Urban Studies Seminar Series

The Urban Studies Seminar Series, sponsored by the MacFie Bequest, is open to all students and staff of the University as well as people from outside the University. For further information and final confirmation of any Seminar, please contact Dr Joanna Stewart. 

Wednesday 17 May 2023: Professor Gwilym Pryce

Title: Life at the Frontier: Theory and Evidence on Neighbourhood Boundaries and their Impacts

Time: 3-4.30pm followed by a drinks reception in Bute Gardens.

Venue: 412 (LTB B), Boyd Orr Building

Abstract:  Until relatively recently, the question of how residents might be affected by the gradient of neighbourhood boundaries—whether these boundaries are abrupt or gradual—has remained largely absent from quantitative segregation research. Yet, theoretical and empirical evidence emerging from recent studies suggests the impacts could be profound and far-reaching. This paper seeks to provide a conceptual foundation for understanding such effects. We focus on the concept of “social frontiers”: spatial discontinuities in the geography of residential mix which occur when community boundaries are abrupt. Drawing on insights from cognate disciplines, we develop a theory of social frontier impacts that seeks to articulate their potential importance in limiting and shaping contact between neighbouring communities, exacerbating territorial conflict, and ultimately affecting the psychological wellbeing and life course outcomes of those living at the frontier. But perhaps the most important feature of social frontiers is that they act as 'barricades', inhibiting access to amenities and resources, both directly and indirectly.  We present our thesis as a series of propositions and corollaries, and reflect on the implications for empirical research.

Speaker biography: Professor Gwilym Pryce describes himself as a Welshman who grew up in England, spent most of his career in Scotland, and then returned to England. He is Professor of Urban Economics and Social Statistics in the Department of Economics at The University of Sheffield and is currently director of the ESRC/Nordforsk “Life at the Frontier” research project which is a multidisciplinary initiative spanning the UK, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Gwilym will be known to some of us as he previously worked in Urban Studies here at the University of Glasgow. His current research focusses on issues of inequality, discrimination, immigration and residential segregation, and how these issues vary geographically to impact crime, wellbeing, social mobility, and the local economy.

 

Wednesday 26 April 2023: Dr Oli Mould

Title: “Nobody can take that away from us”: Mutual aid and socio-spatial embeddedness

Time: 3-4.30pm followed by a drinks reception in Bute Gardens.

Location: Yudowitz Seminar Room (Room 253) in the Wolfson Medical Building

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-22 saw an explosion of mutual aid practices across the world; but so too did its definition boundaries as well as its political potency. This paper seeks to build on the potential of social change by focusing on how it can aid in the radical conceptualisations of socio-spatial construction. Drawing on research carried out during the pandemic in the English northeastern town of Burnley (and its hinterlands), this paper seeks to theoretically and empirically show how mutual aid and radical spatial construction are co-constitutive – one cannot exist without the other – through the concept of embeddedness. Moreover, its embeddedness in a community is a factor of its intimacy and proximity which, given its distinct political praxis (realised through its anarchist principles), has real opportunities to help mutual aid shape the future of community action in the future. 

Speaker biography: Oli Mould is a Reader in human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research, and writing, focuses on the role of urban creativity, mutual aid, activism, and politics. In his books, Against Creativity (2018) and Seven Ethics Against Capitalism: Towards a Planetary Commons (2021) (along with his other writings online and in academic journals), he denounces contemporary ‘creativity’ and neoliberalism, and proposes new political for a fairer, more sustainable, ecologically just and planetary future.

 

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Urban Studies Seminar Series Autumn 2021

Wednesday 13 October, 3:30pm
'Evolving Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow: Past Evolutions and Future Challenges' Emeritus Professor Duncan MacLennan, Urban Studies, University of Glasgow
Session host: Dr Andrew Hoolachan

Interest in spatial patterns of social and economic development at the University of Glasgow go back to Adam Smith (the Wealth of Nations is replete with examples drawn from the then industrialising Central Scotland) and continued in the mainstream social sciences, with subsequent ‘Glasgow greats’ writing about the economics, history, planning, geography and politics of places. Protoorganised groups of scholars, from different disciplines emerged in the ‘field of urban studies’ through the 1960s, nurtured in the Department of Social and Economic Research. This became a clear organisational identity through the 1980s, with the ESRC’s Centre for Housing Research and Urban Studies. After 1996, this formed the basis for the department of Urban Studies and present organisational arrangements.

