I joined the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities at UOW in 2016, after being Professor and Director of the Centre of Urban and Regional Studies and Head of Discipline (Geography and Environmental Studies) at the University of Newcastle, NSW. As an urban political geographer, I have worked with colleagues across economic, cultural and social geography as well as in sociology, planning, political science and international relations, and with practitioners and policy makers in state and local governments. I have been a visiting fellow at National University of Ireland (Maynooth), UBC (Vancouver), Trinity College (Dublin) and at the universities of Glasgow, Durham. Bristol and Sheffield. In 2016 I was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. In 2019 I was awarded the MacDonald Holmes Medal (Geographical Society of NSW) (distinguished contribution in the field of geographical education in Australia).
I am an urban political geographer. My major interests revolve, broadly, around critical studies of urban governance, its changing geographies, material practices and politics, and the differential implications for urban places, communities, subjectivities and power. My work draws broadly on post-structural political economy approaches that seek to combine critical and generative orientations.
One major theme of my work has been analysis of the changing geographies and practices of neoliberalised urban governance. Resisting universalized accounts, I have unpacked urban neoliberalism as a political project that is contingently performed and unevenly reproduced in diverse contexts. Empirically, I have developed this analysis through explorations of competitive urbanism, the private governance of urban neighbourhoods and, most recently, urban regeneration.
A second theme of my research centres on the strategic role of cities in climate and energy governance. I have explored the evolution of the urban governance of carbon in Australian cities—across an array of state and non-state actors and multiple scales—teasing out its modes, practices, and political implications. In related work on urban energy transitions, I have traced how these transitions are being assembled, configuring and reconfiguring urban political interests as they unfold.
My most recent work on the governance of ‘smart’ cities’ involves both empirical analysis of 'actually existing' smart city governance, as well as thinking critically and generatively about the urban politics of ‘smart cities', their promise and their peril.
Year | Title |
---|---|
2020 - 2023 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
2017 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
2015 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
Degree | Research Title | Advisee | |
---|---|---|---|
Doctor of Philosophy | Sharing Cities: New Strategies for Communal Sharing | Santala, Inka | |
Doctor of Philosophy | Making Things, Producing Culture, Housing People? Competing Visions of Industrial Land Use in the Contemporary City | Lyons, Craig | |
Doctor of Philosophy | Tiny Geographies of Home: Downsizing the 'Great Australian Dream' | Penfold, Hilton | |
Doctor of Philosophy | From experimentations to collaborative governance: The role and implications of experimentations in shaping Australian smart cities | Santala, Ville |
I am an urban political geographer. My major interests revolve, broadly, around critical studies of urban governance, its changing geographies, material practices and politics, and the differential implications for urban places, communities, subjectivities and power. My work draws broadly on post-structural political economy approaches that seek to combine critical and generative orientations.
One major theme of my work has been analysis of the changing geographies and practices of neoliberalised urban governance. Resisting universalized accounts, I have unpacked urban neoliberalism as a political project that is contingently performed and unevenly reproduced in diverse contexts. Empirically, I have developed this analysis through explorations of competitive urbanism, the private governance of urban neighbourhoods and, most recently, urban regeneration.
A second theme of my research centres on the strategic role of cities in climate and energy governance. I have explored the evolution of the urban governance of carbon in Australian cities—across an array of state and non-state actors and multiple scales—teasing out its modes, practices, and political implications. In related work on urban energy transitions, I have traced how these transitions are being assembled, configuring and reconfiguring urban political interests as they unfold.
My most recent work on the governance of ‘smart’ cities’ involves both empirical analysis of 'actually existing' smart city governance, as well as thinking critically and generatively about the urban politics of ‘smart cities', their promise and their peril.
Year | Title |
---|---|
2020 - 2023 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
2017 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
2015 | Awarded by: Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects |
Degree | Research Title | Advisee | |
---|---|---|---|
Doctor of Philosophy | Sharing Cities: New Strategies for Communal Sharing | Santala, Inka | |
Doctor of Philosophy | Making Things, Producing Culture, Housing People? Competing Visions of Industrial Land Use in the Contemporary City | Lyons, Craig | |
Doctor of Philosophy | Tiny Geographies of Home: Downsizing the 'Great Australian Dream' | Penfold, Hilton | |
Doctor of Philosophy | From experimentations to collaborative governance: The role and implications of experimentations in shaping Australian smart cities | Santala, Ville |