dr. H.G. Pettit (Harry)

My research reaches across economic, urban, and cultural geography. Conceptually, I am interested in diversifying the mainstream perception of what we study as economic geographers, specifically through pluralizing understandings of work and labor away from narrowly economistic, waged-centric approaches. My broad empirical interest is understanding the diverse practices through which people survive within late-capitalist systems which are producing high levels of precarity and impoverishment.

I have worked on three specific research projects. First, I studied how young Egyptian men coped with prolonged precarity in the Egyptian labor market, and analyzed the emotional labor through which they held on to feelings of hope.

Second, I carried out research in a food bank in London, looking at the politics of this form of ‘makeshift’ welfare where demand often outstripped supply of resources, and where volunteers who were excluded from the formal labor market experienced a sense of self-worth and value.

Finally, I am now investigating how cash circulates in the platform economy in Beirut, Lebanon, specifically looking at the struggles between platforms and companies which try to extract profit and workers trying to survive within a prolonged economic crisis in Lebanon.

• GLOCAL Research Group