• Reader (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences)

telephone: 01413305171
email: Paul.Routledge@glasgow.ac.uk

My research interests include the following fields of study:

(i) the political economy of development within Asia in general, and India in particular; the role of multinational and transnational organizations in the development process; the economic, political, ecological and cultural effects of development upon societies at the national, regional and local levels; the popular response to this process in the form of social movements; the mediation of social movement agency by the specifics of place; and the identities created by those engaged in resistance practices. In particular I have been interested in the anti-missile base resistance conducted by peasant farmers and fisherfolk in Baliapal, Orissa; the Chipko peasant movement (resisting deforestation in the Himalayan foothills of Uttar Pradesh); the anti-tourism resistance organisations in the Goa, and the resistance against the construction of mega-dams in the Narmada valley, Madhya Pradesh;

(ii) the spatiality of resistance which inquires into:(a) how spatial processes and relations across a variety of scales, as well as the particularities of specific places, influence the character and emergence of various forms of resistance; (b) how practices of resistance are constitutive of different relationships to space, via strategic mobilitites, or uses of space; (c) how these relationships enable or constrain such articulations of resistance; and (d) how the character and meaning of place may change when it becomes a site of resistance. Research into this has been conducted in the context of the Nepal revolution of 1990; the anti-roads movement in Scotland; the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico; India’s Naxalite movement; and the Narmada anti-dam Movement;

(iii) the symbolic and material mediation of social movement behaviours and practices through (for example geopoetic) discourses and images created by the movements themselves and by the mass media. Research into this has been conducted in the context of the Scottish anti-roads movement; the Zapatista rebellion; the Baliapal anti-missile base resistance; and the Narmada Movement;

(iv) the methodologies associated with research into social movements and other resistance formations, particularly those of critical collaborative engagement. The problematic power and ethical relations of such collaborations have been examined with regard to the Scottish anti-roads movement; the Narmada movement; and the anti-tourism resistance in Goa, India;

(v) the character and process of globalising networks of resistance, focusing upon the notion of convergence spaces and fragmentary geographies of such networks. Recent work has been carried out particularly with reference to the global anti-capitalist movement and the Narmada movement in India.

Currently my research is focused upon a particular 'global justice network', People's Global Action, which comprises social movements from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. I am particularly interested in the prosecution of multi-scalar political action, and the uneven geographies of interaction, communication, and facilitation associated with the workings of the network. My research is focused upon the Asian regional component of the network, working in collaboration with social movements in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Indonesia.

I was awarded a Bsc. Honours in geography from Kingston Polytechnic in 1979, an MSc. in Geography from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1982, and a Ph.D in Geography from Syracuse University (USA) in 1991. I was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions in Conflict and Defense, Harvard University (USA) from 1991-93, and a Leverhulme Fellow in the Geography Department, University of Bristol, from 1993-94. Since then I have taught Human Geography at the University of Glasgow, and have held a range of teaching-related managerial positions both within the Department and within the University.

Cumbers, A. and Routledge, P. 2004-2005 The politics of convergence space in Global Justice Networks, £80,635 (ESRC 000230528).

• Aaron Franks (PhD candidate)
• William Hasty (PhD candidate)
• Morag Jardine (MRes candidate)
• Anna Laing (PhD candidate)
• Kristina Weaver (PhD candidate)

I have developed and taught Honours degree courses on the Cultural Politics of Development in India; Cultural Geography (co-taught); Geographies of Resistance; and Geopolitics of the Global Economy (co-taught). I also team-teach on Honours courses on Geographic Thought, Research Techniques, and on the second year undergraduate courses Localisation- Globalisation and Environmental Geographies. At post-graduate level I team-teach on the Department’s Masters in Research (MRes) degree in Space, Polity and Power. I also supervise Master’s degree and PhD students. I am currently the Level2 Geography Course Tutor.