Biography
I was born and grew up on the edge of the Peak District National Park
in Derbyshire, England (www.peakdistrict.org)
and received my geographical education at the University of Sheffield
(B.Sc. (Hons.) - 1966, M.A. (Social Science) - 1968) and at The Ohio State
University (Ph.D.. - 1974). I came to Queen's University in 1971 as a
one-year replacement for someone on sabbatical leave and stayed! From
1993-2004, I served as Head of Department.
At Queen's, I am also affiliated with the graduate Industrial Relations
program in the School of Policy Studies. During sabbatical leaves I have
held visiting appointments at the University of Sussex (1977-78), University
of Wales, Swansea and UWIST (1985-86) and the University of Manchester
(1999). In Winter Term 2007, I was the Invited Visiting Professor in the
Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University.
I am very active in the Queen’s University Faculty Association
(QUFA) – the union representing academic staff at Queen’s
- and served as QUFA President 2005-07.
Teaching Interests
Over my years at Queen's I have taught several different classes in economic
and urban geography as well as methodology. I have always enjoyed teaching
and I am a past recipient of both the W. Barnes and the Frank Knox Awards
for Teaching Excellence at Queen's. For the past dozen years my administrative
responsibilities in the department and the university have meant that
I have not done as much teaching as I would like. Recently, I have taught
an two undergraduate courses, GPHY 228 (Geographies of the Global Political
Economy) and GPHY 332 (Cities, Regions and Planning in Capitalist Societies);
a graduate course, GPHY 881 (Industrial Restructuring and Locational Change)
and coordinated the required graduate course for incoming Master's students,
GPHY 856 (Research Issues in Human Geography).
Recent graduate and post-doctoral research that I have supervised includes:
analyses of the organization and geography of the film and theatre industries
in Toronto; the courier and third-party logistics industry; union responses
to globalization in the telecommunications industry; community unionism
as a geographically-based model for union organizing; the restructuring
of the automobile components industry in Ontario; labour struggles over
the closure of the Cape Breton coal industry; the role of the Canadian
Autoworkers Union in attracting new auto industry investment; work cultures
in the Northern Ontario tree planting industry; the restructuring of workplace
governance in the forest products industry in Cascadia; precarious work
in the restaurant industry; and the growth in self-employment in Canada.
Research
My primary research interest focuses on geographical aspects of the political
economy of contemporary economic and social change. I am especially interested
in the geographical consequences of the contemporary restructuring and
reorganization of production and work. My empirical research has focused
primarily on the automobile industry.
A colleague (Pradeep Kumar, Industrial Relations) and I have a long-standing
program of research on the implications of globalization, technological
change and work reorganization for automobile industry workers and their
unions. One focus of our research has been to explain the local diversity
and unevenness that exist in the way that labour-management relations
and shop-floor work practices are being "remade" at the plant-level
in response to industry-wide processes of restructuring and the introduction
of new production methods.
In collaboration with Tod Rutherford (Syracuse University), Gregor Murray
(Université de Montréal) and Christian Lévesque (HEC
Montréal) I am engaged in a study of the competitive dynamics within
the Canadian autoparts industry funded by the AUTO21 Network of Centres
of Excellence (NCE) program (www.auto21.ca).
Holmes, Rutherford and Kumar recently completed a three-year study of
the autoparts cluster in southern Ontario as part of a major SSHRC-funded
collaborative research project titled "Innovation Systems and Economic
Development: The Role of Local and Regional Clusters in Canada" and
led by Meric Gertler and David Wolfe (University of Toronto). I belong
to the Paris-based Groupe d'Étude et de recherche Permanent sur
l'Industrie et les Salariés de l'Automobile (GERPISA) (www.gerpisa.univ-evry.fr)
an international network for research on the automobile industry.
I am a member of the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation
et le travail (CRIMT) (www.crimt.ca)
based out of Université Laval, Université de Montréal and HEC Montréal
and a co-applicant on the large collaborative research project Rethinking
Institutions for Work and Employment in a Global Era (Lead PI: Gregor
Murray, Université de Montréal) which received renewed multiyear funding
under the SSHRC MCRI program in January 2008. Under this research program
Tod Rutherford (Syracuse University) and I are developing research on
workplace governance in Canada-United States cross-border regions. The
CRIMT program offers very generous funding opportunities for graduate
students and I am especially interested in attracting new graduate students
to work on topics related to this project. A new line of research which
I am just beginning in collaboration with colleagues at York University
will focus on the impacts of climate change for the future of employment
and work in Canada (funded by a Tri-Agency Grant)
Publications
Selected Publications
Rutherford, T. and Holmes, J. (forthcoming) “(Small) Differences
That (Still) Matter? Cross Border Regions and Work Place Governance in
the Southern Ontario and U.S. Mid-West Automotive Industry”
Tufts, S. and Holmes, J. (forthcoming). “Student Workers and the
‘New Economy’ in Mid-sized Cities: The Cases of Peterborough
and Kingston, Ontario” Chapter in Noreen Pupo and Mark Thomas (eds)
Interrogating the New Economy: Restructuring Work in the 21st. Century.
