| Doreen Massey | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1944 Manchester |
| Citizenship | British |
| Fields | economic and social geographer |
| Alma mater | Oxford, Philadelphia |
| Notable awards | Victoria Medal (1994) Prix Vautrin Lud (1998) |
Doreen Barbara Massey FRSA FBA AcSS (born 1944), is a contemporary British social scientist and geographer, working among others on topics typical of marxist geography. She currently serves as Professor of geography at the Open University.[1]
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Massey was born in Manchester and studied at Oxford and Philadelphia, beginning her career with a thinktank, the Centre for Environmental Studies (CES) in London. CES contained several key analysts of the contemporary British economy, and Massey established a working partnership with Richard Meegan, among others. CES was closed down and she moved into academia at The Open University. She was awarded the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1994.[1] After a distinguished career, she won the Prix Vautrin Lud (the ‘Nobel de Géographie’) in 1998.[2]
Doreen Massey is a relatively frequent media commentator, particularly on industry and regional trends, and in her role as Professor at the OU she is involved in several educational TV programmes and books.
Doreen Massey's main fields of study are globalisation, regional uneven development, cities, and the reconceptualisation of place. Although associated with an analysis of contemporary western capitalist society, she has also worked in Nicaragua and South Africa.
Her early work at CES established the basis for her 'spatial divisions of labour' theory (Power Geometry), that social inequalities were generated by the uneveness of the capitalist economy, creating stark divisions between rich and poor regions and between social classes. 'Space matters' for poverty, welfare and wealth. Over the years this theory has been refined and extended, with space and spatial relationships remaining central to her account of contemporary society.
While Massey has argued for the importance of place, her position accords with those arguing against essentialised or static notions, where:
Massey used the example of Kilburn High Road in north west London to exemplify what she termed a 'progressive' or 'global' sense of place, in the essay 'A Global Sense of Place'.[3]