Joanie Willett

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Virginia Tech

Joanie is a senior lecturer in politics with the University of Exeter where her teaching and research explores place-making, and place-shaping. Focussing on the inter-relationship between identity, communities, and the environment, Joanie uses political philosophy to provide new ways of looking at the world to improve economic development and governance by making it more responsive to civil society. 

In particular, she examines questions around the economic development of peripheral regions, most recently finding that development priorities need to grow from the region, its people, and identities.  Whilst visiting Virginia Tech, Joanie will be considering the question of how our spatial, geological and climatic environments shape the economies, societies and politics of a place.  This builds on her recent book Affective Assemblages and Local Economies where she drew on research from the Southwest of Virginia.  Joanie has contributed to numerous UK Parliamentary enquiries and reports including the recent Environmental Audit Committee’s Green Jobs report, and has presented her work in the European Parliament and Committee of the Regions. She is a co-director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, a former trustee of the Political Studies Association,  and is a co-convenor of the PSA Local Politics specialist group. She has a strong media profile and have most recently been a panellist on a BBC Radio 4.