Contact details tel: 0191 222 6425

Jonathan Pugh is a Senior Academic Fellow in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. His work explores many aspects of postcolonial institutional development, but he is especially interested in the everyday lives of those who work for and struggle to develop institutions in the Caribbean. His research often documents these lives in detail through ethnographic research; examining overlapping themes of voice, subjectivity and institutional change. He has analysed a wide variety of postcolonial institutions, from those concerned with participatory planning, physical and environmental management, folklore traditions, and activism. He has actively been involved in the latter, for example, developing a seven-country programme with Caribbean fisherpeople. Conceptually, although previously drawing upon post-Marxist and deliberative approaches, he is increasingly engaging with the writings of postcolonial writers from the Caribbean (esp Harris, Brathwaite, Glissant and Walcott) and the work of Stanley Cavell. He has also recently become interested in how postcolonial approaches to Island Studies could be reconceptualised through refocusing upon the archipelago and island movements, rather than the static island form.

Qualifications

1st Class Hons, BSc in Biology and Geography;
ESRC funded PhD and three year Fellowship

Other Expertise

Jon has over forty publications in the fields of planning practice and theory, political philosophy, geography, development studies and international relations. He works through a wide range of media: from academic journals to consultancy, newspapers, radio and television. His projects have included: the leading ‘Participatory Planning in the Caribbean’ network (ESRC) and ‘Developing Institutional Capacity Building in Fisherfolk Communities of the Caribbean’ (DFID), which employed hundreds of fisherpeople across the region. Another three-year research programme (ESRC) explored various aspects of planning in the Caribbean, resulting in the publication of the first co-edited monograph on participatory planning in the region and the most up-to-date co-edited text on environmental planning in the Caribbean. Jonathan has also co-initiated the first Caribbean regional union for fisherpeople, which has presently spread across seven countries. His visiting lecture positions have included the University of California and the University of West Indies.