Contemporary cities and economies are in flux in the face of multiple environmental, technological, and socio-economic challenges. Transformations to modes of urban living, economy and work, and governance are emerging. These have both progressive and regressive potential.
Our work theorizes and empirically analyses the practices, materiality, and politics of these transformations. Our approaches embrace critical and generative perspectives. We combine influences from geographical political economy, post-structuralism, post-humanism, and feminism, with grounded empirical work at multiple scales.
We seek to unsettle axiomatic scripts of urban and economic transformation (‘creative’, ‘compact’, ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’ cities) to consider their negotiation, potentialities, lived experience, materialities, and related politics.
Research questions
- How do technology, automation, and urban economic dynamics interact in reconfiguring work and the city?
- What vernacular capacities and legacies of the city can become resources for sustainable urban futures?
- What are the capacities of bodies, buildings, and materials to facilitate more just and sustainable cities?
- How do post-human philosophies help reveal the ambivalent politics and potentials of urban dwelling?
- What forms of, and approaches to, social and economic governance can support progressive urban transformations?