Professor Mike Crang, BA (Cantab), PhD (Bristol)

Contact Professor Mike Crang (email at m.a.crang@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Mike Crang's interests lie in the field of cultural geography. He has worked extensively on the relationship of social memory and identity. Within this he focused empirically upon on practices of public and oral history, photography and museums looking especially at examples in the UK and Sweden. This interest feeds into looking at what people make of museums and landscapes and thus the study of tourism more generally. He has an edited collection on this theme that was published in 2009 (Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities, edited with Pau Obrador and Penny Travlou, Ashgate) and a previous collection (Tourism: between place and performance, with Simon Coleman, Berghahn 2002) as well as co-editing the journal 'Tourist Studies' for ten years from its inception. He worked on the intersection of film, photography and tourism - through a case study using Captain Corelli and Cephallonia.

From the angle of visual aesthetics and senses of temporality and rhythm, he has become interested in not just issues of preservation and conservation but also their converse - destruction, dereliction and decay - as a collaborator on the ESRC project 'The Waste of the World'. On this project he has looked at the figuring of global flows through waste - especially in differing photographic traditions. He has also explored the creation of wastescapes in (former) industrial sites, on beaches and between places.

Subsequent work is attempting to rework the borders of the cultural and the economic looking at the travels and transformations of various goods. With wastes it is attempting to rethink approaches to the commodity through emphasising unbecoming things - that are both distasteful and unstable. Following things in and out of the commodity phase, in terms of objects becoming declassee or revalorised as heritage is part of his current work as a collaborator on the project Re:heritage. Cirkulering och kommodifiering av ting med historia (Re:heritage. Circulation and marketization of things with history) funded by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council). Following the often fluid connection of things and values in the economy was a focus in the ESRC project 'Illicit Economies and the Spaces of Circulation' (with Nicky Gregson and Ray Hudson) and a current AHRC/ESRC project 'The Financial Aspects of the Trade in Counterfeit Products: An Exploratory Study' (with colleagues in criminology at Teesside University) looking at the entwining of legal and illicit in the circulation of goods. Looking at the other end of values, a Geoforum sponsored workshop led to a special issue focusing on the rise of global consumption and how ethical values and practices change when the market for goods changes and to a just starting ESRC funded project on 'Sustainable Consumption and Agri-food Ethics in the Global South'.

He is also interested in more abstract issues regarding time-space, action and temporality and co-edited the journal Time & Society from 1997 to 2006. His interests in this area led to a collection on spatiality and social theory ('Thinking Space', edited with Nigel Thrift). The other strand to his work is the analysis of transformations of space and time through electronic technologies, with specific work based around Singapore's 'Wired City' initiative and the 'digital divide' in UK cities. He completed an ESRC project on 'Multi-Speed Cities and the Logistics of Daily Life' with Steve Graham and is now working on the notion of a 'sentient city' and the politics of new forms of visualisation and urban givernance.

In terms of service to the wider discipline he was a senior editor of the International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography (2009, Elsevier) which was one of the 'CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles 2010' in the Social and Behavioural Sciences category and co-editor of the Sage Encyclopedia of Urban Studies (2010, with Ray Hutchison, Bob Beauregard and Manuel Aalbers), while being on the editorial board of Geography Compass, Mondes du Tourisme, and previously Environment & Planning A, and Social & Cultural Geography. He was on the committee then secretary then chair of the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG (1995-2006) and is curently on the scientific committee of the Societa Italianá di Scienze del Turismo. Within the department he has been Chair of the IT committee, convenor of research clusters, convenor of MA programmes in Space, Place and Culture and European Urban and Regional Change, and Director of the Geography and Cities degree programme and Director of Research (2003-6, 2008-10). He was deputy (2013-14) and Head of Department (2014-2017). He is on the steering group of the University Centre for Visual Arts and Cultures and the management board of the Leverhulme Doctoral Programme in Visual Cultures.

Research Groups

Department of Geography

• Economy & Culture
• Urban Worlds

Research Projects

Department of Geography

• Multispeed Cities and the Logistics of Living in an Information Age
• Waste of the World

Research Interests

• Construction of identity
• Critical theory
• Cultural geographies
• Heritage tourism
• Information society
• Qualitative methods
• Swedish heritage
• Waste, globalisation and aesthetics
• Cultures of tourism

Teaching Areas

• Economic Geography
• Introduction to Geographical Research
• Memory, Space and Place
• New Media and Changing Places in a Digital Age
• Social and Cultural geography (Level 2) (8 hours/year.)
• Social Research in Geography

Selected Publications

Authored book

• Antonopoulos, Georgios, Hall, Alex Large, Jo, Shen, Anqi, Crang, Mike & Andrews, Mike (2018). Fake Goods, Real Money: The Counterfeiting Business and its Financial Management. Bristol: Policy Press.
• Crang, M. & Cook, I. (2007). Doing Ethnographies. London.: Sage.

