Allan Williams

Professor of European Integration and Globalization

Background and Career

Research Interests and Activities

Publications

Postgraduate Support

Qualifications

BSc (Econ) Wales
PhD LSE

Contact details

Institute for the Study of European Transformations
London Metropolitan University
Tower Building
166-220 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB
Tel: 020 7133 2914
allan.williams@londonmet.ac.uk

Background/Career

Allan studied Economics and Geography at University College Swansea, 1969-72, before going to the LSE where he obtained his PhD in 1975 for a study of social and residential changes in the nineteenth century industrial city. He was also a part time regional course tutor for the Open University in London in this period, and a part time lecturer in the Planning Department at South Bank Polytechnic.

After completing his doctoral thesis, he stayed on at the LSE to work as a Research Fellow on the 'Change in Urban Britain' project, funded by the Department of the Environment. Then in 1976-8 he was a Lecturer in Geography at the University of Durham, and it was during this period that he became interested in the political economy of Southern Europe, a theme that became central to much of his research in the following years.

In 1978 he moved to the Geography Department at the University of Exeter, where he was successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and then, from 1995, Professor of Human Geography and European Studies. During this period he worked at different times on rural housing issues, the political economy of tourism, and international migration/mobility. He maintained his interests in Southern Europe, but from the mid 1990s focussed more on Central Eastern Europe, while also writing on broader themes of European integration. He was Co-Director of the Centre for European Studies 1987-95, and established and co-ordinated its MA in European Studies, 1989-95. He also jointly established an MSc in Tourism, Development and Policy at Exeter in 2000.

He was appointed to the Chair in European Integration and Globalization at London Metropolitan in 2006. He is a member of both the Institute for the Study of European Transformations, and the Working Lives Research Institute.

Allan has also been involved in a range of wider activities in the social sciences. He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Science (http://www.the-academy.org.uk/), and has been a member of several Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) committees including: the Research Grants Board 2001-5, and the 'One Europe or Several' Commissioning Panel, 1997-9. He chaired the ESRC/NERC Transdisciplinary Seminars competition in 2005, was vice chair of the ESRC First Grants Commissioning Panel in 2006, and is currently a member of the Commissioning Panel for CASE Studentships (http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/opportunities

He is an Adjunct Professor in the National Centre for Research on Europe, at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where he is developing a research programme on European-New Zealand migration (http://www.europe.canterbury.ac.nz/).

Within the Royal Geographical Society with the IBG, he has been Chair of the Annual Conference in 2005, Chair of the Research Groups Sub-Committee, 2004-6, a Member of Research Committee, 2004-6, and a Member of Council, 2005-6. He was awarded the Heath prize of the Royal Geographical Society in 1995 for his research on Europe (http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Research+and+Higher+Education).
Journals. He is co-editor of two journals: European Urban and Regional Studies (http://eur.sagepub.com) and Tourism Geographies (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14616688.asp). And he is a member of the editorial boards of two other journals: Mobilities (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17450101.asp) and Annals of Tourism Research (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/689/description).

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Research interests

Allan's central research interests are the relationships between economic development and mobility. He is particularly interested in international labour migration and return migration, cross-border mobility, and tourism. The substantive focus of this research includes economic transactions, employment, skills and knowledge transfers. He has undertaken research in a number of European countries, but especially in Central Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and the UK. He was recently or is currently engaged in a number of research projects:

Internationalisation and innovation in the service sector: the role of international migration in the UK hotel (London) sector. He is jointly co-ordinating this ESRC project with Professor Gareth Shaw, University of Exeter. The project, which is part of the ESRC AIM programme on targeted innovation, has three main strands: identifying key innovations in recent decades, analysing the influence of different forms of ownership on innovation, and exploring the role of international migrants as sources of knowledge transfer and innovation.
A British Academy Readership to undertake a two-year programme of largely reflective research on 'International migration, learning and knowledge', focussing on Europe. This seeks to link the literatures on migration and knowledge management, both theoretically and empirically. (British Academy 2004-6)
Returned skilled labour migration from the UK to Central Europe, focussing on the acquisition of skills and competences, and their commodification, in both the UK and after return migration (ESRC 2003-4) ∑ The economic relationships of the Vietnamese diaspora in Europe, and their role in petty trading in Central Europe. An analysis of Vietnamese market traders in Slovakia set in context of theories of ethnic enterprise, cross border petty trading, and transnational spaces. (British Academy 2004)
Intra-firm and inter-firm knowledge transfers and productivity in the retailing sector. A collaborative project in conjunction with Irena Grugulis (Bradford), Jeremy Clegg (Leeds) and Loles Anon (Aston) which is part of the EPSRC/ESRC AIM 'Closing the Gap' programme. (EPSRC/ESRC AIM, 2005-8)
The unintended and indirect effects of regulation on UK productivity. This is a collaborative project with Joseph Antony (Leeds), Gerben Bakker (LSE), Kim Tan (Nottingham), and Kathryn Walsh (Loughborough). Allan's contribution focuses mainly on the unintended and unforeseen consequences of air travel de-regulation on local and regional economies. This is part of the EPSRC/ESRC AIM 'Closing the Gap' programme (EPSRC/ESRC, 2005-7)
The role of new forms of international mobility in the economic development of border regions in Central Europe, focussing on trans-border commuting, petty trading, migration and shopping in context of arbitrage theories. The empirical research focuses on Slovakia, the Ukraine and Austria. (Leverhulme Trust, 2000-2)
The role of tourism in the transition in Central and Eastern Europe, examining the themes of privatisation, re-internationalisation, and consumption polarisation. (ESRC 1997-8)
International retirement migration from the UK to Southern Europe, focussing on motivations, integration, welfare and future mobility issues. Based on in-depth case studies of the Algarve, Costa del Sol, Tuscany and Malta. In collaboration with Russell King (Sussex) and Tony Warnes (Sheffield) (ESRC 1995-7)

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Publications

Books

Allan has written or edited, singly or jointly, 22 books including the following:

1993 Turkey and Europe, London: Pinter (co-edited with Canan Balkir)
1995 The European Community: the Contradictions of Integration, 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwells
1995 Divided Britain, 2nd edition, Chichester: Wileys (with Ray Hudson)
1998 Tourism and Economic Development: European Perspectives, Chichester: Wileys (co-edited with Gareth Shaw)
1999 Divided Europe: Society and Territory, 3rd edition, London: Sage (co-edited with Ray Hudson)
2000 Tourism in Transition: Economic Change in Central Europe, London: I B Tauris (with Vladimir Balá_)
2000 Sunset Lives: British Retirement Migration to the Mediterranean, Oxford: Berg (with Russell King and Tony Warnes)
2002 Tourism and Migration: New Relationships between Production and Consumption, Dordrecht: Kluwer (co-edited with Michael Hall)
2004 Tourism and Tourism Spaces, London: Sage (with Gareth Shaw)
2004 Companion to Tourism, Oxford: Blackwells (coedited with Alan Lew and Michael Hall)
2008 Tourism and Innovation, London: Routledge (with Michael Hall).
2008, in press, International Migration and Knowledge, London: Routledge (with Vlado Baláž)

Selected recent articles

In press, 2008

‘Low cost carriers, economies of flows and regional externalities’, Regional Studies (with Vlado Baláž)

2007

‘Path dependency and path creation perspectives on migration trajectories: the economic experiences of Vietnamese migrants in Slovakia’, International Migration 45(2): 37-67 (with Vlado Baláž)
‘Listen to me, learn with me: International migration and knowledge’, British Journal of Industrial Relations 45(2): 361-82
‘International labour migration and tacit knowledge transactions: a multi-level perspective’, GlobalNetworks 7(1): 1-22

2006

‘Lost in translation? International migration, learning and knowledge’, Progress in Human Geography 30(5): 588-607
‘Older migrants in Europe: an innovative focus for migration studies’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32(8): 1257-81 (with Tony Warnes)

