Jacob Miller

Jacob Miller is an Assistant Professor in the Geography and Environmental Sciences Department at Northumbria University. His academic work centers on the complex relationships between consumer culture, urban space, and political geographies, with a particular focus on retail environments and their socio-spatial implications.

Miller's research interests span Cultural and Urban Geographies, Consumption and consumerism, Retail spaces (especially shopping malls and UK high streets), Tourism and leisure, Ruins and ruination, Military Geographies and everyday militarism, and Critical social theories. His work draws heavily on post-structuralist theories including those of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Walter Benjamin, and Guy Debord, combined with qualitative methodologies to explore the intersections of space, society, and identity in contexts of urban change.

His publication record reveals a consistent trajectory of research on the politics of consumption and spatial transformation. Early work focused on shopping malls in South America, particularly the transformation of the Abasto market in Buenos Aires and the Mall Paseo Chiloé in Chile. More recently, his research has expanded to examine military museums in southern Arizona, urban retail decline in the UK, and the geopolitics of ruins. His 2023 book Retail Ruins: The Ghosts of Post-Industrial Spectacle represents a significant contribution to understanding contemporary issues of retail decline through the lens of Derridean hauntology and psychogeography.

Miller has established a robust research profile with 23 research outputs and 214 citations. His work demonstrates strong international collaboration, particularly with scholars in the United States and South America. His fingerprint analysis reveals dominant research areas including Shopping Mall (100%), Space (90%), Consumption (81%), Politics (78%), Buildings (62%), Theory (57%), Subjectivity (55%), and International Politics (54%).

As an educator, Miller has supervised at least one student (as indicated by the 'Supervised Work (1)' notation). His PhD in Geography was awarded on May 15, 2016, establishing the foundation for his subsequent research on the political and cultural geographies of consumption and space.