Geography

Profile

I graduated with a BA in Geography from University of Leicester (1984) and a PhD (Leicester) in 1988.  My first academic job was that of Research Fellow on the BCS70 cohort study at the International Centre for Child Studies (affiliated to Bristol Polytechnic) between 1989-1991 and I moved with the cohort study to the Social Statistics Research Unit at City University in 1991. In 1993, I joined the Department of Geography at Portsmouth as a Lecturer.

Research Interests

Self employment, entrepreneurship and work-life balance

My most recent empirical research in this area investigates the phenomena of small-scale entrepreneurship carried out (and started up) within the context of family life, parenting and work-life balance. The research focuses on typically professional mothers who have made the decision to manage this work-life balance through small business start-ups (typically internet based activities). (Ekinsmyth 2011).

Previously, I have been concerned to understand the lived realities of freelance workers who rely for their livelihoods on tenuous and insecure links to the magazine publishing industry. In my publications, I have explored these realities from the perspectives of the individual workers and organisational structures using the conceptual lenses of risk (Ekinsmyth 1999), project organisation (Ekinsmyth  2002a) and ‘embeddedness’ (Ekinsmyth 2002b).

Creative/Cultural Industries and urban change

I have just completed a comparative project funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya that contrasts the new media and cultural industry clusters in London (particularly Shoreditch) and Barcelona (particularly the developing 22@ district of Poblenou). The more established, and organic nature of the Shoreditch cluster contrasts with the recent and planned nature of 22@ and the research seeks to establish lessens from both for future local economic growth.

My work on the magazine publishing industry (see above) also falls under this heading.

Life course geographies

I am currently interested in the value and utility of life course perspectives in geography.

Teaching 

I teach urban, social and cultural geography and contribute to other areas of the undergraduate curriculum such as Geographical Theory and Research Methods. I am currently the Leader of the following units:

• Geographies of Well-being
• Cultural Geography
• Theory and Methods: Human Geography
• Human Geography: Critique and Discourse

Since 1997, I have jointly led a field course to Barcelona which focuses primarily on urban economic, social and cultural change.

I have contributed chapters to Shurmer-Smith P (2002) Doing Cultural Geography, Sage, London

Pedagogic Research

In October 2008, I was awarded £3000 to undertake a study of the use of audio feedback in the geography and earth sciences disciplines from the Geography and Earth Sciences Subject Centre of the Learning and Teaching Support Network. This is part of an overall project on audio feedback "Sounds Good" sponsored by JISC (Ekinsmyth (2010) Reflections on using digital audio to give assessment feedback, Planet 23, 74-77).

Recent Publications

More recent publications

Research Publications before 2008

Ekinsmyth, C, Elmhirst, R, Holloway, S and Jarvis, H ( 2004) ‘Love changes all: Making some noise by coming out as mothers’. In Sharp, J., Browne, K and Thien, D. (Eds.) Women and Geography Study Group: Geography and Gender Reconsidered, WGSG. 95-107

Ekinsmyth C (2002) ‘Project Organisation, Embeddedness and Risk in Magazine Publishing’, Regional Studies 36(3), 22

Ekinsmyth C (2002) Embedded Project-Production in Magazine Publishing: A Case of Self-Exploitation? In Taylor, M.J., Leonard, S.B. (Eds.) Embedded Enterprise and Social Capital, Ashgate, Kent. 169-185