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Linda Margaret McDowell CBE FBA FAcSS (born 1949[1]) is a British geographer and academic, specialising in the ethnography of work and employment. She was Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford from 2004 to 2016.[2]

Early life and education

McDowell studied for her PhD as a part-time student at the Bartlett School of Planning, where she had previously earned a master's degree.[1] Supervised by Peter Cowan, she researched housing change in London.[1]

Academic career

Prior to completing her PhD, she lectured at the Open University. She then returned to the University of Cambridge, where she had studied as an undergraduate.[1] She took a chair at London School of Economics in 1999, after which she moved first to University College London and then, in 2004, to the University of Oxford.[1]

She is an economic geographer, who describes herself as an ethnographer of work and employment.[3] She wrote the first paper on feminism in the journal Society and Space,[1] while her three books on work and gender —-Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City, which explored the role of gender in the City of London's financial services;[4] Gender, Place and Identity, which offered a broader introduction to gender and geography;[1] and Redundant Masculinities, which explored masculinity in the context of economic downturns[1] — have been major contributions to feminist geography and geographies of gender.[1] More recently, her research has explored labour and economic migration since 1945.[2]

McDowell's work has received numerous awards. From the Royal Geographical Society she has been awarded the Back Award and the Victoria Medal. In 2008, she became a fellow of the British Academy.[4] She is also a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.[5] McDowell has edited the journals Area and Antipode.[2]

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to geography and higher education.[6]

Selected publications

  • (2016) Migrant Women's Voices: talking about life and work in the UK since 1945. Bloomsbury,ISBN 9781474224505.
  • (2013) Working Lives: Gender, Migration and Employment in Britain, 1945-2007. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781444339192.
  • (2009) Working Bodies: Interactive service employment and workplace identities. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5977-7.
  • (2005) Hard Labour: the forgotten voices of Latvian migrant 'volunteer' workers. UCL Press / Cavendish Publishing, London. ISBN 1844720209.
  • (2003) Redundant Masculinities? Employment change and white working class youth. Blackwell, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-4051-0585-9.
  • (1999) Gender, Identity and Place. Cambridge: Polity.
  • (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City of London. Oxford: Blackwell
  • (1991). Life without father and Ford: The new gender order of post-Fordism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 400-419
  • (1991). Multiple voices: Speaking from inside and outside the project. Antipode 24, 56-72

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jones, A (2009). Thrift, N; Kitichin, R (eds.). Mcdowell, L. in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 511–513.
  2. ^ a b c "Professor Linda McDowell". School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  3. ^ "Professor Linda McDowell". St John's College, Oxford. Archived from the original on 30 September 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  4. ^ a b "McDowell, Linda". British Academy. Archived from the original on 23 October 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  5. ^ "Fellows". Academy of Social Sciences. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  6. ^ "No. 61450". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 2015. p. N9.