This evolution reflected both changing priorities within the University, shifts in the loosely defined field of urban studies as well as changes in economic and socio-spatial transformations of Glasgow in recent decades. Emeritus Professor Duncan MacLennan who was born in Glasgow, studied economics and human geography at the University from 1967-74, was the first Professor of Urban Studies (1987) where he was employed for 34 years. In this session he will illuminate the key historical developments and connections between the department, the discipline and the City of Glasgow and reflect on future challenges and opportunities.

 View the recording. Passcode: 5j7B%8R#

Wednesday 27th October, 3pm
'COP26: Governance and management of the built environment with climate change in mind' Professor Mike Raco, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
James Hepher, Historic Environment Scotland
Session host: Dr Alison McCandlish

This joint session draws on two contrasting perspectives on planning and governing for climate change. Our Q&A will attempt to draw-out links between theory, policy and practice.

Mike Raco’s talk draws on on-going research on the relationships between the regulation of urban built environments and the investment and development processes that shape them. It argues that recent transformations in the financing of urban development is embedding growth-centred arrangements and mechanisms directly into the heart of the planning system. It highlights some of the implications of these trends for coherent and effective sustainability planning and argues that any shift to less growth-oriented programmes of action will require a fundamental re-shaping of the structures of governance that currently exist.

James is a surveyor for HES’s digital documentation team, working on the Rae Project, documenting HES’ properties in care and Collections. In this presentation he will outline the background to Historic Environment Scotland’s (HES) Rae Project. He will show how HES are involved with spatially monitoring HES Properties in care through 3D digital survey, including Edinburgh’s UNESCO world heritage sites and Skara Brae, Orkney, and how this work fits into a broader programme of monitoring HES’ historic and archaeological sites, monuments, and landscapes to support the conservation of and research into those sites, particularly within the context of climate change.

View part 1 of the recording. Passcode: BGZ!45nw

Further information:

 

Wednesday, 24th November, 3pm
'Interdisciplinary approaches to community engagement and co-production through sensing technology'
Dr Mark Wong, Urban Studies, University of Glasgow
Dr Melanie Jimenez, Biomedical Engineering, University of Strathclyde

This interdisciplinary session brings together researchers from engineering and the social sciences, seeking to explore the potential of sensing technology to address environmental pollution and capture the impact of climate change in deprived Scottish communities. It will be discussed how sensors can be introduced in school settings to complement curricula while informing policy making processes. Yet, the application of engineered and connected tools raises critical issues for researchers surrounding the privacy of pupils, the ownership of data gathered via sensors, and the role of local authorities in processing such data.

Dr. Mark Wong will present new research activities he’s developing around youth climate actions and Net Zero with a team of colleagues across Colleges and disciplines, including School of Education, Children’s Neighbourhood Scotland, Urban Big Data Centre, School of Engineering/Scotland 5G Centre, and the Advanced Research Centre (ARC). He will share his experience of promoting interdisciplinary collaborations and innovations, highlighting the importance (as well as challenges) of mobilising knowledge and people across disciplines to achieve the ambitions of Net Zero “on the ground”.

Moreover, he will reflect on the role of collective actions as well as sensing technology and data in delivering climate actions locally. Based on his recent ESRC Impact Acceleration Account-funded project and a public engagement event in the UofG COP26/ESRC Social Science Festival 2021, he will discuss the latest research development to empower and prioritise youth-led actions in a just transition to Net Zero in Scotland’s communities. See more information on the team’s public engagement event, SMART Climate Action, in the UofG COP26 programme.

Mark is a Lecturer in Public Policy and Research Methods, based in Urban Studies, at the University of Glasgow. He is also the Deputy Theme Lead of the Advanced Research Centre (ARC). He is the PI of the ESRC IAA project, “What Data Means to You”, and Co-I/work package lead of the EPSRC project, Multilayer ALGS, leading interdisciplinary innovations in social data science and algorithmic design.


