缅北禁地

Al James, Professor of Economic Geography

BA Geography (Cambridge), PhD Economic Geography (Cambridge), FRSA, FRGS

Twitter: @Re_AlJames

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5697-5331

Scopus Author ID: 12238997800

My research and teaching programme in labour geography engages with major international debates around: (1) workers' everyday struggles to combine work, home and family; (2) gendered relations of production and social reproduction; and (3) digitally-mediated work futures in platform capitalism.  

Current projects seek to (British Academy); and (, with (Oxford), (Huddersfield), (Durham) and (Oxford)).

I am currently working on a research monograph that draws on 7 years of research to explore the gendered dynamics of labouring on digital labour platforms and give voice to the millions of women gig workers and their families remain unfairly marginalised within platform labour debates. The book extends work recently showcased by , , and , also recognised as.

My research programme is concerned to: see the making of capitalism through the eyes of workers rather than simply firms and capital (labour geography); expose the masculinist limits of ‘universal’ economic theory through new engagements with women and gendered social reproduction (feminist economic geography); and engage with organisations working to improve the lives of workers and their families (economic geography outreach). 

Earlier streams of research advanced new understandings of: work, employment and labour organising that challenge an anaemic Western 'universalism' in economic theory (cosmopolitan economic geography); and how cultures of learning and innovation shape patterns of uneven regional development (regional cultural economy).

To date, my research has engaged with workers, firms, labour unions, and governments in the UK, USA, Ireland and India, and involved collaborations with like-minded colleagues in Labour Studies, Gender Studies, Digital Sociology, Business / Management, Development Studies, and Transport Geography. This work has been supported financially by the Economic and Social Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council, British Academy, Nuffield Foundation, Centre for the Study of Migration, RGS-IBG, Cambridge Humanities Research Scheme, and 缅北禁地 Research Excellence Academy. 

I am a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and have held a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2017-18). As Research Director in Geography (2018-2022) I led 缅北禁地 Geography's successful REF2021 submission. I just stepped down as Head of Geography and Deputy Head of School, in the School of Geography Politics and Sociology at 缅北禁地 (2024 and 2025). Previously I held lectureships at two other international hotspots in Economic Geography: Queen Mary University of London (2007-2016) and Cambridge University (2003-2007).  

My writing is free to download from the , also , , and , please do take a look. And if you a looking to pursue a PhD or a Postdoc and can see a good fit with my research interests then please get in touch. 

Recent / forthcoming publications:

James A. 2025. . In: Andrew Herod, ed. Handbook of Labor Geography. Edward Elgar.

James A. 2025. Social reproduction in (and of) the gig economy. In Emily Yarrow and Julie Davies, eds., Worker Wellbeing, Human Factors and the Gig Economy, CRC Press.

James A. 2025. Platform labour mobilities and gender inequalities in the gig economy. In Rikard Eriksson and Hogni Kalso Hansen, eds, Handbook of Labour Mobility, Edward Elgar.

James A. 2025. Gender inequalities of digital labour. In Paula Tubaro, ed., Digital Labour in a Turbulent Era, Edward Elgar.

James A. 2024. . Labour & Law Issues 10(2), 1-27.

James A. 2024. Platform labour and gig work futures: uncovering women's hidden digital labour. in Julie Macleavy and Frederick Harry Pitts (eds) Routledge.

James A. 2024. . Gender, Work and Organization 31, 513-534.

James A. 2022. . Work in the Global Economy 2(1): 2-26.

