Jim's research interests are mainly in the social and electoral areas, focusing on geographies of advantage and disadvantage, most recently on ethnic group disadvantage. This area of work is currently being extended into research into geographies of racism. Work on electoral geography especially looks at relationships between money and voting outcomes, at geographies of inter-election change, and at state effects in Australian political behaviour. As a member of the Higher School Certificate syllabus committee he has written a number of papers and texts on urban geography, and is currently involved in a re-write for the new HSC syllabus. He is currently President of the N.S.W. Geographical Society.