Carol Ekinsmyth is leading research on ‘Reconceptualising Urban Landscapes of Work’

This week, the Geography Department (at UoP) is hosting the first of three seminar series entitled "Reconceptualising Urban Landscapes of Work".  The first event, spanning the 20-21st April, has been organised by Dr Carol Ekinsmyth and focuses on "Spatial Reconfigurations of Work in Cities."  This two day event recognises that employment is increasingly undertaken outside traditional employer-employee systems given many people hold multiple jobs and an increasingly mobile workforce works in multiple places including own homes, co-working spaces, virtual spaces and platforms as well as public spaces and communal areas such as coffee shops. Consequently, such research is highly relevant for questions of equality and diversity by encompassing the working practices of the entire workforce, not just the proportion within traditional employer:employee scenarios.

As the first of three seminars exploring the spatial reconfiguration of economic practice in contemporary ‘developed economy’ cities, this 2-day seminar will focus on changing urban labour markets, commuting and work-patterns, new work technologies, new urban work sites and creative spaces. It aims to rethink existing concepts in urban research such as ‘the journey to work’, clustering, formal vs. informal work(spaces), private vs. public spaces and corporate vs. social spaces.  The current workshop brings together researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds for a lively mixture of paper presentations, panel sessions and informal networking.  Participants will be drawn from across the Uk and Europe with our very own Donald Houston also speaking at the event.  

In additional, two related events will take place within the next 12 months, based in Southampton and in Rome.  This seminar series is funded by the Urban Studies Foundation and jointly organized by Dr Carol Ekinsmyth (University of Portsmouth), Dr Darja Reuschke (University of Southampton) and Dr Maria Tsampra and Dr Alex Afouxenidis (EKKE, Athens).  This funding demonstrate's Carol's international reputation as a researcher in the fields of work and labour with a particular focus on entrepreneurship and self-employment.  Carol's other interests include 

·         Conditions of labouring in the creative economy; 

·         Self-employment, portfolio and fractured work; 

·         Spaces, places and practice of micro-entrepreneurship; 

·         Gender, self-employment and work-life balance; 

·         Motherhood, parenting and work;

·         The intersection of the economic and the social at the level of the working pratices of individuals and households. 

These seminars will not only enable valuable research interactions with researchers from across Europe but are likely to lead to exciting new research projects and collaborations.  Another tangible outcome of this seminar series will be the production of a special issue expanding on the ten best presentations from across the series.  I am sure we all look forward to reading Carol's contribution (and the reflection of the esteem in which her work is held).