Research Focus in a Nutshell

labour | gender inequality | social reproduction | gig work | platform economy | work-family balance | trucking

Current Projects

PLATFORMING WOMEN IN THE GIG ECONOMY (British Academy):

This work explores the gendered dynamics of working on digital labour platforms. Millions of women worldwide find paid work through digital labour platforms, many with the hope of achieving better reconciliation of paid work with childcare and family. Yet women’s work-lives remain marginalised within the expansive digital labour research agenda, which remains strangely wedded to a focus on ‘digital economic man’. As part of a growing feminist digital labour agenda, this research has since 2018 engaged with over 110 women in the UK using a range of popular remote crowdwork platforms prior to and during COVID-19 (including PeoplePerHour, Upwork, Freelancer and TaskRabbit). The research combines online interviews, with autobiographical images, and artist renderings through collaboration with . See:

This work makes visible multiple precarities, hardships and gendered exclusions experienced by women crowdworkers - which include gendered constraints on women’s abilities to compete for gig work, female gig worker health and safety, and gendered exclusions from government protections due to discontinuous income histories and previous periods of maternity and childcare. It also identifies pragmatic coping tactics that women platform workers have developed to reduce their vulnerabilities and effect improvements in their work-lives (including platform switching, shift back into formal employment, tag team childcare, shared profiles), albeit without necessarily challenging larger structures of constraint at the level of platform architectures, and unequal household divisions of labour. The research also asks women crowdworkers themselves to reimagine and redesign platforms, user agreements, algorithmic systems of control, and platform policy governance, in ways which would make their everyday work-lives easier.  The latest phase of this work explores women's experiences of juggling platform work with homeschooling and childcare during the COVID pandemic and lockdown. 

TRUCKING LIVES (): 

offers the first large-scale, multi-method empirical investigation of mobile workers in the UK road freight sector. It makes visible the everyday work-lives of truck drivers, identifies the changes needed to recruit and retain a demographically diverse truck driver workforce. And, through stakeholder partnership it explores pathways to implement actions to improve workers’ lives for the better. Conceptually, it builds on growing recognition of the significance of mobility in different areas of everyday life, extending this to focus on forms of paid work in which mobility is intrinsic but increasingly problematic for labour recruitment and retention. The project combines expertise in mobilities studies, transport geography and labour geography, extending the team's earlier work on: the gendering of freight work (; ), mobile work, truckers and road freight within logistical systems (), and family friendly work-lives (Al James, 缅北禁地). The project has been designed with, and has support from, the road freight sector (Eddie Stobart, Road Haulage Association), workers’ union (United Road Transport Union) and government (Department for Transport), all of whom are eager to hear and amplify workers’ voices.

Previous Projects

WORK-LIFE ADVANTAGE (ESRC): The societal and moral significance of successfully integrating paid work with other meaningful parts of life is profound. Yet many employers remain sceptical, perpetuating hardship for many workers. In response, this work explored how employer-provision of family-friendly working arrangements, can simultaneously enhance firms’ capacities for learning and innovation, in pursuit of long-term competitive advantage. This work was developed over a decade through engagement with female technology professional organisations (Girl Geeks, womenintechnology, WISE, WITS), policy-makers, labour organisations, and employers (Ireland’s Equality Authority, Irish Congress of Trade Unions, SIPTU, National Centre for Partnership & Performance, Irish WLB Network), who facilitated access to over 300 women, and 150 IT employers (employing 8000 workers) in the UK and Ireland. This work exposes and disrupts a series of widely-held yet highly problematic assumptions within the regional learning and innovation literature rooted in the masculinist myth of the disembodied ‘ideal worker’, for whom work is primary, time available to work unlimited, and the demands of family and personal life insignificant. It also contributes to an holistic regional development agenda, concerned to expand the narrow analytical focus of regional analysis beyond economistic indicators of competitiveness, growth and productivity, also to include gender equity, quality of life, and family well-being.  

WORK IN INDIA'S NEW SERVICES ECONOMY (Nuffield Foundation): at the forefront of high profile debates around ‘jobless growth’, youth unemployment, and jobs-led development in the global South, the rapid growth of India’s new services economy has been celebrated as: providing new opportunities for ‘decent work’ and urban livelihoods; a vital means to absorb India’s growing cohort of educated unemployed; and spearheading India’s transition to a global economic power. However, there remains major debate around the degree to which India’s ‘modern services’ offer socially inclusive employment opportunities for skilled workers from lower castes, ethnic and religious minorities. Over a decade, this collaborative research (with , , ) engaged with over 2500 service workers across multiple service sectors (including IT/BPM, hospitality, retail, media, aviation, insurance, finance), also exploring the developmental role of a nexus of ‘labour market intermediaries’ (recruiters, voice accent trainers, placement agencies) in upgrading workers’ skills and brokering upward mobility amongst graduates from historically marginalised religious minorities and lower castes.  