Edited book

• Guo, R., Bulag, U.E., Crang, M.A., Heberer, Th, Hwang, E.-G., Millward, J.A., Rossabi, M., Postiglione, G.A., Shih, C.-y., Tapp, N. & Guo, L.C. (2014). Multicultural China: A Statistical Yearbook (2014). Current Chinese Economic Report Series. Springer.
• Hutchison, R., Aalbers, M., Beauregard, R. & Crang, M. (2010). Encyclopedia of Urban Studies. London: Sage.
• Delyser, D., Herbert, S., Aitken, S. Crang, M. & McDowell L. (2010). The Handbook of Qualitative Geography. London Sage.
• Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou, P. (2009). Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Kitchin, R., Thrift, N., Castree, N., Crang, M., Domosh, M., Anderson, K., Cloke, P., Crampton, J., Graham, B., Hadjimichalis, C., Hubbard, P., Kearns, R., Kwan, M-P., Lees, L., McLafferty, S., Paasi, A., Philo, C., Sidaway, J., Willis, K. & Yeung, H. (2009). International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Coleman, S. & Crang,M. (2002). Tourism: Between Place and Performance. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Crang, M. & Thrift, N. (2000). Thinking Space. Routledge.
• Crang, M., Crang, P. & May, J. (1999). Virtual Geographies: bodies, spaces, relations. London: Routledge.

Chapter in book

• Crang, M. & Haji Bin Mohamed, Siti (2016). Researching virtual communities. In Key Methods in Geography. Clifford, N., Cope, M., French, S. & Gillespie, T. London: Sage. 270-284.
• Gregson, N. & Crang, M. (2015). Waste, Resource Recovery and Labour: Recycling Economies in the EU. In Why the Social Sciences Matter. Michie, J. & Cooper, C. Palgrave Macmillan. 60-76.
• Crang, M., Gregson, N., Ahamed, F., Ferdous, R. & Akhter, N. (2012). Death, the Phoenix and Pandora: transforming things and values in Bangladesh. In Economies of Recycling: The global transformation of materials, values and social relations. Alexander, C. & Reno, J. London: Zed Books. 59-75.
• Crang, M. (2012). The Remembrance of Nostalgias Lost and Future Ruins: photographic journeys from the Coal Coast to the Geordie Shore. In Futureland Now: John Kippin, Chris Wainwright. Wells, L. Plymouth: University of Plymouth Press. 61-72.
• Crang, M. (2012). Timespaces in the Debris of Globalisation. In Spatialities: The Geographies of Art and Architecture. Rugg, J. & Martin, C. Bristol: Intellect. 25-34.
• Crang, M. (2012). Tristes Entropique: steel, ships and time images for late modernity. In Visuality/Materiality: Images, Objects and Practices. Rose, G. & Tolia-Kelly, D.P. Ashgate. 59-74.
• Church, A., Burgess, J., Ravenscroft, N., Bird, W., Brady, E., Crang, M. , Fish, R., Gruffudd, P. Mourato, S. Pretty, J. Tolia-Kelly, D. , Turner, K. & Winter, M. (2011). Cultural Services. In UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Technical Report. United Nations Environment Programme/ DEFRA. 633-692.
• Crang, M. (2011). Time. In The Sage Handbook of Geographical Knowledge. Agnew, J. & Livingstone, D.M. London Sage. 331-343.
• Crang, M. (2011). Tourist: Moving Places, Becoming Tourist, Becoming Ethnographer. In Geographies of mobilities practices, spaces, subjects. Cresswell, T. & Merriman, P. Andover, Hants: Ashgate. 205-224.
• Crang, M. (2011). Virtual Life. In A Companion to Social Geography. del Casino, V., Thomas, M., Cloke, P. & Panelli, R. Oxford Wiley-Blackwell. 401-416.
• Crang, M. (2010). Cyberspace as the New Public Domain. In Urban Diversity: Space, Culture and Inclusive Pluralism in Cities Worldwide. Kihato, C., Massoumi, M., Ruble, B., Subirós, P. & Garland, A. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 99-122.
• Crang, M. (2010). Visual Methods and Methodologies. In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Geography. Delyser, D., Herbert, S., Aitken, S., Crang, M. & McDowell L. London Sage. 208-225.
• Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou, P. (2009). Corrupted Seas: the Mediterranean in the Age of Mass Mobility. In Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities. Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou, P. Farnham Ashgate. 157-174.
• Crang, M. (2009). home@Singapore.world: Spatial Imaginaries of a Mediated World. In Mediengeographie: Theorie - Analyse -Diskussion. Döring, J. & Thielmann, T. Bielefeld: Transcript verlag. 539-564.
• Crang, M. (2009). Spaces in Theory, Spaces in History and Spatial Historiographies. In Political Space in Pre-industrial Europe. Kümin, B. Farnham: Ashgate. 249-265.
• Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou P. (2009). Taking Mediterranean Tourists Seriously. In Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities. Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou P. Farnham Ashgate. 1-20.
• Crang, M. & Travlou, P. (2009). The Island that was not there: producing Corelli’s island, staging Kefalonia. In Cultures of Mass tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities. Obrador, P., Crang, M. & Travlou, P. Farnham Ashgate. 75-90.
• Crang, M. (2007). Speed= distance/time chronotopographies of action. In 24/7Time and Temporality in the Network Society. Hassan, R. & Purser, R. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 62-88.
• Crang, M. A. (2006). Circulation and Emplacement: the hollowed out performance of tourism. In Travels in Paradox: remapping tourism. Minca, C. & Oakes, T. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 47-64.
• Crang, M. (2005). Time space. In Spaces of geographical thought deconstructing human geography's binaries. Cloke, P. & Johnston, R. London: Sage Publications. 199-217.
• Crang, M. (2004). Cultural Geographies of Tourism. In A Companion to Tourism. Lew, A., Hall, C.M. & Williams, A. Oxford: Blackwell. 74-84.
• Crang, M. (2003). Placing Jane Austen, displacing England touring between book, history and nation. In Jane Austen and Co. remaking the past in contemporary culture. Pucci, S. & Thompson, J. New York: State University of New York Press. 111-132.

