The Doreen Massey Reader

This collection of Doreen Massey's writings brings together for the first time her formative contributions to the subject and showcases the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates.

Doreen Massey (1944–2016) was one of the most influential geographers of the late-twentieth and early-twenty first centuries. Her ideas on space, region, identity, ethics and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies, and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Massey established both scholarly substance and political salience for the claim that “geography matters”, not as a dry defence of disciplinary turf but as a rallying cry. Through her most influential concepts – such as power-geometries and a “global sense of place” – she insisted on the active role of regions and places not simply in bearing the brunt of restructuring, but in reshaping the uneven geographies of global capital. These concepts became key tools in the analytical repertoire in geography and beyond, influencing globalization debates of the 1990s. Right up until her death, Massey’s work integrated theory and politics, analyzing how global forces articulated with the particularities of place and politics – in the interests of challenging and transforming both. This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on financialization, globalization, immigration and nationalism, among other topics. With introductions and explanatory notes from the editors, the collection provides an unrivalled introduction to the range and depth of Massey’s contributions, which are sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come.