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Material culture and diaspora space
With colleagues at RHUL and the Victoria and Albert Museum, I have just completed a three year AHRC funded research project – Fashioning Diaspora Space – that considered the presence of South Asian clothing textiles in British culture in both colonial and post-colonial times. This project was part of the AHRC’s wider strategic research programme on diasporas, migration and identities. It built on my previous ESRC funded research project on ‘commodity culture and South Asian transnationality', 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 and in the circulations of ‘stuff’. 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) and British expatriate identity in Dubai (Katie Walsh, ESRC funded, 2001-5).

Cultural economy and performative geographies
I view culture and economy as inextricably intertwined. I am especially interested in how the commodity form – the fashioning of something as both useful and exchangeable – interrelates with places, spaces and landscapes. 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).

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, 2005-9 on Borough Fine Foods 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, 2005-9 on toys and children’s material culture; and Jamie Adcock, ESRC funded, 2007-present on children’s bedrooms).