Dr Alexandra Hall

Associate Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

Alexandra Hall is Associate Professor in Criminology at Northumbria University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. With an academic background in Politics, International Political Economy and Sociology (BA, MA, PhD), her research sits at the intersection of crime, harm and the economy, drawing on cross-sector and interdisciplinary approaches.

Alex's current work focuses on the criminogenic and political dimensions of freeports and special economic zones (SEZs). This includes her ISRF-funded project The Freeport Paradox, and recent research with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime exploring global SEZs and environmental crime. She is currently writing a monograph based on this work.

Previously, Alex has contributed to several international and UK-funded research projects on wide-ranging themes such as: the online trade in counterfeit and falsified medicines (European Commission); the financial strategies of illicit drug and tobacco traffickers (European Commission); UK-China flows in the counterfeit goods trade (AHRC/ESRC); and the changing nature of the British Pakistani honour/shame complex (PhD research).

Her research has been published widely in leading peer-reviewed journals, edited collections and books (Fake Meds Online, Palgrave Macmillan; Fake Goods, Real Money, Policy Press), and featured in mainstream media including the BBC, The Guardian, Vice and The Economist.

She also contributes to the academic community as a member of several editorial boards, research networks and peer review colleges. At Northumbria, she currently serves as Director of the Centre for Crime and Policing and Lead for the ESRC NINE DTP Criminology, Prisons and Policing pathway

Her evolving research interests include new criminogenic spaces, drug markets, elite crime, and emerging concerns around life in a cashless society.

Email Alexandra

@alexandra_hall3

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Substantive areas of expertise include:

Crime and the global political economy
'Organised crime' and illicit markets (drugs, counterfeit goods)
Drug markets and drug dealing (pharmaceuticals, IPEDs, cocaine)
Special Economic Zones
Social and environmental harm
Digital criminology
Consumer culture
Contemporary criminological theory
Anthropological and ethnographic studies of honour and shame (particularly in the Pakistani diaspora)
International political economy
Qualitative and online research methods (particularly ethnography)

I welcome enquiries from potential PhD candidates in any of the areas above.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Freeports Exposed: Corruption, Harm and the Politics of Rule-Shifting, Hall, A. 10 Aug 2026
UK Freeports: From Exception to Rule?, Hall, A. 11 Aug 2026
Online Ethnography, Gibbs, N., Hall, A. 17 Mar 2025, De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology, Berlin, Germany, De Gruyter
Consumer Culture and Symbolic Capital in a Differentiated Pakistani Transnational Community: ‘It is a Fake Type of Izzat’, Hall, A., Taylor, S. 1 Sep 2023, In: The Sociological Review
Duty Free: Turning the Criminological Spotlight on Special Economic Zones, Hall, A., Antonopoulos, G., Atkinson, R., Wyatt, T. 1 Mar 2023, In: British Journal of Criminology
Illicit pharmaceutical supply: moving beyond common assumptions about drugs and drug dealing, Hall, A., Antonopoulos, G. 31 Jul 2023, Understanding Drug Dealing and Illicit Drug Markets, London, Taylor & Francis
Investigating the illicit market in veterinary medicines: An exploratory online study with pet owners in the United Kingdom, Pons-Hernandez, M., Wyatt, T., Hall, A. 1 Sep 2023, In: Trends in Organized Crime
The technopopulist rendezvous – how freeports undermine local democracy, Hall, A. 25 Aug 2023
Digital Ethnography in Cybercrime Research: Some Notes from the Virtual Field, Gibbs, N., Hall, A. 8 Aug 2021, Researching Cybercrimes, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan
The logic of violence: an ethnography of Dublin’s illegal drug trade. By Brendan Marsh (Routledge, 2020, 144pp, £120.00 hb), Hall, A. 1 Jan 2021, In: British Journal of Criminology

Current and Recent Projects

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
The Freeport Paradox: Crime, Harm and Reregulation in Special Economic Zones, Hall, A. (Principal Investigator), Independent Social Research Foundation, 01/09/21 - 31/08/22, £53,891.00

Qualifications