Dr. Melanie Jimenez is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and Chancellor’s Fellow in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow. In her presentation, she will share her experience working with teachers and the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre to implement new sensing technologies in the physics curriculum. The developed technologies have now been implemented in 10% of Scottish secondary schools and have been published for wider dissemination: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/2/402

View the recording

 

Urban Studies Seminar Series Spring 2021

Spring 2021 Seminar Series: Urban Research and the Covid-19 Era

Thursday 22 April 3–4.30 pm

Seminar Organised by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE)

Housing Policymaking and Practice under Lockdown

Speakers:

Dr Chris Foye: A year of PRS policymaking, politics and polling during COVID-19: a comparative study of England and Scotland

Dr Adriana Soaita: Everyday tenant activism: tenants demand right to home

Prof Kenneth Gibb: Help with housing costs and market recovery interventions

Dr Craig Gurney: Dangerous liaisons? Applying the social harm perspective to the social inequality, housing and health trifecta during the Covid-19 pandemic

Background:

CaCHE embarked on a series of research projects within a wider programme of Covid-19 research in May 2020, inspired by the invitation to work collaboratively on policymaking under lockdown by Professor Hal Pawson at UNSW. We have published several reports, blogs and papers in the period since and there are many more to come in the months ahead of us, including international comparative work between Glasgow and Sydney. The suite of projects stretches much further now than the original intent and this reflects the fact that Covid-19 and lockdown shed so much light on wider structural housing related questions, and not just policy making responses.   You can find out more about these projects at our website (link above)

In this seminar we present short presentations, summarising four such projects and identifying future challenges for the topic at hand. Each speaker will speak for no more than 12-15 minutes. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Q&A from the floor.

This seminar will be chaired by Gareth James, Knowledge Exchange Associate for CaCHE.

 

Thursday 27 May 3–4.30 pm

3–4.30pm, Register via Eventbrite here >

Understanding urban mobility during the pandemic

The pandemic has brought an unparalleled focus on mobility in urban areas. Initially the interest was in compliance with social distancing measures, then later in understanding transmission risks for the virus and guiding policies on easing restrictions. Looking ahead, the interest is shifting again to using mobility to provide rapid feedback on how cities are recovering – which areas and which activities bounce back, and which do not. Longer term, a better understanding of mobility will be key to achieving more sustainable urban forms.

Capturing mobility using conventional research methods is challenging. Big data from sensors and apps offers great potential but also many challenges. There are technical challenges in managing and analysing the volumes of data involved. At least as important, however, are the socio-legal challenges of securing access to data and the privacy issues raised by high precision locational information. And there are important ethical issues about the representativeness of different sources – whose activities, demands or perspectives are captured or amplified, and whose are omitted or marginalized. A number of private firms have provided public access to data and analyses, with Google and Apple offering near-global coverage for example, but we are unable to scrutinise or validate their methods and there is no guarantee of continuity. Valuable as these sources may be in the short term, they are not a substitute for a more public data infrastructure.

This seminar therefore looks at a number of alternative approaches which have been employed over the last year to capture different aspects of mobility using big data. It reports on several strands of work conducted by the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) as well as work in the US using large-scale access to mobile phone data.

  • Introduction (5 mins)
  • New forms of data for urban mobility (30 mins)
    • Presentations from UBDC colleagues on a range of areas of work to capture urban mobility using new forms of data
  • Professor Meipo Kwan: Spatiotemporal Big Data Analysis for Human Mobility Research during the COVID-19 Pandemic (30 mins)
    • Professor Kwan is the Choh-Ming Li Professor of Geography and Resource Management and Director of the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  • Discussion (25 mins)

 

Thursday 3 June 3–4.30 pm

Seminar organised by the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC)

Uneven Impact of Covid-19: Neighbourhood Experiences in South Africa, India, and the Philippines

Speakers:

Professor Ivan Turok, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa

Professor Debolina Kundu, National Institute for Urban Affairs, India

Professor Mario-Delos Reyes, Centre for Neighbourhood Studies, Philippines

Background:

Almost no corner of the globe has escaped the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, but these impacts have not been felt equally. Research has shown that our ability to respond to Covid-19 is influenced by social and economic status, suggesting that where and how we live matters. Nowhere is this more acute than cities and towns in the developing countries.

Researchers at the GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) are studying cities from the inside out examining the sustainability of different neighbourhoods right across the city.

In this webinar, three SHLC researchers (in-country Co-PIs) from Africa, South Asia and East Asia will present their work investigating how Covid-19 impacted different neighbourhoods and communities across the city. They will address the following questions: What are the defining characteristics of neighbourhood distribution in the city? How has Covid-19 impacted different neighbourhoods and have these impacts aggravated pre-existing spatial disparities? What actions can we take  to address the different needs of urban residents in different neighbourhoods?

The presentation will be followed by question and answers.

The seminar will be chaired and introduced by Professor Keith Kintrea, Deputy Director of SHLC, University of Glasgow.

Urban Studies Seminar Series Autumn 2020

Autumn 2020 Seminar Series: Heritage and the Urban Environment

The Urban Studies research seminar is moving online, and this year we are taking an interdisciplinary approach. The new CoSS cross-college research theme, Challenges in Changing Cities, has organised this autumn’s series in collaboration with the College of Arts, and our focus is Heritage and the Urban Environment. Our speakers will be discussing why old places matter, who heritage belongs to and, addressing recent controversies, the impact of empire and colonialism on Glasgow’s own cityscape and on the cities of empire. Finally, our online format allows us to welcome speakers from Kolkata, India, who will join us to talk about how lived heritage relates to the built environment for minority communities in an Indian cityscape.

Challenges in Changing Cities. An interdisciplinary research initiative between the College of Social Sciences, the College of Arts, and the College of Science & Engineering. Seminar convenors: Dr Alison McCandlish (Urban Studies); Dr John Reuben Davies (College of Arts); Professor Simon Joss (Urban Studies). URL: www.glasgow.ac.uk/cicc

Please register for each event via Eventbrite and details of how to join will be sent to you. 

Thursday 15 October, 3 - 4:30pm

WHY OLD PLACES MATTER: HERITAGE, EMOTION, AND PLACE

Professor Rebecca Madgin (Urban Studies, University of Glasgow)
Tom Mayes (National Trust for Historic Preservation in America)

Abstract: Over the last few years, evidence that captures the economic, social and increasingly the environmental value of the past has demonstrated the outcomes and outputs of investment in urban heritage. What is less understood are the inputs into this process. Why do people want to live, work and play in historic urban places? Why are historic places seen as special by a range of people? Why can we not countenance the loss of certain historic places? To address these questions this session focuses on the emotional dimensions of historic urban places.  

Rebecca and Tom will first present their own short introductions to the material based on their recent work, in Rebecca’s case the findings from her AHRC Leaders Fellowship project which examined emotional attachments to historic urban places and Tom will build on the ideas found with his 2018 publication ‘Why Old Places Matter: How Historic Places Affect Our Identity and Well-Being’. Both will argue that understanding why historic places matter emotionally to a range of different people is crucial to understanding the importance of heritage.  

Rebecca and Tom will then join the audience in conversation to discuss why and how heritage matters emotionally and the opportunities and challenges this presents for heritage theories and practices. 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/why-old-places-matter-heritage-emotion-and-place-tickets-124121232949

 

Thursday 29 October, 3 - 4:30pm

HERITAGE IN CHANGING CITIES: WHOSE HERITAGE IS IT ANYWAY?

Barbara Cummings (Historic Environment Scotland)

Abstract: Historic Environment Scotland is the lead public body for the historic environment in Scotland – what does that actually mean in practice? What does HES do and how does that reflect how a 21st century population views heritage. HES has been undertaking ground breaking research both in Scotland and internationally and opening up the conversation about heritage to different audiences. There has been controversy in the press around contested heritage through the Black Lives Matter campaigns; how does this fit with HES role and what does it mean for how we tell Scotland’s story in future? Who gets a say in what gets recognised in Scotland? HES has also been at the forefront of climate research and its impact on the historic environment, what will this mean for sites and monuments around Scotland in the future and how might that affect all of us?