Recent/ish presentations

• (with Debbie Hopkins, Kaveri Medappa, Nicky Gregson, A.C. Davidson). RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2025 University of Birmingham 29 August 2025, and Work Employment Society Annual Conference University of Manchester 8 September 2025.
• . EU P-WILL (Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab) Conference on Gendering Platforms: Law, Regulations and Alternatives. University Sorbonne Paris Nord, 27 Sept 2024.
• Feminising platforms? Zurich International Workshop on Platform-Mediated Gig Work (continuity and change, reflecting on a decade of research). ETH Zurich, 4 June 2024. 
• Researching feminist labour geographies of 'economy'. Swedish National PhD Training Programme in Economic Geography, Umeå University, 8-9 February 2024.
• Gendered digital labour and platform inequalities: feminising platforms? INDL5 L: International Network on Digital Labour 5th Conference, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 3-5 November 2022. 
• Gendered digital labour and platform inequalities: feminising platforms? University of Edinburgh and University of Toronto Symposium on Reimagining Platforms, 31 October 2022, University of Edinburgh. 
• Lockdown work-lives: home/working in the gig economy during COVID-19. 4th International Feminist Geography Conference, June 17 2022, Boulder CO. 
• Lockdown work-lives: home/working in the gig economy during COVID 19. 6th Global Conference on Economic Geography, June 7 2022, Dublin (University College Dublin). 
• Platforming women, work and family in the gig economy. Cambridge University, Philomathia Seminar Series. 23 November 2021. 
• Thinking Beyond the Proper Job and a Century of Labouring Man. Durham University, Department of Geography, online seminar workshop 17 March 2021 (with Tania Li, Siobhan McGrath, Matt Bailie-Smith, Penelope Anthias). 
• Gendering the Gig Economy: Online Work Platforms as a 'Godsend'? University of Leeds, Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change, Disrupting Technology Conference, 16 January 2020. 
• Women, work and family in the online gig economy: healthy and safe? HM Government Health and Safety Executive, Chief Scientist's Seminar, HSE Liverpool, 9 December 2019. 
• Digital Work/Place: Platform Work-Lives in Practice. Regional Studies Association 2019 Summer Conference, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 5 June 2019. 
• Gendered Digital Work Lives: Feminising the Platform Economy? Invited keynote Warwick Business School / Institute of Advanced Studies, Future of Work and Inequalities workshop, University of Warwick, 13 May 2019. 
• Digital Work Lives: Feminising the Gig Economy? , University of Zurich, 16 April 2019. 
• Digital Tech for Gender Justice? Invited lecture to  / , Digital Economy Community Currency Workshop, 14 December 2018. 
• Digital Work Futures: Women in the Online Gig Economy. , 缅北禁地, 10 November 2018. 
• University of Edinburgh, Royal College of Art, 24 August 2018 (). 
• . , Queen Mary University of London 29 July 2018. 

