Prof. Pauline McGuirk

Work Phone	(02) 4921 5097
Fax	(02) 4921 5877
Email	Pauline.McGuirk@newcastle.edu.au
Position	Professor School of Environmental and Life Sciences The University of Newcastle, Australia
Office	SRR202, Social Sciences

Biography

Pauline McGuirk is a human geographer, specialising in urban political geography. She is known particularly for her work on geographies of urban governance and urban socio-economic transformation. Pauline's research has been supported by 7 ARC grants (4 ARCDPs and 3 ARCLPs) and substantial external funding. Her expertise has been acknowledged by appointment as ARC INTLReader (Geography) and her role as international grant reviewer for the ESRC, Academy of Finland and European Science Foundation.

Pauline became Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) in 2006. As founding Deputy Director she played a lead role in establishing CURS in 2000 as a formal research Centre of the University and has been central to its development. The Centre now has an established national reputation and growing international status in research and research higher degree training.

Pauline plays a national and international editorial role on of the Editorial Boards of Progress in Human Geography, Geography Compass, Irish Geography and Geographical Research. She is a former President (2002-2005) of the Geographical Society of NSW. She was awarded Fellowship of the Geographical Society of NSW in 2008 and of the Institute of Australian Geographers in 2009.

Qualifications

PhD, Trinity College, Dublin - Ireland, 1993
Higher Diploma in Education, Trinity College, Dublin - Ireland
Bachelor of Arts, Trinity College, Dublin - Ireland, 1986

Research

Research keywords

Urban geography
Urban governance
Urban political geography
Urban theory

Research expertise

Pauline McGuirk's primary expertise is in urban political geography. Her major interests are the changing practices and politics of urban governance institutions, their changing territorial and scalar organisation, and their implications for the urban spaces, places and subjectivities they produce. Her work has explored (i) the political work involved in the changing geographies of urban governance: (ii) the necessity for understanding urban governance in a multi-scalar political-economic context and (iii) the relational social production of governance capacity through contingent alignments of dominant discourses, institutional structures and hegemonic practices. Her recent research on master-planned residential estates (MPREs) as new urban socio-spatial formations brought together analyses of neoliberalised urban governance with her interests in urban residential life and socio-cultural change. This work investigates the implications of growing urban privatisation and privatism, expressed in MPREs, for shifting state/market/civil society relations. Her current ARC project is investigate the role of urban state and non-state actors in urban carbon governance.

Methodologically, McGuirk's expertise lies in the field of qualitative research. She has expertise in the methods of in-depth interviewing and discourse analysis. Her research habitually engages in the use of heuristic case studies and thick description to inform theoretical developments.

A more applied aspect of her research expertise concerns the application of social-spatial data mapping and analysis techniques to the study of social vulnerability in urban regions. With colleagues, she has worked with state government human service agencies in the Hunter and Central Coast regions developing tools and indicators aimed at tracking the performance of urban and regional communities under economic and socio-demographic stress.

Fields of Research

Code	Description	Percentage
160499	Human Geography Not Elsewhere Classified	100

Centres and Groups

Centre

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

Member - Geographical Society of New South Wales
Fellow - Institute of Australian Geographers
Fellow - Institute of British Geographers

Editorial Board.

Member - Geography Compass
Member of editorial board - Institute of Australian Geographers (Geographical Research)
Member of international editorial board - Irish Geographical Society (Irish Geography)

Appointments

President Geographical Society of New South Wales (Australia)	01/07/2002 - 01/07/2005
Associate Editor Australian Geographer (Journal of the Geographical Society of NSW) (Australia)	01/09/1997 - 01/09/2008

Awards

Recognition.

2009	Fellow of the Institute of Australian Geographers Institute of Australian Geographers (Australia) Awarded fellowship of the Institute of Australian Geographers
2008	Fellow of the Geographical Society of NSW Geographical Society of NSW (Australia) Elected Fellow of the Geographical Society of NSW
2005	Vice Chancellor's Ward for Teaching Excellence University of Newcastle (Australia) Recognition of outstanding achievement in teaching excellence. Winner of Prize for Faculty of Science and IT

UoN Award for Excellence in Supervision (FSCIT)

2008	2008 Award, Vice-chancellor's Award for Excellence in Supervision (Fac. of Science and IT) University of Newcastle (Australia) Formal award of the UoN

Invitations

State of Australia Cities Conference SOAC, Australia (Keynote Address)	2011
State of Australian Cities Conference SOAC, Australia (Keynote Speaker)	2007
State of Australian Cities Conference Griffith University, Australia (Reviewer and commentator)	2006

Administrative

Administrative expertise

Pauline has been involved in a wide range of administrative roles across at School, Faculty and University level. In particular, she has contributed to policy development, implementation and administration in the domains of research management, research training, and scholarly information access. She served on the Faculty Research/Research Training Committees for many years and is currently on both of the Faculty Promotions Committees.

She is Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (2006-). She was Head of Discipline of Geography and Environmental Studies (2006-2010)

She has also held the high-profile institutional management role of President of the Geographical Society of NSW (2002-2005), one of the most longstanding geographical professional societies in the country. In this role she worked across the tertiary and secondary education sectors, promoting geographical scholarship and education across the community, hosting public lectures, presenting awards recognising excellence in geographical research and teaching, and liaising with professional organisations in the secondary sector (notably the Australian Geography Teachers' Association).

Teaching

Teaching keywords

Globalisation and urban change
Qualitative geographical methodologies
Social geography
Urban geography
Urbanisation

Teaching expertise

McGuirk is an award-winning tertiary teacher (UoN VC's Award for

Excellence in Teaching, Fac of SCIT, 2005) with formal Education

qualifications (Dip. Ed, Grade I) and a record of publishing award-winning

teaching materials. Throughout her career she has taught all levels from first year through to

honours level.

Her substantive areas of teaching expertise cover Urban Geography,

Social Geography, Urban Politics and Governance, Globalisation and

Urban Change, and Qualitative Geographical methodologies.

She has made influential contributions to tertiary geography teaching

nationally through the development of innovative teaching and skills

acquisition materials. Her co-authored first-year text Introducing Human

Geography: Globalisation, Difference, Inequality (Waitt, McGuirk et al,

2000, Pearson, pp 560) was awarded The Australian Award for Excellence

in Educational Publishing. She is a contributor to Hay's widely

used text on Qualitative Methods in Human Geography (Hay I [ed] 2010,

Oxford UP).

The University of Newcastle, Australia