Professor Adrian Smith
Head of Department
Department of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Phone: 020 7882 8436
Fax: 020 7882 7479
Email: a.m.smith@qmul.ac.uk
Teaching:
GEG4104 Globalisation, development & Inequality
GEG7115 Understanding Globalisation and Development
Research interests:
Research areas: economic geographies, political economy, cities and regions, post-socialist transformations, commodity geographies and global value chains.
My main interests are in economic geographies, the political economy of cities and regions, and post-socialist transformations. For the past fifteen years or so I have been working on a variety of projects looking at the economic and social geographies of transformation in Central Europe. This work has engaged with debates over political-economic transformation, non-essentialist Marxism and development theory to try to understand the contemporary geographies of social power. I am also currently directing the Global Apparel Research Programme [new window] at Queen Mary.
My current research involves the following areas:
Economic Geographies of Post-Socialist Transformations and the 'New' Europe [new window]
I am currently involved in an examination of the changing trajectories of the East European garment industry, the growth of outward processing, global contracting and new trade regimes through a U.S. national Science foundation-funded research project on the geographical consequences of the end of quota constrained trade since 2005. This research is being undertaken with John Pickles and Meena Tewari (University of Chapel Hill) and Gary Gereffi (Duke University). This project is a development of earlier NSF-funded research with John Pickles (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Bob Begg (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Milan Buček (University of Economics, Bratislava) and Poli Roukova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). We have been examining the dramatic growth of the garment industry in Eastern Europe, and have been trying to understand these dynamics in relation to both the new geographies of global neo-liberalism and trade liberalisation as well as the social and cultural embeddedness of industrial economies.
This area of research built upon an earlier completed ESRC-funded project examining territorial uneven development and economic transformations across Europe. This project involved research with Mick Dunford (University of Sussex), Jane Hardy (University of Hertfordshire), Ray Hudson (University of Durham) and David Sadler (University of Liverpool). The aim of this project was to link an understanding of territorial uneven development with the reconfiguration of economic sectors and divisions of labour in a Europe undergoing rapid integration after the collapse of state socialism.
Cultures of Economies and Household Economic Practices [new window]
This research has involved understanding household economic practices and survival strategies in Central Europe as historically situated and culturally inflected economic relations. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation earlier research has examined forms of domestic food production and networks of reciprocity and social cohesion amongst households in cities in Slovakia. The research has developed through a comparative examination of household and community cultures of economies in different locations in Poland and Slovakia funded by ESRC and in collaboration with Alison Stenning (University of Newcastle). http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/socialexclusion/ [new window]
A second area of interest has involved collaborative work on the cultures of commodity economies. Most recently this has resulted in a special issue of Society and Space (2003), edited with Gavin Bridge (Syracuse University).
Domesticating Neo-Liberalism
The comparative ESRC-funded research has led to an engagement with debates over neo-liberalisation. The current focus of research is a co-edited collection Social Justice and Neo-Liberalism: Global Perspectives (Zed, forthcoming) and a book manuscript provisionally entitled Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Social Exclusion and Spaces of Economic Practice in Post-Socialism.
Manufacturing London [new window]
A final area of interest, funded by the British Academy, involves research on the globalisation and restructuring of metropolitan manufacturing in London's garment sector. Investigating the scope and scale of restructuring, the kinds of restructuring strategies established and the role of institutional structures and practices this project builds upon my other interests in the global garment industry.
Publications:
Books
Smith, A. (1998) Reconstructing the Regional Economy: Industrial Transformation and Regional Development in Slovakia, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Pickles, J. and Smith, A. (eds.) (1998) Theorising Transition: The Political Economy of Post-Communist Transformations, London: Routledge.
Rainnie, A., Smith, A. and Swain, A. (eds.) (2002) Work, Employment and Transition: Restructuring Livelihoods in ‘post-Communist’ Eastern Europe, London: Routledge.
Smith, A., Stenning, A. and Willis, K. (eds) (2008) Social Justice and Neo-Liberalism: Global Perspectives, London: Zed.
Smith, A., Stenning, A., Rochovská, A. and _wi_tek, D. (in progress) Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Social Exclusion and Spaces of Economic Practice in Post-Socialism, Oxford: Blackwell, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) book series.
Articles and book chapters
Smith, A., Stenning, A., Rochovská, A. and _wi_tek, D. (2008) ‘The emergence of a working poor: labour markets, neoliberalisation and diverse economies in post-socialist cities’, Antipode, 40 (2): 283-311.
Lee, R., Leyshon, A. and Smith, A. (2008) ‘Rethinking economies/economic geographies’, Geoforum, 39: 1111-1115.
Smith, A., Pickles, J., Buček, M., Begg, B. and Roukova, P. (2008) ‘Reconfiguring “post-socialist” regions: trans-border networks and regional competition in the Slovak and Ukrainian clothing industry’, Global Networks, 8 (3): 281-307.
