Kris OldsKris OldsAssociate Professor, Department of Geography
I joined the faculty in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in July 2001. Prior to this I taught at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore (1997-2001) and at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol (1996-1997). I was also a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia (1995-1996). Apart from academia, I have also worked as an urban planner for the City of Vancouver, a researcher at the UBC Centre for Human Settlements, and with Joe Wai's architectural firm in Vancouver.
My PhD (1996) in Human Geography is from the University of Bristol in England. I was based at the School of Geographical Sciences there from 1992-1995. I also have two degrees from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (my ‘hometown') – a MA (1988) in Community and Regional Planning, and a BA (1985) in Human Geography.
In the Department I play a variety of service roles, including Chair, Undergraduate Affairs and Curriculum Development Committee, and Faculty Diversity Liaison for students. I am happy to respond to any queries undergraduates might have about advising, departmental atmosphere, and so on. Please do not hesitate to contact me!
In addition, I am affiliated with a number of units and initiatives on campus at UW-Madison:
At the present moment, I am a member of the editorial boards of Geoforum, and Urban Policy and Research. I am also Editor, Economic Geography Section, Geography Compass.
My research primarily focuses on the geographical organization of power in relation to contemporary socio-economic and spatial transformations. The geographic context for my research is the broad Asia-Pacific/Pacific Rim region, and the interdependent skein of global cities spread around the globe. I am particularly interested in how institutions (including firms and universities) and elite social formations operate across distant space; how institutions, elite social formations, and the processes of which they are a part, produce distinct spaces and places through their operation; and what the role of the global city is in the geographical organization of power.
I also have long-standing interests in evictions and related forms of involuntary displacement/resettlement in urban contexts. My previous research on this topic has been conducted in relation to the role of mega-events (e.g., world's fairs and Olympic games) in urban transformations. This research is policy-oriented, and often conducted in conjunction with community-based organizations and NGOs.
So, in a nutshell, my topical interests are the following, and I welcome inquiries from prospective graduate students with overlapping interests:
A prospective graduate student should ideally send me an email message with a 1-2 paragraph long summary of your research interests when first contacting me, as well as information about what other faculty members you might like to work with. Please note that I am scheduled for a sabbatical from summer 2007 to summer 2008.
I am currently working on a number of research projects. These include both independent research and collaborative research. Select initiatives are outlined below, in summary fashion.
Global Assemblage: Singapore, Western Universities, and the Socio-Economic Development Process
In the late 1990s and early 2000s select cities in Pacific Asia formed or significantly deepened formal institutional linkages with a variety of foreign (mainly Western) universities. The broad objective of this research project is to examine contemporary global city formation processes in the city-state of Singapore. More specifically, I am examining the factors that underlie the emergence of Singapore as a ‘global education hub' . Particular attention is being devoted to understanding: (1) Constructing a Global Education Hub (the objectives and strategies of the Singaporean state in opening up its territory to new forms of foreign educational knowledge, institutional structures, practices, and technologies); and (2) Globalizing Universities (the objectives and strategies of foreign (mainly Western) universities as they seek to establish and/or deepen their presences in Pacific Asia in general, and Singapore in particular). This research project is being implemented via the application of the extended case method in relationship to globalization, and the implementation of ‘multi-locale' fieldwork. Fieldwork is being conducted at the key ‘sites' where this global assemblage is being imagined, coordinated, and constructed
This project has received support from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), the Graduate School, and a program titled University-Industry Linkages as Drivers of Urban Development in Asia jointly run by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the World Bank.