2005

'Winning then loosing the battle with globalization: Vietnamese petty traders in Slovakia, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(3): 533-549 (with Vladimir Balá_)
'What human capital, which migrants? Returned skilled migration to Slovakia from the UK', International Migration Review v39(2): 439-468 (with Vladimir Balá_)
'The Vietnamese community in Slovakia', Sociológia, v37(3): 249-274

2004

'International labour mobility and uneven regional development in Europe: human capital, knowledge and entrepreneurship', European Urban and Regional Studies 11(1) 27-46 (with Vladimir Balá_ and Claire Wallace)

'Been there, done that': international student migration and human capital transfers from the UK to Slovakia', Population, Space and Place v10: 217-237 (with Vladimir Balá_)
'From private to public sphere, the commodification of the au pair experience? Returned migrants from Slovakia to the UK', Environment and Planning A v36(10) 1813-1833 (with Vladimir Balá_) ·
'Temporary versus permanent youth brain drain: economic implications', International Migration v42(4): 3-34 (with Vladimir Balá_ and Daniel Kollar) ·
'Editorial: 10 Years of European Urban and Regional Studies, European Urban and Regional Studies v11(1): 5-7 (with David Saddler and Ray Hudson)
'European voices: towards the internationalisation of academic discourse', European Urban and Regional Studies v11(4): 355-356 (with Ray Hudson)

2002

'Trans-border population mobility at a European crossroads: Slovakia in the shadow of EU accession', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, v28(4): 647-664 (with Vladimir Balá_)
'European migration: flows, structures and regulation', International Journal of Population Geography v8(2): 83-87. (with Gabriella Lazaridis)
'La movilidad internacional en Europa Central: turistas, comerciantes y migrantes', Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales v18(1): 37-66 (with Vladimir Balá_).
'The Czech and Slovak Republics: conceptual issues in the economic analysis of tourism in transition', Tourism Management v23 (1): 37-45 (with Vladimir Balá_)
'International petty trading: changing practices in trans-Carpathian Ukraine', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research v26(2): 323-342. (with Vladimir Balá_)

2001

'From collective provision to commodification of tourism?', Annals of Tourism Research v28(1): 27-49. (with Vladimir Balá_)
'Coming and going in Slovakia: Labour migration in the Central European 'buffer zone', Environment and Planning A v33: 1101-1123. (with Vladimir Balá_ and Daniel Kollar)
'Border regions and trans-border mobility: Slovakia in economic transition', Regional Studies, v35(9): 831-846. (with Vladimir Balá_ and Bernadetta Bodnarova)

2000

'Privatisation and the development of tourism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: property rights, firm performance and recombinant property', Environment and Planning A 32: 715-734. (with Vladimir Balá_)
'Tourism and migration: new relationships between production and consumption', Tourism Geographies v2: 5-27 (with Michael Hall).
'The well being of British expatriates resident in southern Europe', Ageing and Society 2000 vol 19(6): 717-740. (with Tony Warnes, Russell King, and Guy Patterson)
'Tourism and international retirement migration; new forms of an old relationship in southern Europe', Tourism Geographies v2(1): 28-49. (with Tony Warnes, Russell King, and Guy Patterson)
'The geography of tourism production: uneven development and neglect', Tourism Geographies, v2(3): 241-263. (with Sheela Agarwall, Rick. Ball, and Gareth. Shaw)
'Guest editorial: tourism geography in a changing world, Tourism Geographies v2(3): 239-240 (with Gareth Shaw)

Recent chapters in books

2005

'Migraciones a España tras la jubilación', in V Rodríguez Rodríguez, M A C Diaz and A Huber (eds), La Migración de Europeos Retirados en España, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas., pp 47-59 (with Tony Warnes and Russell King)

2004

'Towards a political economy of tourism' in A. Lew, M. Hall and A M Williams (eds), A Companion to Tourism, Oxford: Blackwells, 61-73.
'Contemporary themes and challenges in tourism research', in A. Lew, M. Hall and A M Williams (eds), A Companion to Tourism, Oxford: Blackwells, pp 611-618. (with Michael Hall and Alan Lew)
'Tourism: conceptualisations, institutions, and issues, in A. Lew, M. Hall and A M Williams (eds), A Companion to Tourism, Oxford: Blackwells, pp 3-21 (with Michael Hall and Alan Lew)
'British second homes in Southern Europe: Shifting nodes in the scapes and flows of migration and tourism, in Hall, M. and Muller, D., Tourism, Mobility and Second Homes: Between Elite Landscape and Common Ground, Clevedon: Channel View Publications, pp. 97-112 (with Russell King and Tony Warnes)
'Relationships between older age international migration and tourism', in A M Warnes (ed), Older Migrants in Europe: Essays, Projects and Sources, Sheffield: Sheffield Institute for Studies of Ageing, University of Sheffield, pp. 28-34.

2003

'Resort Europe: the limits of mass tourism and the rise of sustainable practices', in Encyclopaedia of Life Support Systems, Oxford: Eolss Publishers. (with Gareth Shaw)
'From lifestyle consumption to lifestyle production: changing patterns of tourism entrepreneurship', in R, Thomas (ed), Small Firms in Tourism: International Perspectives, Elsevier, pp 99-113 (with Gareth Shaw)

2002

'Europe goes East: the implications for Portugal of the new economic map of Europe', in C. Cavaco (ed.), Repensar Portugal na Europa: Perspectivas de um País Periferico, Actas, Lisbon: Estudos para o Planeamento Regional e Urbano 55, Centro de Estudos Geograficos, Universidade de Lisboa, pp 21-33.
'Tourism and migration', in A. Montanari (ed), Human Mobility in a Borderless World, Rome: Societa Geografica Italiana, pp 69-75. (with Michael Hall)
'Central Europe as a buffer zone for international mobility of labour: brain drain or brain waste?', in A. Montanari (ed), Human Mobility in a Borderless World, Rome: Societa Geografica Italiana, pp 193-224. (with Vladimir Balá_)
'Geography of Tourism', in International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, pp. 15800-15803 (with Gareth Shaw)
'Tourism, migration, circulation and mobility: the contingencies of time and place', in C M Hall and A M Williams (eds), Tourism and Migration: New Relationships between production and consumption, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 1-52. (with Michael Hall)
'Conclusions: tourism-migration relationships', in C M Hall and A M Williams (eds), Tourism and Migration: New Relationships between production and consumption, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp.277-289. (with Michael Hall)
'Tourism in Portugal: from polarisation to new forms of European integration', in S. Syrett (ed.), Contemporary Portugal: Dimensions of Economic and Political Change, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 83-104.

2001

'Tourism on the Fabled Shore', in R. King, P. de Mas, and J. M. Beck (eds), Geography, Environment and Development in the Mediterranean, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, pp. 156-175.
'Northern Europeans and the Mediterranean: a new California or a new Florida' , in R. King, P. de Mas, and J. M. Beck (eds), Geography, Environment and Development in the Mediterranean, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, pp176-195. (with Pere Salva Tomas)
'Tourism as an agent of economic transformation in Southern Europe'', in H. D. Gibson (ed), Economic Transformation Democratization and Integration into the EU, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp 119-148.
'Turkey', in D. Hall and D. Danta (eds.), Europe Goes East: EU Enlargement, Diversity and Uncertainty, London: Stationery Office, 254-271. (with Jesus del Rio Luelmo)
'Western Europe and the eastern enlargement', in D. Hall and D. Danta (eds.), Europe Goes East: EU Enlargement, Diversity and Uncertainty, London: Stationery Office, pp. 15-29. (with Vladimir Balá_)
'Re-shaping Europe: the challenge of new divisions within a homogenised politico-economic space', in J. Fink, G. Lewis, and J. Clarke (eds.), Rethinking European Welfare, London: Open University and Sage, pp.33-64. (with Ray Hudson)
'New forms of international migration: in search of which Europe', in H. Wallace (ed.), Interlocking Dimensions of European Integration, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp 103-121.