Funded Projects

• Trucking Work Lives: Making Space for People in Truck Driving Work (ESRC 2022-2025). With PI Debbie Hopkins (Oxford), Anna Davidson (Huddersfield), Nicky Gregson.  
• Digital Work-Lives and Gender Inclusive Growth in the 'Sharing Economy' (2017-18). British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship. 
•  (2017-20). With Stuart Dawley, Alex Hughes, Helen Jarvis, Danny MacKinnon, Andy Pike, Jane Pollard, Gareth Powells. 缅北禁地 Research Excellence Academy. 
•  (2015-16). With Mike Bradshaw (Warwick), Catherine Souch (RGS-IBG), Neil Coe (NUS), James Faulconbridge (Lancaster). See: 
• Investigating Socially Inclusive Growth in India’s New Service Economy (2013). With Bhaskar Vira (Cambridge), Philippa Williams (QMUL), and Fiona McConnell (Oxford). Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme. 
• Islamic Charitable Giving in London’s East End (2010-2013). Kavita Datta (QMUL), Al James (QMUL), and Jane Pollard (缅北禁地). Centre for Migration Studies (QMUL) and 缅北禁地. 
• Promoting Equality and Diversity in Economic Crisis (PEDEC) (AHRC 2010-12). With Kate Malleson (QMUL Law), Lizzie Barmes (QMUL Law), Geraldine Healy and Hazel Conley (QMUL Business Management).  
• Impacts of Work-Life (Im)Balance on Innovation & Learning in Regional Economies (2006-9). ESRC, RES-000-22-1574-A. Project evaluated as ‘Outstanding’. Project affiliated to ESRC Gender Equality Network (GeNet). 
• Worker Mobility and Labour Market Intermediaries in the Call Centre Industry: An International Comparison (India and the UK) (2006-9). With Bhaskar Vira (Cambridge), Nuffield Foundation (SGS 32348). 
• Regional Culture, Corporate Strategy, and High Tech Innovation: Salt Lake City (1999-2002).  ESRC, doctoral research funding, Cambridge University (R-00-429-934-224).

Research Recognition

• Research Director in Geography and REF Coordinator UoA14 缅北禁地 (2018-2022)
• (with Philippa Williams, Fiona McConnell, Bhaskar Vira)
• Fellowship of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) (2018-)
• Advisory board '' (ESRC 2016-18).
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research 2015 nomination. 
• Editor Economic Section Geography Compass (2015-18)
• PhD Prize in Economic Geography 2004, Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers

Undergraduate:

Crises of Economies: Money and Labour (GEO3160), Geographies of Working Lives (GEO3416), Economic Geography (GEO2099), Local and Regional Development (GEO3114)

PostDoctoral 'Supervision'

• Dr Harry Pettit (2019-20) - 1 yr postdoc, Reimagining Economies Project, 缅北禁地 Research Excellence Academy (inclusive gig economy focus) - moved to Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at University of Northumbria.
• Dr Erica Pani (2017-18) - 1 yr postdoc, Reimagining Economies Project (inclusive finance focus), 缅北禁地 Research Excellence Academy - moved to Assistant Professorship in Geography at the LSE.

Doctoral Supervision:

• Vasileios Ntouros (with Vasilis Vlachokryiakos, Open Lab, NU). 'Digital Platforms, People Over Profit Sharing Economy Schemes' (2020-24). EPSRC Digital Civics studentship, 缅北禁地. 
• Marisol Keller (with Karin Schwiter and Christian Berndt, Zurich). 'How digital labour platforms reshape spatio-temporal patterns of work' (2019-2022). HSS studentship, University of Zurich.
• Aditya Ray (with Philippa Williams, QMUL). ‘Work in India's New Service Economy: Employee experiences in the domestic voice‐based consumer‐interaction industry in Pune’ (2014–17). QMUL Doctoral Studentship Award.
•  (with Kavita Datta, QMUL). 'The financialisation of remittances: an example from the London to Ghana remittance corridor' (2014–2020, part-time). QMUL Doctoral Studentship Award.
• Robert Stephenson (with Alastair Owens, QMUL; Laura Bedford and Eleanor John, Geffrye Museum). ‘Men juggling work, home and family in (post)recession London’ (2012-17, part-time). AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award.  Part of larger programme of research ‘Home-Work’ (4 CDAs 2012-15), co-ordinated by Alison Blunt. 
• Josh Phillips (with Kavita Datta, QMUL). ‘Exploring the geographies of credit amongst entrepreneurial new migrant groups in London’ (2010-14). QMUL Doctoral Studentship Award. Completed.
• Camille Aznar (with Kavita Datta QMUL). ‘Risk, financial exclusion and migrant workers in London’ (2009-2012). ESRC CASE studentship with the Runnymede Trust. Completed.
• Supriti Bezbaruah (with Cathy McIlwaine, QMUL). ‘The evolving relationship of work, women and the State in India: the experience of the banking sector’ (2007-2011). Self-funded. Completed. Thesis subsequently written up as research monograph: Bezbaruah S. (2015) Banking on Equality: Women, Work and Employment in the Banking Sector in India. London: Routledge. 
• Laurent Frideres (with Ron Martin, Cambridge University). ‘The spatial and temporal dynamics of industrial specialization & clustering in the regional economy’ (2004-2010).  Funded by The Luxembourg Ministry for Education. Completed. Awarded prize 2011 RGS-IBG PhD Prize (Economic Geography Research Group).  

