Home » Staff » Professor Savid Simon

Professor David Simon

Home

Research

Teaching

Publications

Professor in Development Geography Head of the Department of Geography Member, Geography and Environmental Studies sub-panel, UK 2008 Research Assessment Exercise Deputy Chair, Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies Editorial Working Group member, Review of African Political Economy Editorial Board member, International Development Planning Review, Third World Quarterly & Progress in Development Studies Scientific Steering Committee member, IHDP programme on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (2005-) Chair, UK National Committee on the Human Dimensions of GEC (2006-)

My research encompasses principally the interface between development and the environment, in the context of sustainability and global environmental/climate change but also aspects of political geography and critical geopolitics, urbanisation and transport policy. I have a keen interest in theoretical, applied and policy arenas, underpinned by the belief that real progress lies in a far closer integration across them than is generally the case. Rewarding as I find theoretical debate, I attach fundamental importance to 'grounding' it in real-world conditions, and to seeking to apply the insights thereby gained to improving policies and practices. Conversely, applied research benefits substantially from the rigour and orientation afforded by an appropriate, theoretically informed direction.

Over recent years, I have been at the leading edge of debates about the nature of 'development' and the exploration of the utility of so-called 'post-structuralist' perspectives such as postmodernism, postcolonialism and post-traditionalism, with application to various empirical contexts. This work has been presented at international conferences, and published especially in leading international outlets like Geografiska Annaler(1997), Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (1998), my co-edited book, Development as Theory and Practice (1999); the edited volume, Towards a new regional and local development research agenda (2002); Development in Practice (2003) and in Progress in Development Studies (2003). The last-mentioned paper, a revised version of my professorial Inaugural Lecture, provides an extended exposition of my theoretical and more applied research contributions in relation to the state-of-the-art. This work has since been taken forward, most recently via a series of conference papers in 2005 (see CEDAR Research Paper 42 (2005), published in revised form in The Geographical Journal in 2006 and the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography in 2007.

Bujagali Falls: Magic on the Nile to Disappear?

Ajegunle Day – a Photographic Essay

Contact Details: