Based in London, I am a non-fiction writer who is fascinated by the built and human textures of cities.
Present
My writing explores how cities work, how they could work better and more fairly for everyone, as well as how cities live in other cities – tapestries of elsewhere – when migrants make homes in new places.
Inspired by travel, I like to think, write and research on the move. I enjoy exploring new places, usually making drawings and photographs, combined with close ethnographic observation and walking to absorb fine-grained detail of places and people.
My writing distils decades of reading, teaching and research drawing on sociology, anthropology and geography. I am a Global Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London and Professor Emerita at Goldsmiths University of London.
Past
My recent role as the Director of the British Academy’s Urban Infrastructures of Well Being and Cities and Infrastructures programmes gave me first-hand experience in research that was beyond my disciplinary comfort zones. I visited projects on climate change, sustainability, energy, water, building, solid waste and refugee movements in thirty-three cities in twenty countries across the global south.
Publications
My back catalogue is a long list of articles written for scholarly journals edited collections crafted collaboratively with colleagues as well as single authored academic book.
This website connects you to the two books I have written for broader audiences:
