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Papers by Andrew Jonas

Circular Economy and Sustainability

Circular economy (CE) discourse primarily focuses on business-as-usual and resource-related econo... more Circular economy (CE) discourse primarily focuses on business-as-usual and resource-related economic processes whilst overlooking relational-spatial aspects, especially networking for local development. There are, however, many mission-driven social enterprises (SEs) engaging in short-loop activities at the neighbourhood and city scales (e.g., reuse, upcycling, refurbishing or repair). Such localised activities are often overlooked by mainstream policies, yet they could be vital to the local development of the CE into a more socio-environmentally integrated set of localised social structures and relations. This paper examines the role of SEs, their networks and structures in building a more socially integrated CE in the City of Hull (UK). Drawing upon the Social Network Analysis approach and semi-structured interviews with 31 case study SEs representing variegated sectors (e.g., food, wood/furniture, textiles, arts and crafts, hygiene, construction/housing, women, elderly, ethnic mi...

Emerging Governance of a Green Economy

Economic Geography, 2021

Abstract In recent years, the circular economy (CE) paradigm has emerged as a mainstream policy d... more Abstract In recent years, the circular economy (CE) paradigm has emerged as a mainstream policy discourse having the potential to disrupt linear economic development pathways by extracting and retaining the maximum value from existing resources through their recirculation. Highlighting the diverse circuits of value implicated in local CE development, this article considers how the ecological (material) and extraeconomic (social) premises of CE thinking can be harnessed through mission-driven social enterprises (SEs). Using a case study of a SE project in Graz, Austria, which is engaged in CE activities across the textile, interior design/wood, and food sectors, it proposes a novel heuristic framework for examining the role of circuits of value in constructing alternative circular narratives and local circular economic development trajectories. In doing so, this framework positions SE as an entity entangled in a complex web of interconnected material and social relations and practices that occur across coexisting mainstream and alternative economic spaces of production, exchange, and consumption. By aligning the CE concept with circuits of value, the article further shows the importance of mapping and conceptualizing value flows and feedback loops associated with the local development of the CE in a given spatial and temporal context.

Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2021

International audienceThis research explores the relationship between the ascribed current passiv... more International audienceThis research explores the relationship between the ascribed current passive role of the citizens as consumers only, and the ability of the Circular Economy (CE) analytical framework to operate outside the post-industrial, service and consumption-based capitalist economy. Using a post-capitalist lens, this research looks to discuss how human and social capital, rather than monetary value, can be used as guidance towards a sustainable circular economy.For the last decade CE has been portrayed as a technological revolution promising to disrupt and take our economic system away from its current multidimensional unsustainability. Technological developments have indeed enabled us to efficiently retain and generate value out of the products and materials we use in different industries. However, increased efficiency has enabled an increment in consumption creating a rebound or backfire effect overall.On top of that rebound effect, such revolution is leaving individual...

International audienceThe analysis of the relationship between the individual and the collective ... more International audienceThe analysis of the relationship between the individual and the collective actions of the stakeholders on the current Circular Economy (CE) analytical framework is crucial to understand when it (CE) does or does not enable a more sustainable territorial development (Jonas, 2013; Raworth, 2017; Tukker, 2015). Industrial Ecology (Ecologie Industrielle et Territoriale -EIT, in French) makes part of the toolbox of strategies to develop and implement CE in France (ADEME, 2019), and it is recognized as a strategy tightly linked with the territory (Gobert & Brullot, 2017). This research will use the EIT, and the relationships emerging from and to it as its centre of interest. For the last decade CE has been portrayed as a technological revolution (EMF, 2017) promising to disrupt and take our economic system away from its current multidimensional unsustainability (Izak, Mansell, & Fuller, 2015). Technological developments have indeed enabled us to efficiently retain an...

Handbook on the Changing Geographies of the State, 2020

Urban Geography, 2021

Casual notions in research reportage can unexpectedly reverberate powerfully through a field of s... more Casual notions in research reportage can unexpectedly reverberate powerfully through a field of study. AbdouMaliq Simone’s (2004, 2013) idea of people as infrastructure is one such notion. Its origins, a formulation at a workshop in Johannesburg in 2002, has grown into a central referent to understand the enriching, shadowy collaborations and alliances that subalterns creatively forge in currently afflicting capitalist cities (particularly in the global south). Simone’s goal was nothing less than to simultaneously broaden the infrastructure notion and offer a fundamental ontological challenge to its scope and breadth. To Simone, the term infrastructure, mobilized to understand these populations, had been cast primarily in one way: as a physical–morphological provisioning. A focus on engineered systems – power stations, mass transit lines, road networks, coal burning facilities, sewer systems – was incomplete in identifying what back-bones the complexities of ever-evolving, ephemeral socio-spatial life in cities. His dilemma: people’s mediative prowess and constitutive capabilities that respond to and re-align their immediate everyday circumstances had been cast into the shadows. The infrastructural notion, to Simone, needed to recognize the subtleties of ruminative, ever-negotiating beings striving to improve lives through creating life-shaping alliances and solidarities. At the core of the revised people as infrastructure notion: infrastructural provision is a far-flung, human galvanizing and arranging set of deliveries. To be sure, it encompasses a physical component, as Swyngedouw’s (2011) “spine of morphological coordination,” but also, crucially, involves humanly created foundational alliances configured in resistance-political activities. The reason for this resistance politics: subalterns find themselves ensnared in networks of debilitating production, consumption, and social reproduction as governances relentlessly drive an, age-old imperative, to simultaneously equalize and differentiate urbanized space, i.e. create uniform landscapes for capital accumulation and splinter them for housing and commercial submarkets. Capitalist urbanization through these forms and processes relentlessly entraps the poor. But city life and lived ways never cease being negotiated by restlessly constitutive people that enact complicities and collaborations. There is no failure of subaltern imaginaries here. The world is a battle, many of these people feel, and through enacting complicities and collaborations the battle goes on. Human infrastructural creation in these lives ultimately

Handbook on the Geographies of Regions and Territories

be better equipped to solve "global problems" than is the case for the nation state and subnation... more be better equipped to solve "global problems" than is the case for the nation state and subnational state governments (Barber 2013). Following a brief discussion of the global dimensions of city-region growth, we examine a range of academic interpretations of this phenomenon. We suggest that city-regions should not be understood as discrete spatial units that operate as "agents" or "actor-scales" in themselves. Nor should city-regions be considered as passive backdrops on which economy, politics or social reproduction simply happen. Rather city-regions may be conceptualized as dynamic sites of policy experimentation and political struggle, which are produced from various political processes operating within and around the national state and its institutions. Such processes highlight ongoing geopolitical tensions around capital accumulation, which take the form of struggles around social distribution, environment, culture, security, and suchlike. Our emphasis, therefore, is on exposing the geopolitics of city regionalism alongside contingently-manifested problems of social distribution, uneven development, and environmental sustainability; contingencies that nevertheless are important for understanding the social and political construction of city-regionalism in different geopolitical settings. City-region: the emergence of a concept The concept of the city-region first appeared in regional planning in the early twentieth century at a time when the rapid growth of metropolitan-scale urban centres posed a range of new societal challenges relating to housing, social provision,and nationally-balanced economic growth. It is often associated with the writings of influential regional planners and urban reformers, such as Patrick Geddes in the UK and Lewis Mumford in the USA, for

Urban Geography, 2020

If the governance challenges of climate change have been well researched for medium-sized, afflue... more If the governance challenges of climate change have been well researched for medium-sized, affluent and larger entrepreneurial cities, relatively little is known about climate urbanism in small-to-medium-sized cities experiencing long-term industrial decline, social deprivation and austerity. Such structurally disadvantaged cities often struggle to build inclusive new climate alliances, attract green jobs, and forge new images. This intervention argues that research on climate urbanism needs to consider two emerging trends in structurally disadvantaged cities: (1) how austerity is producing uneven geographies of climate urbanism; (2) the local social and economic conditions underpinning the construction of new climate alliances around alternative trajectories of urban development.

Territory, Politics, Governance, 2021

The process of imagination is central to region-formation, underpinning the spatial definition an... more The process of imagination is central to region-formation, underpinning the spatial definition and territorial bounding of areas, the development of spatial identity and institutional capacity, and the cultivation of social relations and networks. While recent academic contributions have crystallised certain theoretical dimensions, attempts to evaluate the nature and efficacy of regional spatial imaginaries remain ad hoc. In this paper we derive a general evaluative frame and six associated criteria against which particular regional spatial imaginaries can be appraised. This is then deployed to evaluate two major episodes in the construction of the putative 'Oxford-Cambridge Arc' in southern England.

Regional Studies, 2019

This paper aims to add new empirical and theoretical insights to the debate on climate change ada... more This paper aims to add new empirical and theoretical insights to the debate on climate change adaptation and regional and urban studies by linking the analysis of UK climate adaptation policy to the city-regionalist political processes and state structures. We argue, firstly, that UK climate adaptation policy has not adjusted to the rise of city-regionalism, and accordingly underplays the role of sub-national political interests and agendas in demarcating specific sectors and scales of adaptation. Secondly, climate adaptation policy has not only been slow to adjust to the rising significance of city-regionalism but also raises strategic policy questions about the longer-term trajectory of climate change adaptation in light of the territorial logic of the national competition state which currently frames effective adaptation planning, action and policy at subnational political scales. The paper argues that future research on climate adaptation governance needs to address the uneasy relationship between the rise of city-regionalism, on the one hand, and the sector-led priorities of the competition state, on the other. Introduction This paper aims to add new empirical and theoretical insights to the debate on climate change adaptation and regional and urban studies by linking the analysis of UK climate adaptation policy to the city-regionalist political processes and state structures. We argue, firstly, that UK climate adaptation policy has not adjusted to the rise of city-regionalism, and accordingly underplays the role of sub-national political interests and agendas in demarcating specific sectors and scales of adaptation. Secondly, climate adaptation policy has not only been slow to adjust to the rising significance of city-regionalism but also raises strategic policy questions about the longer-term trajectory of climate change adaptation in light of the territorial logic of the national competition state which currently frames effective adaptation planning, action and policy at subnational political scales. Drawing upon a study of UK adaptation policy and governance, this article challenges current orthodoxy that uncritically locates effective climate adaptation exclusively within national economic sectors but ignores subnational political interests, processes and state structures especially those coalescing around city-regionalist agendas. Although climate adaptation policy is rapidly being adopted by many nations (Massey, Biesbroek, Huitema, & Jordan, 2014), the UK state has arguably been ahead of the curve on climate adaptation policy since the 2008 Climate Change Act (Biesbroek et al.

Urban Studies, 2018

This article explores a tension between financialisation of electricity infrastructures and effor... more This article explores a tension between financialisation of electricity infrastructures and efforts to bring critical urban systems into common ownership. Focusing on the emerging landscape of electricity regulation and e-mobility in the United Kingdom (UK), it examines how electricity grid ownership has become financialised, and why the economic assumptions that enabled this financialisation are being called into question. New technologies, such as smart electricity meters and electric vehicles, provide cities with new tools to tackle poor air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity grids are key enabling infrastructures but the companies that run them do not get rewarded for improving air quality or tackling climate change. UK government regulation of electricity grids both enables financialisation and forecloses opportunities to manage the infrastructure for wider environmental and public benefit. Nonetheless, the addition of smart devices to this network – the ‘smart g...

Environmental Politics, 2018

This article assesses innovative climate governance in small-to-medium-sized structurally disadva... more This article assesses innovative climate governance in small-to-medium-sized structurally disadvantaged cities (SDCs) which have remained an under-researched subject area. Considering their deeply ingrained severe economic and social problems it would be reasonable to assume that SDCs act primarily as climate laggards or at best as followers. However, our novel empirical findings show that SDCs are capable of acting as climate pioneers. This article identifies and assesses different types and styles of climate leadership and pioneership and how they play out within multi-level and polycentric governance structures. It concludes that SDCs seem relatively readily willing to adopt transformational climate pioneership styles in the hope of creating 'green' jobs, for example, in the offshore wind energy sector and with the aim of improving their poor external image. However, in order to sustain transformational climate pioneership they often have to rely on support from 'higher' levels of governance. For SDCs there is a tension between learning from each other's best practice and fierce economic competition in climate innovation.

The AAG Review of Books, 2016

List of Maps 2.1 The Urban Area in Chittagong 3.1 Map of Bangladesh showing major metropolitan ci... more List of Maps 2.1 The Urban Area in Chittagong 3.1 Map of Bangladesh showing major metropolitan cities 3.2 Chittagong City within Chittagong District 3.3 Chittagong City Corporation under 41 Municipal Wards 3.4 Wards with higher, middle and lower-income neighbourhoods in Chittagong List of Figures 4.1 Satisfaction with the quality of electricity service facilities 4.2 Satisfaction with the quality of water service facilities 4.3 Sanitation facilities using by the households in different residential areas in Chittagong 5.1 Severity of drainage congestion in different residential neighbourhoods of Chittagong 5.2 How often sidewalk businesses are seen on the neighbourhood access roads 5.3 Satisfaction with the quality of garbage collection services 5.4 Satisfaction with the security services at neighbourhood level Professor Andy Jonas, who helped me to achieve a PhD scholarship from the Department of Geography, University of Hull. In conducting this study, they have been the prime mover behind this project who guided, motivated and supported me during the various stages of the preparation of this thesis. They have been a constant source of inspiration for me since every supervisory committee meeting was a thoughtful event for the development of this research. I have received some financial assistance from different organisations. The initial financial support, which made me confident in commencing this programme, from

Political Geography, 2006

Environment and Urbanization, 2010

This paper explores local environmental problems at both the household and neighbourhood levels i... more This paper explores local environmental problems at both the household and neighbourhood levels in Chittagong, based on a broad spectrum household survey. The survey shows that households in poor areas are very exposed to localized environmental problems and thus necessarily develop a wide range of coping strategies around the living space. Yet poorer households are less likely to express their concerns about neighbourhood environmental issues, despite experiencing many problems at this level. This paper investigates the interface between household and neighbourhood environmental problems.

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2012

This paper seeks to address the way the politics of sustainability governance is spatially organi... more This paper seeks to address the way the politics of sustainability governance is spatially organised and contested by voluntary and community sector (VCS) groups in the United Kingdom. Using the research lens of the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), we seek to demonstrate how sustainability governance at regional and national scales is negotiated and produced from the ‘bottom up’. We argue that VCS groups are agents of a complex process of ‘scalar manoeuvring’ whereby sustainability governance is produced and contested across a range of sites both within and across spatial scales. Such groups enter into external, nonstate-controlled governance networks as a reaction to state-orchestrated scales like LSPs. In the process, VCS groups engage with and utilise higher scales of state territoriality and governance to pursue quasi-autonomous sustainability objectives back at the local level. Such actions demonstrate how pragmatism is essential in enacting scalar agency in the pursuit of a ...

Antipode, 1991

This paper provides an historically grounded theory of U.S. urban policy which is informed by reg... more This paper provides an historically grounded theory of U.S. urban policy which is informed by regulationist theory and recent contributions to the theory of the State. It is shown how the content and form of urban policy in the New Deal, was shaped by the rise of mass‐production Fordism and informed by the particular struggles that emerged in the United States during the formative period of the 1930s and 1940s. These struggles produced a particular State policy response, setting in place a limited and constrained mode of State intervention in the economy. In the realm of urban policy, this narrow form of State intervention set limits on further rounds of State policy, leaving the U.S. State unable to respond in an effective way to the mounting economic crises of the 1970s and the 1980s, contributing to the so‐called “failure” of urban policy.