Inka Santala

Research

PhD title: Sharing Cities: new strategies for communal sharing

I am an urban geographer interested in the practices of sharing and co-production, and how they might be perceived as demonstrations of alternative urbanism. My current PhD project explores Sharing Cities and the potential of community-based sharing initiatives to create new capacities and agency in the urban political context. In the research, I will engage with the theory of commons to observe how shared spaces, resources and services are performed into being, through various forms of individual practices and collective action in urban communities. The aim is to provide new insights into the social process of sharing, the way sharing practices emerge, how they are organised and what are the possibilities, as well as potential contradictions and challenges involved. With the research, I hope to shed light on the socio-political aspirations embedded in the sharing practices and reveal how these might be actualised or compromised in urban space.

Publications

Journal Articles

Santala, I., & McGuirk, P. (2019). Sharing cities: creating space and practice for new urban agency, capacities and subjectivities. Community Development, 50(4), 440-459.
Moskwa, E.C., Ahonen, I., Santala, V., Weber, D., Robinson, G.M., & Bardsley, D.K. (2016). Perceptions of bushfire risk mitigation and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review of fifteen years of research. Environmental Reviews, 24(3), 219-232.