Geoff Mann

Areas of Interest:

I am not trained as a geographer, but I am extremely fortunate to have ended up in geography, and at SFU geography in particular. My research, writing and teaching sit at the intersection of political economy, political theory, and the history of ideas. Right now, my focus is on uncertainty, whether it be scientific, expectational or existential. I am trying to understand the ways people deal with the uncertainties that characterize this moment, from probabilistic models to religious commitments to semiautomatic weapons in the garage. I spend a lot of my time thinking about climate change, macroeconomic crisis, and far right/fascist politics, but I am just as interested in the concept and politics of emergency/crisis in contemporary capitalist societies—what it means, how we know one when we see one, and what kinds of things we think we can or cannot do about it.

Over the years have written 5 books (and edited another) and a number of academic articles on everything from climate economics to country music, all of which have a political economy + political theory focus. More recently I have been writing fairly regularly for the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, Dissent, the New Statesman, and a few other outlets. In addition to my position here at SFU Geography, I am also an Associate Member of the SFU School of Public Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in New York City, and have been very lucky to be a resident at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2016, a Guggenheim Fellow (2022-2023) and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2023-2024).

Student research

Nick Gottlieb (Ph.D. current)

Krista Macaulay (Ph.D. current)

Diandra Ships: ‘Who Can Bear to Lose the World?’ Young People vs. Capitalism in British Columbia (Ph.D. dissertation, 2023; currently Senior Program Analyst, BC Public Service)

Howard Tenenbaum: United States Bank Migrations and Deposit Dollar Concentrations (Ph.D. dissertation, 2021; currently retired)

Maria Wallstam: The Making of a Middle Class Housing Crisis: The Ideology and Politics of Foreign Real Estate Investment in Vancouver, 2008–2018 (MA thesis, 2019; currently researcher, University of Uppsala)

Liam Fox: Regulating in the Public Interest? Canadian Energy Regulation as an Institutional Fix for Sovereign Legitimacy (MA thesis, 2019; currently PhD student, University of Toronto)

Mark Kear: Fringe Finance and the Regulation of Poverty in North America (PhD dissertation, 2015; currently Asst. Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Arizona)

Emily LeBaron: Reimagining the Geography of the Favelas: Pacification, Tourism, and Transformation in Complexo do Alemão (MA thesis, 2014; currently Manager, UBC Indigenous Research Support Initiative)

Chloe Brown: The Geography of Climate Change in a Rural Resource-Dependent Town: The Case of McBride, British Columbia (MA thesis, 2012; currently at medical school, University of Toronto)

Emilia Kennedy: Found in Translation: Discourse, Imaginaries, and the Production of Meaning in Planning Urban Sustainability (MA thesis 2010; currently Advisor, Alberta Climate Change Office)

Dawn Hoogeveen: What’s at Stake? Diamonds, Mineral Regulation, and the Law of Free-Entry in the Northwest Territories (MA thesis, 2008; currently postdoctoral fellow at UNBC)

Genevieve Bucher: Implementing Sustainability in Surrey: Amending the East Clayton Neighbourhood Concept Plan (MUrb thesis, 2008; currently Senior Social Infrastructure Planner, City of Vancouver)

Robin Jane Roff: Revolution from the Aisle? Anti-Biotechnology Activism and the Politics of Agricultural Restructuring (PhD dissertation, 2008; currently with the UBC Faculty Association)