The Global Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy: Regionalisms, Regional Linkages, and Higher Education Restructuring in Asia & Europe
The ubiquity of the ‘knowledge economy' and ‘knowledge society' discourse is not simply rhetorical; it represents changing understandings of the relationship between states, economies and individuals, and is giving rise to new spaces, practices and citizen-subjects. The state, in particular, has been actively involved in constructing new knowledge spaces at a range scales in the context of evolving conceptualizations of the ‘ideal' economy and society. Examples of new knowledge spaces include innovative class room architectures designed to engender more creative learning and citizen-subjects; new universities in central cities or emerging regions; university-industry linkage development programs; global university consortia such as the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) or the International Alliance of Research Universities; national-scale developments such as Brand New Zealand, Qatar Education City, Brain Korea 21, or Singapore Global Schoolhouse; and regional initiatives such as European Higher Education Area (EHEA), or the ASEAN University Network. Many of these new knowledge spaces are being constructed and governed in a transnational sense, both with respect to the context in which these spaces are being framed and situated, and with respect to the institutions and social formations that effectively construct and govern these spaces. States are also seeking to retain and repatriate educated nationals (e.g., India, China), and to strategically support and govern the production of intellectual property (and associated trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS).
While new forms of statecraft have sought to construct new multi-scalar knowledge spaces, analysts have devoted relatively little attention to these transformations. This is, arguably, due to the continued effects of disciplinary-based geographic imaginaries that are still weighted towards a focus on the national scale (despite the unsettling impacts of debates about globalization upon economy and society).
This new (2007 on) initiative focuses on globalization, regionalism(s), interregionalism, and higher education restructuring. More specifically, I am initiating the examination of three main research questions:
• How is the relationship between regionalism (defined as the formal and informal policy of states and sub-state regions to coordinate activities in a greater region), interegionalism, and higher education, being conceptualized by relevant analysts and practitioners?
• How is regionalism in Pacific Asia and Europe shaping the transformation of higher education systems?
• How is regionalism in Pacific Asia and Europe shaping the formation of linkages between Pacific Asian and European universities and related institutions?
This project builds off of my research and teaching on globalization and regionalism in the Asia-Pacific (at the National University of Singapore and UW-Madison), work that I have been doing with educationalists (especially Susan Robertson) on the construction of knowledge spaces (CKS) in a globalizing era, and service with several US Department of Education-funded National Resource Centers (NRCs) in Asian, European, and Global studies, as well as UW-Madison's International Institute. For example, I was lead organizer of the Constructing the European Higher Education Area Symposium , April 8-9, 2005, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was also co-organizer of a Chicago-based workshop (held on 18 September 2006) that examined new forms of transatlantic higher education linkages.
International Events and Forced Evictions: a Focus on the Olympic Games
I am currently contributing to a research project on international events and forced evictions that the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions is coordinating. With the Olympic Games as an example, this project is examining the phenomena of forced evictions in relation to the preparation of this major international event. The research is designed to produce a clear picture of this phenomenon, identifying cases of good practice, as well as determining whether the forced evictions carried out are solely related to the Olympic Games or to broader developments/policies in the host city. Ultimately, the project aims at developing concrete policies for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to prevent the occurrence of forced evictions in relation to the Olympic Games.
Other collaborators in this project include the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat), the Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Sport for Development and Peace, the University of Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies (IUHEI), the Institut d'Architecture de l'Université de Genève, the University of Toronto Faculty of Social Work, and the New York University Law School.
Olds, K. (1995) 'Globalization and the production of new urban spaces: Pacific Rim mega-projects in the late 20th century', Environment and Planning A , 27: 1713-1743.
Thrift, N., and Olds, K. (1996) 'Refiguring the economic in economic geography', Progress in Human Geography , 20(3): 311-337.
Olds, K. (1997) 'Globalizing Shanghai: the ‘global intelligence corps' and the building of Pudong', Cities , 14(2): 109-123.
Olds, K. (1998) 'Globalization and urban change: tales from Vancouver via Hong Kong', Urban Geography , 19(4): 360-385.
Olds, K. (1998) 'Hallmark events, evictions and housing rights: the Canadian case', in A. Azuela, E. Duhau, and E. Ortiz (eds.) Evictions and the Right to Housing: Experience from Canada, Chile, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and South Korea , http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-9374-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html Ottawa: International Development Research Centre (IDRC), pp. 1-45.
Olds, K., Dicken, P., Kelly, PF., Kong L., Yeung, H. (eds.) (1999) Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories , London: Routledge.
Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (1999) 'Reshaping “Chinese” business networks in a globalising era', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 17(5): 535-555.
