Benjamin Coles

I am an economic geographer who researches commodities markets and cultures of consumption and their connections to resource extraction and production landscapes on the other.

Funded by the ESRC my research focuses particularly on the geographies of commodities especially the nexus of food water and energy as they intersect with ‘the’ marketplace to shape/reshape political-economic space.

More broadly I have conceptual and methodological interests in place space and scale as well as in 'nexus' and ‘critical nexus thinking’ as a means to interrogate social-spatial interconnectivity address the moral assumptions associated with notions of 'ethical' and redress the implicit contradictions of resource economies

I utilise these perspectives in variety of political and economic contexts in the UK EU Latin America (Brazil) to examine a diverse array of geographical questions about the ‘geographies’ of commodities (esp. food) their production/consumption/in-between (markets farms and factories) and their underlying nexus of interrelated and interconnected resources (e.g. water/energy).

I’m currently focused on the policy implications of these relationships as they pertain to ‘one company’ towns in Brazil