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Staff Profile

Emerita Professor Helen Jarvis

Emeritus Professor of Social Geography Engagement

  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 6959
  • Personal Website: /gps/staff/profile/helenjarvis.html
  • Address: Geography
    Henry Daysh Building
    University of Â鶹´«Ã½
    Â鶹´«Ã½ upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
Background

Research


Helen Jarvis has an established international reputation in each of four intersecting strands of research and scholarship in urban social geography; (i) household work-life reconciliation, including intergenerational mutual support, ageing and the mobility; (ii) Public space, public life and accessible cities, understanding this holistically and relationally; (iii) ethnographies and infrastructures of time-space co-ordination, with a particular focus on the 'social architectures' of shared space and self-governance in collaborative living arrangements of intentional community and cohousing; (iv) new urban policies for sustainability, focussing on the green sharing economy and its roots in voluntary civic engagement.


Each strand of research engages with real-world problems. Scholarly publications include three books on Cities, Gender, Work/Life Balance and Social Reproduction and more than 20 solo-author peer-review articles in top ranking journals.


She is regularly invited to speak at international symposia and to provide opinion and debate on new urban policies for sustainability in national and international news media, including appearances on BBC Radio 4 programmes Today and Thinking Allowed. 


Helen has held visiting academic positions at UC Berkeley and University of Washington, USA and University of Western Sydney, Australia. She was ‘researcher in residence’ in the Freetown of Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2010. Helen previously served on the Cittaslow (slow cities) international scientific committee of advisors (2009-2019) and as non-executive Director of the UK Cohousing Network and Trust (2014-2018).


After 26 years employed at Â鶹´«Ã½, promoted to Professor of Social Geography Engagement in 2020, Helen made the transition to Emeritus Professor in September 2024. Helen remains active in research and community engagement through freelance projects of social impact evaluation and with a part-time fellowship awarded by the William Leech Research Fund (20 months from 1 Feb 2026).


Helen continues to champion the transformative potential of place-based community organising, and intentional communities of alternative home and family life, as a theory and practice of progressive social change and as a critical approach to the social purpose of community engagement in Higher Education institutions.


Helen is committed to engaging community stakeholders in collaborative research, nurturing interpersonal relationships with pioneer activists and civic leaders. She is actively engaged in the leadership of the broad-based community organising alliance Tyne and Wear Citizens (a chapter of Citizens UK)


Qualifications


PhD London School of Economics, 1997.

BSc (Econ) London School of Economics, 1994, First Class Honours.

Postgraduate Certificate in Community Organising, Newman College Birmingham, 2018.

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2019.



 


Research

From 1 February 2026 through September 2027 I am working as Principal Applicant on a William Leech Research Fund project (Fellowship) in partnership with Tyne and Wear Citizens. The project called All Rise Together evolved as a practical response to issues and tensions that have divided communities and persisted in North East England since riots erupted in summer 2024. This place-based participatory project explores the potential role and strategies for church congregations to build relationships of trust and hope within and beyond their existing community footprint. It proposes a practical and effective theological response to issues and tensions that have persisted in North East England since riots erupted in summer 2024. Working collaboratively with Tyne and Wear Citizens (TWC), and with insights from CTC, the research will pilot methods and tools of conscientious listening and one-to-one conversations that are broadly well-established but locally underdeveloped in post-riot congregation-based community organising. 


