Faculty of Science and Information Technology

Professor Pauline McGuirk

• BA (Hons) Trinity College, Dublin 1986
• Higher Diploma in Education, Trinity College, Dublin 1987
• PhD, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin, 1992

• Urban political geography
• Geographies of urban governance
• Privatisation, privatism and governance in the city
• The politics of urban policy
• Spatial indicators and the institutional management of regional social vulnerability

Research interests:

My primary research focus is urban political geography. Theoretically, I am interested in using insights from both political-economy and post-structualist theory to develop more robust understandings of emergent urban governance institutions, practices and politics and their constitutive geographies. These interests have led me to research projects exploring the entrepreneurial state and urban regeneration; the scale politics of urban policy implementation; and new scales, configurations and practices of urban governance. In current research (with Dowling, Macquarie University and Atkinson, UTas), I am exploring the emergence of new urban governance forms and practices around residential master-planned estates in Australia's east coast metropolitan regions. In addition, I am developing work on inner city transformations in the context of globalisation, the re-working of inner city geographies as middle class neighbourhoods and relational spaces, and the implications for governance practices and lived experiences.

My second research focus concerns the geography of social vulnerability in the Hunter and Central Coast Regions (NSW) and the institutional behaviours and practices of human service agencies in managing service delivery to vulnerable communities. The research team (O'Neill, McGuirk, Mee, King and Instone) is deepening a longterm collaborative partnership with regional offices of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet aimed at improving regional human services planning. The research is developing a framework to address the institutional, legal and organisational barriers to inter-agency data sharing as a means of enabling the development of more effective, sensitive and fine-grained spatial indicators of social vulnerability.

Information about recent publications can be found at the bottom of this page.

Current Funding:

• ARC Discovery Grant (with Dowling and Atkinson) ($184,000)
  Privatising neighbourhoods? Governance and social life in master-planned residential estates
• ARC Linkage Grant (with O'Neill, Mee, King and Instone) and NSW Department of Premiers' ($189,000)
  Enabling inter-agency data sharing to support the spatial analysis of social vulnerability in a transforming region

• 2008 Award, Fellow of the Geographical Society of NSW
• 2008 Award, Vice-chancellor's Award for Excellence in Supervision (Fac. of Science and IT)
• 2007 Visiting Fellowship, University of Bristol
• 2005 Vice-chancellor's Awards for Excellent in Teaching (Fac. of Science and IT, jointly with Ass. Prof Adam McCluskey)
• 2003 University of Durham, International Fellowship award
• 2000 Awarded (jointly) The Australian Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing, Single Title (Wholly Australian) category for Introducing Human Geography: Globalisation, Difference, Inequality, Pearson, Melbourne

• Introduction to Human Geography GEOG1020
• Cities and Regions GEOG2080
• Globalisation: Cities, Economies GEOG3240
• Honours Coursework GEOS4001, GEOS4002, GEOS4003, GEOS4004, GEOS4310, GEOS4320, GEOS4330, GEOS4340

• Miriam William - PhD (Human Geography) (Primary supervisor)
  Geographies of care in the new inner city
• Adam Tyndall - MSc (Human Geography) (Primary supervisor)
  Geographies of publicness in the city
• Thomas Baker - PhD (Human Geography) (Primary supervisor)
  Urban policy transfer
• Lisa Webber - PhD (Human Geography)(Co-Supervisor)
  Social networks of Sudanese Refugees
• Nicola Vaughan - PhD (Human Geography) (Co-Supervisor)
  Gardening as a practice of public housing tenant participation

• International Editorial Board, Irish Geography, Geographical Research, Geography Compass
• Member of the Institute of British Geographers
• Member of the Institute of Australian Geographers
• President of the Geographical Society of New South Wales (2002-2005)