, P., and May, J. (2005) ‘Transitory spaces of care: serving homeless people on the street’, Health and Place 11 (4): 323-36


Low-Paid Migrant Labour

Wills, J., Datta, K., McIlwaine, C., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., and May,  J. (forthcoming, 2010) ‘Immigration, local regional and uneven  development’, in Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. (eds)  Routledge Handbook of Local and Regional Development. Routledge, London.

Wills, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and McIlwaine,  C. (in press, 2010) ‘New migrant divisions of labour’, in Coe, N. and  Jones, A. (eds) The Economic Geography of the UK. Sage, London.

Datta, D., McIlwaine, C., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and Wills,  J. (in press, 2011) ‘A migrant ethic of care’ Negotiating care and caring among migrant workers in London’s low pay economy?, Feminist Review

Datta, D., McIlwaine, C., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and Wills,  J. (in press, 2009) ‘Men on the move? Embodied narratives of migration  and work among low paid men in London’, Social and Cultural Geography.

Wills, J., May, J. Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J. and  McIlwaine,  C. (in press, 2009) ‘London’s migrant division of labour’, European  Urban and Regional Studies.

Wills, K., Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and McIlwaine,  C. (in press, 2009) ?Religion at work: The role of faith-based  organizations in the London living wage campaign?, Cambridge Journal  of Regions, Economy and Society.

May, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., McIlwaine, C. and Wills, J. (2008) ‘Travelling neoliberalism: Polish and Ghanaian migrant workers in London’, in Smith, A., Stenning, A. and Willis, K. (eds) Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global perspectives, London, Zed.

Herbert, J., May, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y., McIlwaine, C. and Wills, J. (2008) ‘Multicultural living? Experiences of everyday racism amongst Ghanaian migrants in London’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 15 (2): 103-17.

May, J., Wills, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y., Herbert, J. and McIlwaine, C. (2007) ‘Keeping London working: global cities, the British state, and London’s new migrant division of labour’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32: 151-67

Datta, K., McIlwaine, C., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., May, J. and Wills, J. (2007) ‘From coping strategies to tactics: London’s low-pay economy and migrant labour’ British Journal of Industrial Relations 45 (2): 404-32

Datta, K., McIlwaine, C., Wills, J., Evans, Y., Herbert, J., and May, J. (2007) ‘The new development finance or exploiting migrant labour? Remittance sending among low-paid migrant workers in London’, International Development Planning Review, 29 (1) 43-67

Evans, Y. Wills, J., Datta, K., Herbert, J., McIlwaine, C. and May, J. (2007) ‘‘Subcontracting by stealth’ in London’s hotels: impacts and implementation for labour organising’, Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society 10: 85-98

Examples of research funding:

Total funding secured: £423, 120

2005Oxfam (£5000) Unison (£5000) Greater London Authority (£5000) Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London (£4700) London Citizens (infrastructural support) (Total funding £19,700) London Citizen’s Summer Academy: Survey of Low Paid Workers in London (With Dr Kavita Datta, Dr Cathy McIlwaine, and Professor Jane Wills, Department of Geography, Queen Mary) June-August 2005
2005-8Economic and Social Research Council (£240, 670) Global Cities at Work: migrant labour and employment in London (With Dr Kavita Datta, Dr Cathy McIlwaine, and Professor Jane Wills [Principal Applicant] Department of Geography, Queen Mary). January 05-September 08
2003New Zealand High Commission (£2000) Emergency accommodation for people sleeping rough in Auckland, New Zealand.
2001-3Economic and Social Research Council (£124, 994): Homeless Places: the uneven geographies of provision for single homeless people (Principal applicant: Professor Paul Cloke, University of Exeter). June 01-Sept 03.
Final report graded: Outstanding
1999Providence Row Housing Association (£10,000): Wet Shelter Evaluation.
1998Housing Corporation Innovation and Good Practice Grant (£14,500): Customer Service Standards and the Joint Commissioning Process (Co-applicant with Professor Peter Ambrose, University of Brighton)
1998Brighton and Hove City Council (£7,756): Housing Advice and Information Services: ‘Best Value’ evaluation (Co-applicant with Professor Peter Ambrose, University of Brighton)
1997School of Cultural and Community Studies (£500) Research Development Fund: Homeless Histories Project
1995British Academy Small Grants Award (£3000): Education and Citizenship - mapping the land in the 1996 Land Use UK Project. (Co-applicant with Dr. A. Binns and Dr. S. Rycroft, University of Sussex).