My research aims to develop a 'cultural political economy' reading of state intervention and its geographies. This requires the application of methods, ideas and concepts drawn fom the 'cultural turn' in the social sciences to investigate issues of 'traditional' political-economic concern, including labour market regulation, welfare provision and urban renewal. My early work concentrated on how narratives of social exclusion had been consistently employed to legitimate temporary labour market attachments as a recurrent objective in welfare policies and participation in urban regeneration schemes in the UK. More recently, I have been concerned with the manner in which familiar feminist questions about recognition, rights and the redistribution of care are being resituated in light of contemporary economic, political and social transformations.