Toronto: Broadview Press
Rutherford, T. and Holmes, J. 2008. “Engineering Networks: University-Industry
Networks in Southern Ontario Automotive Industry Clusters” Cambridge
Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 1, 247-264
Sweeney B.A. and Holmes, J. 2008. “Work and Life in the Clearcut:
Communities of Practice in the Northern Ontario Tree Planting Industry”
The Canadian Geographer, 52(2), 206-221
Rutherford, T. and Holmes, J. 2008. ““The flea on the tail
of the dog”: Power in Global Production Networks and the Restructuring
of Canadian Automotive Clusters”, Journal of Economic Geography
8(4), 519-544.
Rutherford, T. and Holmes, J. 2007. “We simply have to do that stuff
for our survival”: Labour, Firm Innovation and Cluster Governance
in the Canadian Automotive Parts Industry, Antipode, 39(1), 194-221.
Rutherford, T. and Holmes, J. 2007. “Entrepreneurship, Knowledge,
and Learning in the Formation and Evolution of Industrial Clusters: The
Case of the Windsor, Ontario Tool, Die, and Mould Cluster”, International
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 7, 208-232.
Holmes, J, T. Rutherford, and S. Fitzgibbon 2005. ‘Innovation in
the Automotive Tool, Die and Mould Industry: A Case Study of the Windsor-Essex
Region’, in D. Wolfe and M. Lucas eds. Global Networks and Local
Linkages: The Paradox of Cluster Development in an Open Economy. Kingston:
Queen’s School of Policy Studies Innovation Systems Research Series.
Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. pp. 119-154.
Holmes, J. 2004. “The Auto Pact from 1965 to the Canada-United
States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA),” in Maureen Irish ed. The
Auto Pact: Investment, Labour and the WTO,. The Hague : Kluwer Law International,
pp. 3-21.
Fitzgibbon, S., J. Holmes, T. Rutherford, and P. Kumar 2004. “Shifting
Gears: Restructuring and Innovation in the Ontario Automotive Parts Industry,”
in D. Wolfe and M. Lucas eds. Clusters in a Cold Climate: Innovation Dynamics
in a Diverse Economy. Kingston : School of Policy Studies Innovation Systems
Research Series. Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press. pp.
11-42.
Holmes, J. 2004. “Re-scaling Collective Bargaining: Union Responses
to Restructuring in the North American Auto Industry”, Geoforum,
35(1): 9-21
Hayter, R. and J. Holmes 2002. "The Canadian Forest Industries: The
Impacts of Globalization and Technical Change," in M. Howlett, ed.
Canadian Forest Policy: Adapting to Change. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press. 127-156.
Holmes, J. 2000. "Regional Economic Integration in North America"
in Gordon L. Clark, M.P. Feldman, and M.S. Gertler, eds., The Oxford Handbook
of Economic Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 649-667.
Preston, V, D. Rose, G. Norcliffe and J. Holmes. 2000. "Shiftwork,
Childcare, and Domestic Work: Divisions of Labour in Canadian Paper Mill
Communities." Gender, Place and Culture, 7 (1), 5-29. (reprinted
as Chapter 14 in M.S. Kimmel and A. Aronson and A. Kaler (eds) (2007)
The Gendered Society Reader (Canadian Edition). Toronto: Oxford University
Press.
Hayter, R. and J. Holmes. 1999. "Continentalization in an Era of
Globalization: a Perspective from Canada's Resource Periphery," in
Trevor Barnes and Meric Gertler, eds. The New Industrial Geography: Regions,
Regulation, and Institutions. London: Routledge. 176-204.
Kumar, P. and J. Holmes. 1998. "The Impact of NAFTA on the Auto Industry
in Canada," in Sidney Weintraub and Christopher Sands eds. The North
American Auto Industry Under NAFTA. Washington D.C.: CSIS Press. 92-183.
Holmes, J. 1997. "In Search of Competitive Efficiency: Labour Process
Flexibility in Canadian Newsprint Mills." The Canadian Geographer,
41 (1), 7-25.
Preston, V., J. Holmes and A. Williams, 1997. "Working with 'Wild
Alberta Rose': Lean Production in a Greenfield Newsprint Mill." The
Canadian Geographer, 41(1), 88-104.
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Dr.
John Holmes
Biography