The University of Sheffield
Consumer Culture in an Age of Anxiety (CONANX)

Dr Benjamin Coles

Research Associate CONANX Project

Address: 4th Floor, ICoSS Building
Telephone (internal): 26066
Telephone (UK): 0114 222 6066
Telephone (International): +44 114 222 6066
Email: B.Coles@sheffield.ac.uk

Research Interests

Cultural and Economic geography

Place and Space

Commodities

Material Culture

Food

Current Research

Ben´s research focuses on the geographies of commodities, with particular interest in the roles that place and place making have on the production and consumption of foods. Previous research has included place-based studies of food-markets, commodity chains and coffee. Ben has also done work utilizing remote sensing and GIS to examine land use/land cover changes in Amazonia as well as examining carbon sequestration in the grasslands of North America.

Having recently completed his PhD at the University of London, Placing Alternative Consumption: A Topography of Borough Market, London, Ben´s research engages broadly with the notions of place and space as they work to configure commodities and their geographies.

Ben is currently a Research Associate on CONANX which begun in January 2009, and funded by the European Research Council. In this role he examines cultural, economic and place-based understandings of food systems, with particular interest in poultry and aquaculture in Thailand. The research focuses on consumer anxieties about food from the international scale to that of the individual retailer and consumer, as performed through various political, economic and cultural instruments.

Key Publications