• Articles

  • James A, MacLeavy J. . Journal of Economic Geography 2026, Epub ahead of print.
  • James A. . Gender, Work and Organization 2024, 31(2), 513-534.
  • James A. . Labour & Law Issues 2024, 10(2), 1-27.
  • James A. . Work in the Global Economy 2022, 2(1), 2-26.
  • James A, Temple J. . Workforce - NewBridge Project Zine 2019.
  • James A, Bradshaw MJ, Coe NM, Faulconbridge J. . Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 2018, 50(6), 1355-1366.
  • Williams P, James A, McConnell F, Vira B. . Environment and Planning A 2017, 49(6), 1266-1285.
  • Boyer K, Dermott E, James A, MacLeavy J. . Dialogues in Human Geography 2017, 7(1), 56–73.
  • Boyer K, Dermott E, James A, Macleavy J. . Dialogues in Human Geography 2017, 7(1), 92-98.
  • Pollard JS, Datta K, James A, Akli Q. . Journal of Economic Geography 2016, 16(4), 871-896.
  • James A. . Journal of Economic Geography 2014, 14(3), 483-510.
  • James A. . Gender, Work and Organization 2014, 21(3), 273-294.
  • James A, Vira B. Labour geographies of India’s New Service Economy. Journal of Economic Geography 2012, 12(4), 871-875.
  • Vira B, James A. Building cross‐sector careers in India's New Service Economy? Tracking former call centre agents in the National Capital Region. Development and Change 2012, 43(22), 449-479.
  • James A. Work-life (im)‘balance’ and its consequences for everyday learning and innovation in the New Economy: evidence from the Irish IT sector. Gender, Place and Culture 2011, 18(4/5), 655-684.
  • Vira B, James A. Researching hybrid ‘economic’ / ‘development’ geographies in practice: methodological reflections from a collaborative project on India’s New Service Economy. Progress in Human Geography 2011, 35(5), 627-651.
  • James A, Vira B. ‘Unionising’ the new spaces of the new economy? Alternative labour organising in India’s ITES-BPO industry. Geoforum 2010, 41, 364-376.
  • James A. . Cultural Geographies 2009, 16, 416.
  • James A. Gendered geographies of high tech regional economies. Geography Compass 2008, 2(1), 176-198.
  • James A. Everyday practices, mechanisms and effects of ‘cultural embeddedness’: learning from Utah’s high tech regional economy. Geoforum 2007, 38(2), 393-413.
  • Gray M, James A. Connecting gender and economic competitiveness: lessons from Cambridge’s high tech regional economy. Environment and Planning A 2007, 39(2), 417-436.
  • James A. Critical moments in the production of ‘rigorous’ and ‘relevant’ cultural economic geographies. Progress in Human Geography 2006, 30(3), 289-308.
  • James A. . Economic Geography 2006, 82(2), 233-235.
  • James A. Demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies. Regional Studies 2005, 39(9), 1197-1216.
  • James A, Gray M, Martin RL, Plummer P. (Expanding) the role of Geography in public policy. Environment and Planning A 2004, 36(11).

• Authored Book

  • James A. . Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2017.

