Dr Megan Blake

Senior Lecturer

	Room number:	E10
	Telephone (internal):	27978
	Telephone (UK):	0114 222 7978
	Telephone (International):	+44 114 222 7978
	Email:	M.Blake@Sheffield.ac.uk

Megan Blake received her PhD from Clark University in 2001. She joined Sheffield as a temporary lecturer in 2000 and became a permanent member of staff in 2001. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in January 2010.

In the Spring of 2011 until Autumn 2013 Dr Blake will be on leave from the University of Sheffield. During this time she will be visiting the Department of Geography at the University of Hong Kong, where she holds the position of Adjunct Associate Professor.

Research Interests

Economic and Cultural Geography, geographies of everyday life, social institutions, materiality and practice, consumption, care, innovation/creativity.

Current research

My research engages with recent debates involving critical social theory and is based around issues concerning the ways that everyday life practices, social institutions, and place help shape and inform the daily-life interactions and projects of individuals, reinforce social divisions, and enable or constrain access to resources. This research agenda develops theoretically engaged but empirically grounded approaches to issues within three areas: 1. Food practices and everyday life; 2. Innovation and Entrepreneurship; 3. Life course and wellbeing. Collectively this research has sought to push at theoretical boundaries by stressing the contributions that geographical concepts can make to social theory.

I welcome applications from potential postgraduate research students in areas related to those described above or in areas similar to those of my current and recent PhD students (see below).

Teaching

Megan is currently on special leave and does not currently teach.

Key publications

• Cook, I., Hobson, K., Hallett IV, L., Guthman, J., Murphy, A., Hulme, A., Sheller, M., Crewe, L., Nally, D., Roe, E., Mather, C., Kingsbury, P., Slocum, R., Imai, S., Duruz, J., Philo, C., Buller, H., Goodman, M., Hayes-Conroy, A., Hayes-Conroy, J., Tucker, L., Blake, M.K., Le Heron, R., Putnam, H., Maye, D. and Henderson, H. (2011). Geographies of food: 'Afters'. Progress in Human Geography, 35(1), 104-120.
  doi:10.1177/0309132510369035
• Blake, M.K., Mellor, J.C.L. and Crane, L. (2010). Buying Local Food: Shopping Practices, Place, and Consumption Networks in Defining Food as "Local". Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(2), 409-426.
  doi:10.1080/00045601003595545
• Mellor, J.C.L., Blake, M.K. and Crane, L. (2010). When I'm Doing a Dinner Party I Don't Go for the Tesco Cheeses; Gendered Class Distinctions, Friendship and Home Entertaining. Food, Culture and Society, 13(1), 115-134.
  doi:10.2752/175174410X12549021368180
• Blake, M.K., Mellor, J.C.L., Crane, L. and Osz, B. (2009). Eating in time; Eating up time. In: Jackson, P.A. (ed.) Changing Families, Changing Food. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. 187-205. ISBN 9780230223981
• Blake, M.K. (2008). It takes a village: women's entrepreneurship, resource networks and place. VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken.
• Hanson, S. and Blake, M.K. (2008). Gender and Entrepreneurial Networks. Regional Studies
  doi:10.1080/00343400802251452
• Blake, M.K. (2007). Formality and Friendship: Research ethics review and Participatory Action Research. ACME, 6(3), 411-421.
  Online PDF
• Blake, M.K. and Hanson, S. (2005). Rethinking Innovation: Context and Gender. Environment and Planning A, 37(4), 681-701.
  doi:10.1068/a3710
• Bailey, A.J., Blake, M.K., and Cooke, T.J. (2004). Migration, Care and the Linked Lives of dual-earner households. Environment and Planning A 36(9), 1617-1632.
  doi:10.1068/a36198

See Publications List for complete listing

Other information

Megan Blake is a member of the ESRC Postdoctorate Fellowship assessor college.

Postgraduate Supervision:
Megan Blake currently supervises PhD students (funded via White Rose, the Leverhulme Trust and other sources) working on issues related to job satisfaction, migration and assimilation, food practices and families, and childhood, books and learning. The students I have or am currently supervising are listed on the right.

Teaching:
Megan Blake currently convenes and teaches on a second-year module concerning research design, a second-year module concerning social identities and difference, a third-year module concerning Urban Cultures, which includes a field course to New York City, and a Masters-level module concerning researching practice.