Lecturer in Human Geography

Contact Details

• Tel: 0116 252 3845
• Email: jd205@le.ac.uk
• Fax: 0116 252 3854
• Office: Bennett Building F63a

Research Interests

I am broadly speaking, a development geographer, under which banner I examine the spatial politics and historical transformation of social and economic life in post-colonial contexts. I am especially interested in the processes of claim-making to citizenship and political participation through the operation of community, civil society, economic change and moral geographies of colonial repair. My research interests fall into four intersecting themes:

• Historical and contemporary diasporic practices
• Post-colonial urban economies
• Gender, citizenship and civil society
• Moral geographies of care and obligation

These strands run through my current research on the spatial politics of the “Indian Diaspora” in Africa.  This work examines the production of Indian transnational forms of belonging within the context of the changing neoliberalization of post-colonial economies in South and East Africa. I am interested in the ways in which migration is produced and governed as part of a broader project of national imaginings of what constitutes development, progress and sustainability.

This work has centered on examining the ways in which civil society networks and the state work to constitute Indian citizenship in the post-colonial nation through gendered, raced and economic discourses of development. My current project, funded by the Royal Geographical Society, looks at the ways in which new Indian migration to East Africa is constituted through the history of East African decolonization, economic change and historical patterns of Indian movement, settlement and exile.

PhD Supervision

• Mahbuba Moammer – Sustainable Tourism for Libya? (with Dr Angus Cameron)
• Tzu-Min Chu – Tourism and the indigenous people of Taiwan (with Dr Angus Cameron)

Research Areas for PhD Supervision

Spatial Politics of Diaspora – with particular interests in diasporic associations; Gendered constructions; Post-colonial civil society; entrepreneurial business networks; state engagement; moral geographies of diaspora networks; young people’s aspirations;

Postcolonial Transformations- with particular interests in concepts of indigeneity; social movements; gender and participatory geographies; grassroots associational life; constructions of difference; the role of civil society; colonial repair.

• Human Geography Research Themes

Enquiries: If you are interested in studying for a PhD in one of these research areas, please make informal enquiries via geogPhD@le.ac.uk

Most Recent Publications

Dickinson, J. (Under Review)  “Narrating Indian diasporic identity through the moral spatialities of South African indigeneity”, Environment & Planning D

Dickinson, J. (Under Review) “Indian South African diasporic associations and the narratives of a ‘pukka’ Indian life”, Social and Cultural Geography

Full listing of publications