Ley, D., and Olds, K. (1999) 'World's Fairs and the culture of consumption in the contemporary city', in K. Anderson and F. Gale (eds) Cultural Geographies , 2nd Edition, Melbourne: Longman, pp. 221-240.
Yeung, H., and Olds, K. (1999) 'Singapore's global reach: situating the city-state in the global economy', International Journal of Urban Sciences , 2(1): 24-47.
Yeung, H., and Olds, K. (eds) (2000) The Globalisation of Chinese Business Firms , London/NY: Macmillan/St.Martin's Press.
Dicken, P., Kelly, PF, Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2001) 'Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards an analytical framework for the global economy', Global Networks , 1(2): 89-112.
Olds, K. (2001) Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture and Pacific Rim Mega-Projects , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olds, K. (2001) ‘Practices for “process geographies”', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 19(2): 127-136.
Thrift, N., and Olds, K. (2001) ‘Pour une redefinition de l'economique en géographie économique', in J.F. Staszak et al (eds.) Géographie Anglo-Saxonnes: Tendances Contemporaines , Paris: Belin, pp. 174-189.
Coe, N. Kelly, PF., and Olds, K. (2003) ‘Globalization, transnationalism and the Asia-Pacific' in J. Peck and H. Yeung (eds) Remaking the Global Economy , London: Sage.
Olds, K., and Thrift, N. (2005) ‘Cultures on the brink: reengineering the soul of capitalism – on a global scale', in A. Ong and S. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems , Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 270-290.
Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2004) ‘Pathways to global city formation: a view from the developmental city-state of Singapore', Review of International Political Economy . 11(3): 489-521
Olds, K., and Thrift, N. (2005) ‘Assembling the “global schoolhouse' in Pacific Asia', in P. Daniels, K.C. Ho, and T. Hutton (eds.) Service Industries, Cities and Development Trajectories in the Asia-Pacific , London: Routledge.
Olds, K. (2005) ‘Articulating agendas and traveling principles in the layering of new strands of academic freedom in contemporary Singapore', in B. Czarniawska and G. Sevón (eds.) Where Translation is a Vehicle, Imitation its Motor, and Fashion Sits at the Wheel: How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy , Malmö : Liber AB , pp. 167-189.
Olds, K., and Yeung, H. (2006) ‘Pathways to global city formation: a view from the developmental city-state of Singapore', in N. Brenner and R. Keil (eds.) The Global Cities Reader , London: Routledge, pp. 392-399.
Kelly, PF., and Olds, K. (2007) ‘Studying elites and workers in transnational networks' in T. Barnes, E. Sheppard, and J. Peck (eds .) Politics and Practice in Economic Geography , London: Sage.
Olds, K. (2007) ‘Global assemblage: Singapore, Western universities, and the construction of a global education hub', World Development.
Foster, J., Muellerleile, C., Olds, K., Peck, J. (2007) ‘Circulating economic geographies: citation patterns and citation behaviour in economic geography, 1982-2006', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers .
My courses deal with a range of urban, economic and socio-cultural issues. They tend to be very interdisciplinary in nature, and discussion oriented if at all possible. I often develop some group project options in the upper level courses, and utilize workshop formats to engage with the content of the group projects. Films, both documentary and feature, are also incorporated into many of my courses, and are usually viewed in designated screening rooms on campus. A cinematic cities favorite is the brilliant director Wong Kar Wai.
I have also acted as an invited lecturer at the Oslo Summer School in Comparative Social Science Studies, University of Oslo, Norway (24-28 July 2006).
(i) PhD students (supervisor)
(ii) PhD students (co-supervisor)
(iii) Masters students (supervisor and co-supervisor)
My contact details are noted below. Please note that I am suffering under the pressure of email overload (like everyone these days, so it seems!). If I have not replied to your message within one week please do not hesitate to contact me again as nagging is required in a world of spam, email filters, and so on!
Kris Olds
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
University of Wisconsin
550 North Park Street
Rm. 376 Science Hall
Madison, WI 53706-1404 USA
Phone 1-608-262-5685
Fax 1-608-265-3991Email: kolds@wisc.edu