Home » Staff » Professor Philip Crang » Principal Research Interests

Home

Research

Teaching

Publications

PhD Students

Material culture and diaspora space

With colleagues at RHUL and the Victoria and Albert Museum, I am in the middle of a three year AHRC funded research project – Fashioning Diaspora Space – that is considering the presence of South Asian clothing textiles in British culture in both colonial and post-colonial times. This project is part of the AHRC’s wider strategic research programme on diasporas, migration and identities. It builds on my previous ESRC funded research project on ‘commodity culture and South Asian transnationality' (working with Claire Dwyer at UCL, Peter Jackson at Sheffield University, Suman Prinjha, and Nicola Thomas, Exeter University), funded as part of the ESRC’s strategic research programme on ‘transnational communities’. Both these projects reflect an interest in viewing transnational connections through the lens of material culture. More generally, I have a wider interest in diasporic geographies, identities and things, for example through supervision of doctoral research on British South Asian dress (Shivani Derrington, AHRC funded, 2007-present), Brazilian food in London (Graça Brightwell, ORSAS & RHUL funded, 2007-present), the displaced geographies of the French Atlantic’s colonial food cultures (Bertie Mandelblatt, SSHRC & RHUL funded, 2003-7), British expatriate identity in Dubai (Katie Walsh, ESRC funded, 2001-5), and hospitable relations to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK (Andy Storey, ESRC funded,  2004-present).

The cultural geography of consumption

To be a consumer involves far more than just the purchasing of commodities. On the one hand, through the goods we consume we are engaging with the vast, complex worlds out of which those things have emerged. We become connected to the myriad of people and places who have brought them into being and to us. On the other hand, after buying something we go on to use them to create our own daily lives and spaces. These two geographies – of provision and use – frame how I conceive the cultural geography of consumption. More broadly, I have supervised a number of doctoral research students working in this area, including on geographical knowledge and consumption (Tracey Bedford, ESRC funded, 1995-9 on ethical consumers; Ben Coles, ORSAS & RHUL funded, 2005-present on Borough Food Market), on spaces of experiential consumption (including Ben Malbon, ESRC funded, 1994-8 on clubbing; Martin Cox, ESRC funded, 1995-2001 part-time, on gay tourism; Fernando Garcia, ESRC funded, 2001-5 on café culture; and Justin Spinney, ESRC funded, 2003-7 on cycling the city), and on children’s consumption (Tara Woodyer, ESRC funded, 2005-present on toys and children’s material culture; and Jamie Adcock, ESRC funded, 2007-present on children’s bedrooms).

Cultural economy and performative geographies

I view culture and economy as inextricably intertwined. A further expression of this is my dual interest in the importance of cultural performances to economic activity and in the organized production of cultural performances. Specifically, I have an on-going interest in the performative nature of contemporary work and workplaces, first explored in my PhD research but continued through the supervision of doctoral research on managers and organizational performance (Richard Goodall, ESRC funded, 1997-2002), on front-line, presentational labour-processes (Rajinder Sidhu, RHUL funded, 2001-8 part time), and on the cultural economies of emotional labour (Emma Rowland, 2007-present).  I am also interested in the cultural geographies of artistic and creative labour, particularly in relation to the performing arts, supervising doctoral research on dj-ing and creative labour, community theatre (Yvonne Robinson, ESRC funded, 1998-2003) and identity performance in Asian-American theatre (Amanda Rogers, ESRC funded, 2003-7).