Professor Robert Fagan
BA PhD ANU
 |
Chair of Human Geography
|
Profile
I am a human geographer researching and teaching in the areas of economic geography, urban and regional development and social theory. I have been professor of human geography at Macquarie since 1994 and deputy director of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion since its creation as a university centre at the end of 2005. My research career has focused on industrial change in developed countries including Australia, concentrating since the early 1990s on regional and local impacts of globalisation and theorising geographical scale. I am currently researching:
- impacts of global change on producers, workers and consumers in Australian food industries including the banana industry
- globalisation and local labour markets especially changes in people's access to employment
- economic and cultural resistance to globalisation involving local and community enterprises, trade unions, producer and consumer associations.
I have worked as a consultant on regional and local impacts of global change for federal, state and local governments, trade unions and community groups. Growing up in Canberra I studied economics and geography at the Australian National University before undertaking doctoral research in their Research School of Pacific Studies on interactions between large corporations and governments in the first Australian mineral boom. Appointed first to Macquarie in 1972, I have worked on secondment for the NSW Department of Planning, as research fellow in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and as a visiting professor at the universities of Durham, Portsmouth and Sydney. I maintain an active involvement in the folk music scene and have presented concerts and workshops on music dealing with mining and industrial change.
External Appointments
- President, Institute of Australian Geographers (1998-2000)
- Member, National Committee for Geography (2004-2006)
- Member: editorial advisory board: European Urban and Regional Studies (continuing)
Awards
- 2001 Macdonald Holmes Medal of the Geographical Society of NSW and the Geography Teachers Association of NSW for distinguished contribution to geographical education.
- 2004 J.P. Thomson Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland for distinguished contributions to Geography in Australia
Mailing address: Dept of Human Geography, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, Australia