About

The Professorship of Urban and Spatial Development investigates contemporary issues of urbanization, emphasizing the social dimensions of environmental transformation. Our research engages with multiple scales, understanding space as socially produced both by macro-scale factors like politics and economics, as well as micro-scale human interactions, the experiences of everyday life, and cultural practices. To apprehend these complex phenomena, we are specialized in qualitative and mixed-methods, as well as comparative research approaches. The current focus with our soon-to-be-launched Centre for Urbanisation and Peripheralization (CUSP) is on processes of urban transformation, and examining the gendered and ecological dimensions of extended urban regions like Johannesburg and Lagos. We actively work collaboratively across the Global North and South, in order to cultivate practices that bridge between cutting-edge critical Southern theory and real-world discourses on impactful urban planning and design.