Publications

  • Articles

    • Jarvis H. . Journal of Geography in Higher Education 2024, 48(3), 368-388.
    • den Hoed W, Jarvis H. . Applied Mobilities 2022, 7(3), 298-318.
    • Jarvis H. . Progress in Human Geography 2017, 43(2), 256-275.
    • Jarvis H. . Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 2017, 29(2), 113-136.
    • Jarvis H. . Urban Research and Practice 2015, 8(1), 93-105.
    • Jarvis H. . Geography Compass 2015, 9(4), 202-213.
    • Jarvis H. . Analize: Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies 2014, 3(17), 7-27.
    • Jarvis H, Bonnett A. . Urban Studies 2013, 50(11), 2349-2370.
    • Jarvis H. . Gender, Place & Culture 2013, 20(8), 939-959.
    • Jarvis H. . Environment and Planning A 2011, 43(3), 560-577.
    • Egdell V, Bond J, Brittain K, Jarvis H. . Health & Place 2010, 16(1), 101-107.
    • Jarvis H. . Journal of Geography in Higher Education 2009, 33(3), 369-374.
    • Jarvis H, Alvanides S. . Community, Work and Family 2008, 11(4), 385-405.
    • Jarvis H. . Housing Studies 2008, 23(2), 213-231.
    • Jarvis H. . International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2007, 31(1), 207-214.
    • Jarvis H, Pratt A. . Geoforum 2006, 37(3), 331-339.
    • Jarvis H. . Time and Society 2005, 14(1), 133-154.
    • Jarvis H. . Town and Country Planning 2003, 72(9).
    • Jarvis H. . Housing Studies 2003, 18(4), 587-606.
    • Jarvis H. . Area 2002, 34(4), 340-352.
    • Jarvis H. . Local Environment 2001, 6(3), 239-256.
    • Jarvis H. . Work, Employment and Society 1999, 13(2), 225-247.
    • Jarvis H. . Environment and Planning A 1999, 31(6), 1031-1046.
    • Jarvis H. . Housing Studies 1999, 14(4), 491-505.

  • Authored Books

    • Jarvis H, Cloke J, Kantor P. . London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
    • Jarvis H. . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
    • Jarvis H, Pratt AC, Cheng-Chong Wu. . Harlow: Prentice Hall, 2001.

  • Book Chapters

    • Jarvis H. . In: Jonas A; Miller B; Ward K; Wilson D, ed. Spaces of Urban Politics. London: Routledge, 2018, pp.336-349.
    • Jarvis H. . In: MacGregor S, ed. Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment. London: Routledge, 2017, pp.433-446.
    • Jarvis H. . In: Pratt, Geraldine, ed. The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology. New York: Wiley, 2016.
    • Jarvis H. . In: Coates, C; Dennis, J; How, J, ed. Diggers and Dreamers 25th Anniversary Edition. London: Diggers and Dreamers Publications, 2015, pp.49-62.
    • Jarvis H. . In: Fuller, D; Jonas, AEG; Lee, R, ed. Interrogating Alterity. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, pp.131-145.
    • Jarvis H. . In: Searle, B; Smith, S, ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010, pp.361-380.
    • Ekinsmyth C, Elmshirst R, Holloway S, Jarvis H. . In: Women and Geography Study Group, ed. Geography and Gender Reconsidered. Dundee: WGSG, 2004, pp.96-107.

  • Digital or Visual Media

    • Holland T, Jarvis H. . 2019.

  • Edited Book

    • Hopkins P, Â鶹´«Ã½ Social Geographies Collective, Pain R, Shaw R, Gao Q, Bonnett A, Jones C, Richardson M, Rzedzian S, Benwell MC, Lin W, McAreavey R, Stenning A, Blazek M, Pande R, Najib K, Finlay R, Nayak A, Ridley G, Mearns G, Bonner-Thompson C, McLaughlin J, Boussalem A, Iqbal N, Heslop J, Jarvis H, Burrows R, Bambra C, Copeland A, Tate S, Campbell E, Thompson M, James A, Raynor R, Cunningham N, Powells G, Herbert J, Hocknell S, ed. . London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.

  • Editorial

    • Jarvis H, Pain R, Poolley C. . Environment and Planning A 2011, 43(3), 519-524.

  • Report

    • Jarvis H, Holland T. . Â鶹´«Ã½ upon Tyne, UK: Â鶹´«Ã½, 2016.