Dr Megan Blake

Research Interests

Economic and Cultural Geography, geographies of everyday life, social institutions, materiality and practice, consumption, care, innovation/creativity.

Current research

My research engages with recent debates involving critical social theory and is based around issues concerning the ways that everyday life practices, social institutions, and place help shape and inform the daily-life interactions and projects of individuals, reinforce social divisions, and enable or constrain access to resources. This research agenda develops theoretically engaged but empirically grounded approaches to issues within three areas: 1. Food practices and everyday life; 2. Innovation and Entrepreneurship; 3. Life course and wellbeing. Collectively this research has sought to push at theoretical boundaries by stressing the contributions that geographical concepts can make to social theory.

I am currently working on research that explores the ways that value circulates through the wet markets of Hong Kong. This project explores multiple forms of value and value circuits. Of particular concern is firstly, the way that these circuits are constrained by neoliberal policy and discourse and secondly, the ways in which value circuits are enabled by everyday moments of creativity and enabling of right livelihood. The implications for this work are myriad as it considers circuits of waste, wellbeing, food security and urban social justice.

A further interest I have been developing is a consideration of dissemination practice. In addition to teaching on this topic at masters level, I have also begin putting into practice ways of disseminating my research that extend beyond academic publishing and an academic writing style. You can find more about these efforts at GeoFoodie.org.

I welcome applications from potential postgraduate research students in areas related to those described above or in areas similar to those of my current and recent PhD students (see below).

Teaching

Megan is on special leave and does not currently teach at the University of Sheffield.

She will be teaching on a range of undergraduate undergraduate and postgraduate courses including:

GEO112 Introducing Social and Cultural Geographies
GEO151 Qualitative Methods in Human Geography
GEO217 Environment, Society and Policy
GEO241 Social and Cultural Geographies
GEO264 Research Design in Human Geography
GEO265 Researching Human Geographies

All staff also engage in personal supervision and tutoring of individual students at all three undergraduate levels in the following modules:
GEO163 (Information & Communication Skills for Geographers)
GEO263 or GEO264 (Research Design in Human or Physical Geography)
GEO356 (Geographical Research Project)

Key Publications

• Cook, I., Hobson, K., Hallett IV, L., Guthman, J., Murphy, A., Hulme, A., Sheller, M., Crewe, L., Nally, D., Roe, E., Mather, C., Kingsbury, P., Slocum, R., Imai, S., Duruz, J., Philo, C., Buller, H., Goodman, M., Hayes-Conroy, A., Hayes-Conroy, J., Tucker, L., Blake, M.K., Le Heron, R., Putnam, H., Maye, D. and Henderson, H. (2011). Geographies of food: 'Afters'. Progress in Human Geography, 35(1), 104-120.
  doi:10.1177/0309132510369035
• Blake, M.K., Mellor, J.C.L. and Crane, L. (2010). Buying Local Food: Shopping Practices, Place, and Consumption Networks in Defining Food as "Local". Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(2), 409-426.
  doi:10.1080/00045601003595545
• Mellor, J.C.L., Blake, M.K. and Crane, L. (2010). When I'm Doing a Dinner Party I Don't Go for the Tesco Cheeses; Gendered Class Distinctions, Friendship and Home Entertaining. Food, Culture and Society, 13(1), 115-134.
  doi:10.2752/175174410X12549021368180
• Blake, M.K., Mellor, J.C.L., Crane, L. and Osz, B. (2009). Eating in time; Eating up time. In: Jackson, P.A. (ed.) Changing Families, Changing Food. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. 187-205. ISBN 9780230223981
• Blake, M.K. (2008). It takes a village: women's entrepreneurship, resource networks and place. VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken.
• Hanson, S. and Blake, M.K. (2008). Gender and Entrepreneurial Networks. Regional Studies
  doi:10.1080/00343400802251452
• Blake, M.K. (2007). Formality and Friendship: Research ethics review and Participatory Action Research. ACME, 6(3), 411-421.
  Online PDF
• Blake, M.K. and Hanson, S. (2005). Rethinking Innovation: Context and Gender. Environment and Planning A, 37(4), 681-701.
  doi:10.1068/a3710
• Bailey, A.J., Blake, M.K., and Cooke, T.J. (2004). Migration, Care and the Linked Lives of dual-earner households. Environment and Planning A 36(9), 1617-1632.
  doi:10.1068/a36198

See Publications List for complete listing

Other information

Since 2005 I have been an Expert Reviewer for the European Commission. I also review grants for the National Science Foundation (US) and am on the reviewer college for the ESRC.

From 2011-2013, I spent time on special leave in Hong Kong. During this time I taught students at Hong Kong University. The students were assessed via web pages that they produced. You can learn more about my approach to teaching and find their pages here. While in Hong Kong, I also worked at Hong Kong Baptist University helping to establish communities of practice in order to improve staff capacity for doing collaborative research, interdisciplinary teaching of General Education courses, and innovative public engagement.