Joe Painter

Biography

I was born in London and grew up in Hertfordshire and then in Dorset, where I went to Weymouth Grammar School (now Budmouth College). After seven months' voluntary work in rural India in 1984, I took up a place to study geography at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, graduating in 1987. I then moved to the Open University to do research for a PhD on the geography of trade unionism in Britain under the supervision of Doreen Massey and John Allen. In 1990 I joined the University of Wales, Lampeter (then St David's University College) as Lecturer in Geography. I moved to Durham in 1993, first as Lecturer, then as Reader (2000), Professor (2004) and Head of Department (2010-2013). I spent 12 months as a visiting fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra (2004-05). I have also held visiting positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia, among others.

Research Interest

My current research focuses mainly on the prosaic geographies of the state. I am interested in both the everyday lives of state institutions and actors and the manifestation of what Timothy Mitchell calls the 'effect of the state' in the everyday lives of people and places. One strand of this work considers how mundane socio-technical practices (such as accounting, statistical analysis, economic modelling, bureaucratic record-keeping and strategizing) generate specific state effects and state geographies. Another strand will look at the incomplete, uneven, but often intensive and unnoticed permeation of 'stateness' into diverse aspects of social life.