• Book Chapters

  • James A. . In: Paola Tubaro, ed. Digital Labour in a Turbulent Era. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026. In Press.
  • James A. . In: Julie Macleavy, Frederick Harry Pitts, ed. The Handbook for the Future of Work. London and New York: Routledge, 2025, pp.93-107.
  • James A. . In: Emily Yarrow and Julie Davies, ed. Worker Well-being, Human Factors and the Gig Economy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: CRC Press / Taylor & Francis, 2026, pp.46-63.
  • James A. Platform work. In: Johnstone, S.; Wilkinson, A.; Rodriguez, J, ed. Encylopedia of Human Resource Management (2nd edition). Elgar, 2022. Submitted.
  • James A. . In: Andrew Herod, ed. Handbook of Labor Geography. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2025, pp.447-461.
  • James A. . In: Rachel Pain and Peter Hopkins, ed. Social Geographies: An Introduction. Rowman and Littlefield, 2020.
  • James A. Regional cultural economy: evolution and innovation. In: Cooke, P., Asheim, B.T., Boschma, R., Martin, R.L., Schwartz, D. and Tödtling, F, ed. Handbook of Regional Innovation and Growth. London: Edward Elgar, 2011, pp.246-262.
  • James A. Economic geography: professional services. In: Kitchin, R. and Thrift, N.J, ed. The International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, 2009, pp.106-111.
  • James A, Martin RL, Sunley PJ. The rise of cultural economic geography. In: Martin R.L. and Sunley P.J, ed. Economic Geography (Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences): Volume IV, The Cultural Economy. London: Routledge, 2007, pp.3-18.
  • James A. Demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies. In: Martin R.L. and Sunley P.J, ed. Economic Geography (Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences): Volume IV, The Cultural Economy. London: Routledge, 2007, pp.1197-1216.
  • Gray M, James A. Theorising the gendered socio-institutional bases of dynamic regional economies. In: Polenske, K, ed. The Economic Geography of Innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.129-156.
  • James A. On the spatial limits of culture in high tech regional economic development. In: Radcliffe, S, ed. Culture and Development in a Globalising World: Geographies, Actors and Paradigms. London: Routledge, 2006, pp.176-202.

• Creative Writing

  • James A. Regional Culture, Corporate Strategy, & High Tech Innovation: Salt Lake City. 2003. Department of Geography / Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, Doctoral Thesis.

• Edited Book

  • Hopkins P, 缅北禁地 Social Geographies Collective, Pain R, Shaw R, Gao Q, Bonnett A, Jones C, Richardson M, Rzedzian S, Benwell MC, Lin W, McAreavey R, Stenning A, Blazek M, Pande R, Najib K, Finlay R, Nayak A, Ridley G, Mearns G, Bonner-Thompson C, McLaughlin J, Boussalem A, Iqbal N, Heslop J, Jarvis H, Burrows R, Bambra C, Copeland A, Tate S, Campbell E, Thompson M, James A, Raynor R, Cunningham N, Powells G, Herbert J, Hocknell S, ed. . London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.

• Reports

  • Hopkins D, Medappa K, Davidson AC, Gregson N, James A. . Oxford: University of Oxford, 2024.
  • James A, Bradshaw MJ, Coe NM, Faulconbridge J. . United Kingdom: Sage Publications Ltd, 2018. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.

• Reviews

  • James A. . Economic Geography 2021, 97(1), 113-114.
  • James A. Gender Divisions and Working Time in the New Economy: Changing Patterns of Work, Care and Public Policy in Europe and North America’ Perrons, D., Fagan, C., McDowell, L.M., Ray, K. and Ward, K. (eds. 2006): A Review. Gender, Place and Culture 2009, 16(3), 354-356.
  • James A. ‘Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction’ Coe, N.M., Kelly, P.F. and Yeung, H.W.C. (eds. 2007): A review. Journal of Economic Geography 2008, 8(4), 581-583.

• Working Paper

  • James A, Datta K, Pollard JS, Akli Q. . Financial Geography Working Paper Series 2018, 25.