Journal Article

• Qiao, Jie, Crang, Mike, Hong, Liangping & Li, Xiaofeng (2021). Exploring the Benefits of Small Catchments on Rural Spatial Governance in Wuling Mountain Area, China. Sustainability 13(2): 760.
• Zhong, Shuru Crang, Mike & Zeng, Guojun (2020). Constructing Freshness: The Vitality of Wet Markets in Urban China. Agriculture and Human Values 37: 175-185.
• Crang, M. (2018). Travelling People and Things:The Creation of Differentiated Mobilities in a World on the Move. 観光学評論 [Tourism studies review] 6 巻(1 号): 49-54.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M.A. & Antonopoulos, C. (2017). Holding together logistical worlds: friction, seams and circulation in the emerging ‘global warehouse’. Environment & Planning D: Society and Space 35(3): 381-398.
• Gregson, N. & Crang, M. (2017). Illicit economies: customary illegality, moral economies and circulation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42(2): 206-219.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Botticello, J., Calestani, M. & Krzywoszynska, A. (2016). Doing the ‘Dirty Work’ of the Green Economy: resource recovery and migrant labour in the EU. European Urban and Regional Studies 23(4): 541-555.
• Zhang, J.J. & Crang, M. (2016). Making material memories: Kinmen’s bridging objects and fractured places between China and Taiwan. Cultural Geographies 23(3): 421-439.
• Gregson, N. & Crang, M.A. (2015). From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 40(1): 151-176.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Fuller, S. & Holmes, H. (2015). Interrogating the Circular Economy: the Moral Economy of Resource Recovery in the EU. Economy and Society 44(2): 218-243.
• Shaw, W., DeLyser, D. & Crang, M. (2015). Limited by imagination alone: research methods in cultural geographies. Cultural Geographies 22(2): 211-215.
• McLean, Anthony, Bulkeley, Harriet & Crang, Mike (2015). Negotiating the Urban Smart Grid: Socio-Technical Experimentation in the City of Austin. Urban Studies 53(15): 3246–3263.
• Crang, M. (2015). The Promises and Perils of a Digital Geohumanities. Cultural Geographies 22(2): 351-360.
• Crang, M. (2015). Travelling ethics: Valuing harmony, habitat and heritage while consuming people and places. Geoforum 67: 194-203.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Laws, J., Fleetwood, T. & Holmes, H. (2013). Moving up the waste hierarchy: car boot sales, reuse exchange and the challenges of consumer culture to waste prevention. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 77: 97-107.
• Crang, M.A., Hughes, A., Gregson, N., Norris, L. & Ahamed, F.U. (2013). Rethinking governance and value in commodity chains through global recycling networks. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 38(1): 12-24.
• Crang, M. (2012). Negative images of consumption: cast offs and casts of self and society. Environment and Planning A 44(4): 763-767.
• Crang, M. (2012). Temporal ecologies: multiple times, multiple spaces, and complicating space times. Environment and Planning A 44(9): 2119-2123.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Ahamed, F., Akter, N., Ferdous, R., Foisal, S. & Hudson, R. (2012). Territorial agglomeration and industrial symbiosis: Sitakunda-Bhatiary, Bangladesh, as a secondary processing complex. Economic Geography 88(1): 37-58.
• Crang, M.A. & Zhang, J. (2012). Transient Dwelling: Trains as places of identification for the floating population of China. Social and Cultural Geography 13(8): 895-914.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M. & Watkins, H. (2011). Souvenir, Salvage and the Death of Great Naval Ships. Journal of Material Culture 16(3): 301-324.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Ahamed, F., Akhtar, N. & Ferdous, R. (2010). Following things of rubbish value: end-of-life ships, ‘chock-chocky’ furniture and the Bangladeshi middle class consumer. Geoforum 41(6): 846-854.
• Gregson, N. & Crang, M. (2010). Materiality and waste: inorganic vitality in a networked world. Environment & Planning A 42(5): 1026-1032.
• Crang, M.A. & Tolia-Kelly, D.P. (2010). Nation, Race and Affect: Senses and Sensibilities at national heritage sites. Environment and Planning A 42 (10): 2315 – 2331
• Crang, M. (2010). The Calculus of Speed: Accelerated worlds. worlds of acceleration. Time & Society 19(3): 404-410.
• Crang, M. (2010). The Death of Great Ships: photography, politics and waste in the global imaginary. Environment & Planning A 42(5): 1084-1102.
• Crang, M. (2008). Placing Stories, Performing Places: spatiality in Joyce and Austen. Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 126(2): 312-329.
• Crang, M. (2007). Flexible and fixed times working in the academy. Environment and planning A 39(3): 509 – 514.
• Crang, M. & Graham, S. (2007). Sentient cities ambient intelligence and the politics of urban space. Information, communication & society 10(6): 789 - 817.
• Crang, M., Crosbie, T. & Graham, S.D.N. (2007). Technology, timespace and the remediation of neighbourhood life. Environment and Planning A 39(10): 2405-2422.
• Crang, M., Graham, S.D.N. & Crosbie, T. (2006). Variable geometries of connection: Urban digital divides and the uses of Information Technology. Urban Studies 43(13): 2551-2570.
• Crang, M. (2005). Qualitative methods (part 3) there is nothing outside the text?. Progress in human geography 29(2): 225-233.
• Crang, M. & Travlou, P.S. (2001). The city and topologies of memory. Environment and Planning D-Society & Space 19(2): 161-177.
• Franklin, A. & Crang, M. (2001). The trouble with tourism and travel theory?. Tourist Studies 1(1): 5-22.
• Crang, M. (2000). Urban Morphology and the Shaping of the Transmissable City. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action 4(3): 303-315.

Other (Print)

• Crang, Mike (2015). Bare Life in the Mȳrr, Mēos, and Mire.

Show all publications

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• Landscape & buildings: heritage interpretation
• Europe: Language, literature & culture: Sweden
• Regional Heritage: heritage interpretation
• Regional Heritage: museums
• Computers: information society
• Tourism research: heritage interpretation
• Tourism research: museums
• Geography: Globalisation, waste and value
• Visual culture: Globalisation, waste and value
• Regional Affairs: Globalisation, waste and value
• Regional Heritage: Globalisation, waste and value
• Tourism, Leisure & Sport: Globalisation, waste and value
• Tourism research: Globalisation, waste and value

Supervises

• Mr Ruxi Wang
• Mr Yo-hsin Yang
• Ms Pin-chu Chen
• Ms Olivia Mason
• Mr Matthew Wootton
• Mr Fahad Alhammadi
• Miss Michelle Uriarte-ruiz
• Mr Jonah Agus
• Mr Diego Astorga de Ita
• Mr Timothy May
• Mr Christoph Doppelhofer
• Miss Yu Qiao
• Miss Giselle Eugenia Connell
• Ms Anna (Ania) Gruszczyńska
• Ms Eva Mihalovics
• Miss Xiaochen Yu
• Ms Aziza Alyafei

Selected Grants