Smith, A. (2008) ‘Informal work and the diverse economies of “post-socialist” Europe’, in Williams, C. and Marcelli, E. (eds) The Informal Work of Developed Nations, forthcoming.
Pickles, J. and Smith, A. (2008) ‘Global outsourcing and clothing workers after the worker states’, in McGrath-Champ, S., Herod, A. and Rainnie, A. (eds) Handbook of Work and Society: Working Space, London: Sage, forthcoming.
Pickles, J. and Smith, A. (2007) ‘Post-socialism and the politics of knowledge production’, in Tickell, A., Sheppard, E., Peck, J., and (eds.) Politics and Practice in Economic Geography, Sage, pp. 151-162.
Smith, A. and Rochovská, A. (2007) ‘Domesticating neo-liberalism: everyday lives and the geographies of post-socialist transformations’, Geoforum, 38 (6): 1163-1178.
Stenning, A., _wi_tek, D., Smith, A. and Rochovská, A. (2007) ‘Poverty and household economic practices in Nowa Huta, Poland’, Geographia Polonica, 80 (1): 7-24.
Smith, A. (2007) ‘Articulating neo-liberalism: diverse economies and urban restructuring in post-socialism’, in Sheppard, E., Leitner, H. and Peck, J. (eds.) Contesting Neoliberalism: The Urban Frontier, Guilford, pp. 204–222.
Smith, A. and Evans, Y. (2006) ‘Surviving at the margins? Deindustrialisation, the creative industries, and upgrading in London's garment sector’, Environment and Planning A, 38: 2253–2269.
Pickles, J., Smith, A., Buček, M., Begg, R. and Roukova, P. (2006) ‘Upgrading, changing competitive pressures and diverse practices in the East and Central European apparel industry’, Environment and Planning A, 38: 2305–2324.
Smith, A. and Stenning, A. (2006) ‘Beyond household economies: articulations and spaces of economic practice in post-socialism’, Progress in Human Geography, 30 (2): 190–213.
Smith, A., Pickles, J., Begg, R., Roukova, P. and Bucek, M. (2005) ‘Outward processing, EU enlargement and regional relocation in the European textiles and clothing industry: reflections on the European Commission’s Communication on “The Future of the Textiles and Clothing Sector in the Enlarged European Union”, European Urban and Regional Studies, 12: 83–91.
Smith, A. (2005) ‘Capitalism from below? Small firms, petty capitalists and regional transformations in Eastern Europe’, in Petty Capitalists: Flexibility, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, Smart, A. and Smart, J. (eds.), Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 83–98.
Smith, A. and Pickles, J. (2005) ‘Technologies of transition: foreign investment and the (re-) articulation of East Central Europe into the global economy’, in Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Development in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Turnock, D. (ed.), Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 21–37.
Smith, A. (2004) ‘Regions, territories and diverse economies in the “new Europe”’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 11: 9–25.
Smith, A., Pickles, J. and Begg, R. (2003) ‘Cutting it: European integration, trade regimes and the reconfiguration of East-Central European apparel production’, Environment and Planning A, 35: 2191–2207.
Smith, A. and Bridge, G. (2003) ‘Intimate encounters: culture-economy-commodity’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21 (3): 257–268. Available at http://www.envplan.com/epd/editorials/d2103ed.pdf
Smith, A. (2003) ‘Power relations, industrial clusters and regional transformations: pan-European integration and outward processing in the Slovak clothing industry’, Economic Geography, 79: 17-40.
Smith, A. (2002) ‘Culture/economy and spaces of economic practice: positioning households in post-communism’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 27: 232–50.
Smith, A., Rainnie, A., Dunford, M., Hardy, J., Hudson, R. and Sadler, D. (2002) ‘Networks of value, commodities and regions: reworking divisions of labour in macro-regional economies’, Progress in Human Geography, 26: 41–63.
Smith, A. (2002) ‘Imagining geographies of the “new Europe”: geo-economic power and the new European architecture of integration’, Political Geography, 21: 647–70.
Dunford, M. and Smith, A. (2000) ‘Catching up or falling behind? Economic performance and regional trajectories in the “new” Europe’, Economic Geography, 76: 169–95.
Smith, A. (2000) ‘Employment restructuring and household survival in “post-communist transition”: rethinking economic practices in Eastern Europe’, Environment and Planning A, 32: 1759–80.
Editorial responsibilities:
Editorial Board memberships:
European Urban and Regional Studies, Editor (2009-)
Economic Geography
Geography Compass: Economic Geography
Folia Geographica (Slovak Journal of Human Geography)
Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management
European Urban and Regional Studies
Growth and Change: A Journal of Regional Policy