Lancaster Environment Centre

My research interests span political and economic geography. I am interested in how ideas produce space, and how spaces produce ideas. My theoretical interests centre upon competing understandings of the state, and I am interested in developing new approaches to spatial state theory from a post-structuralist perspective, drawing upon psycho-geography, imagined geographies research and governmentality.

In particular, my work attends to the ways different state-spatial arrangements elicit volitional behaviours from a range of powerful actors both within and beyond the state.

I have explored these interests through three empirical research projects: a Leverhulme-funded investigation into the worldwide trend towards devolution on which I was a research assistant with Professor Andres Rodriguez-Pose between 2001 and 2002, my ESRC-funded PhD research (2004-2007) which explored the psychological and ideological production of state and social actors involved in the asylum sector in the UK; and a Nuffield funded project (2008-9) entitled: 'Polish Migration to the UK: The Material Effects of Imagined Geographies'.

I am interested in developing research in the following areas, including suggestions for research collaboration and PhD proposals:

Eastern European Migration to and from the UK

Asylum Sector Activism

A Geography of Hearing Centres in the UK

Carceral Geographies

Geographies of Anti-Fascist Activism in the UK

Selected Publications

Gill, N. (2010) ‘Tracing Imaginations of the State: The Spatial Consequences of Different State Concepts among Asylum Activist Organisations’. Forthcoming in Antipode.

Gill, N. (2009) ‘Governmental Mobility: The Power Effects of the Movement of Detained Asylum Seekers around Britain's Detention Estate’. Political Geography, 28, pp186-196.

Gill, N. (2009) Presentational State Power: Temporal and Spatial Influences Over Asylum Sector Decision Makers Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 34(2), pp215-233.

Gill, N. (2009) Longing for Stillness: The Forced Movement of Asylum Seekers M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, 12(1).

Gill, N. (2009) Asylum, Immigration and the Circulation of Unease at Lunar House in Ingram, A. and Dodds, K. Spaces of Security and Insecurity: Geographies of the War on Terror, Ashgate.

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2006) How Does Trade Affect Regional Disparities? World Development, 34(7), pp1201-1222.

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2005) On the ‘Economic Dividend’ of Devolution, Regional Studies, 39(4), pp405-20.

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2004) Is There a Link Between Regional Disparities and Devolution?, Environment and Planning A: Environment and Planning, 36(12), pp2097-117.

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2004) Reassessing Relations Between the Centre and the States: The Challenge for the Brazilian Administration, Regional Studies, 38(7), pp833-44.

Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2003) The Global Trend Towards Devolution and Its Implications, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 21(3), pp333-51.

Affiliations

I am a member of the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) management board