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/heritage-in-changing-cities-whose-heritage-is-it-anyway-tickets-124284964675 

 

Thursday 19 November, 3 - 4:30pm

EMPIRE AND CITYSCAPES

Dr Stephen Mullen (University of Glasgow)
Glasgow’s Merchant City and the Public Memory of Transatlantic Slavery

Abstract: Dr Mullen assesses how Glasgow’s memory of slavery has developed. Why was there so little criticism when in 1990 the local administration named a historic quarter the ‘Merchant City’? And what has underpinned the route to acknowledging Glasgow’s connections to slavery in the thirty years since?

There have been seminal events over that period: the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade act in 2007, the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and the change in political administration in Glasgow City Council in 2017.

During this time, the city of Glasgow’s colonial myopia in urban space has been replaced with a ‘public memory’ of slavery which has initiated a political commitment to acknowledge and commemorate slavery past.

There are multiple factors underpinning these developments. The activist organisation, Glasgow Anti-Racist Alliance (now Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights), has highlighted a municipal hypocrisy in their creative outputs. The archival research of historians has percolated into the popular consciousness. We have heard the voice of Scottish-Jamaican campaigner Graham Campbell and the Flag-Up Scotland Jamaica group. And Glasgow’s museums, university administrators and political leaders have been willing to listen to such conversations.

Pioneering strategies in Glasgow have influenced approaches across Scotland, contributing to the development of a public conscience around the nation’s historic connections with transatlantic slavery.

Dr Sarah Longair (University of Lincoln) 
Scottish Architects and the Colonial Built Environment

Abstract: Two Scottish architects, John Begg and George Wittet, created several notable landmarks in Mumbai and elsewhere in British India in the early twentieth century. Begg was responsible for numerous buildings in his twenty-year career in India, such as the Post Office in Mumbai. Wittet’s major works included the Prince of Wales Museum (now the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum) and the Gateway to India. They were also instrumental in architectural education in India through their involvement in the development of the architecture curriculum at the Sir Jamshetji Jeejeebhoy School of Art. Both men therefore made major contributions to the colonial built environment as well as the future of the architectural profession in India.

Throughout the rich history of Scotland and empire is an emphasis upon the contributions of Scots in professional fields, with particular attention being given to medicine and education. Scottish architects and their role in shaping imperial cities around the world have remained notably absent from these studies. This paper will investigate the careers of these two men, their architectural designs, and professional networks in Scotland and India to analyse the significance of Scottish, British and colonial identities in their development as architects in the empire.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/empire-and-cityscapes-tickets-124287139179

   

Thursday 10 December, 3 - 4:30pm

URBAN HERITAGE AND CLOSE-QUARTERS LIVING

(Organised with ArtsLab Cross-College Theme, Heritage, Urban Studies, and Development)

Dr Michael Rapport (University of Glasgow)
Close-quarters Living, Tuberculosis and Urban Renewal in Belle Époque Paris

Dr Bishnupriya Basak (University of Calcutta)
Kumartuli – the Making of Heritage, Art and Public in an Indian Cityscape

Professor Samir Kumar Das (University of Calcutta)
Pandemic and Pratimashilpa: Negotiating Heritage in Times of Crisis

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/urban-heritage-and-close-quarters-living-tickets-124291093005 

Events & seminars archive

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2015-09-18 Inequality and the City

 

Urban Studies Seminar Series 2022

Wednesday 18 May 2022, 3pm

Another Provision: food justice and communal infrastructures of care in East London

Presenter: Dr Hanna Baumann, UCL Institute for Global Prosperity

Location: Graham Kerr Building 224

This presentation will focus on participatory and artistic research methods used to examine community food systems as part of an urban infrastructure of care. It is based on creative research co-produced with the visual artist Johann Arens and the London branch of the National Food Service (NFSL), a UK-wide network trialling alternative models for more just food futures. Over the past year, they have jointly held a series of workshops with NFSL volunteers and patrons, co-produced visuals and an arts installation, and commissioned texts by people with lived experience of food injustice as part of a collaborative publication. Presenting some of these outputs, Hanna will highlight in particular NFSL’s careful engagement to build communal structures based on a ‘solidarity not charity’ model of mutual care and the participatory vision-building for more just urban food futures, approaches that will become increasingly relevant in the current cost of living crisis.

Hanna Baumann is a Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, located at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Her work is concerned with questions of urban exclusion and participation – especially as they relate to infrastructures, public spaces, and metabolic circulations in the city. Her ongoing research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, examines these issues with regard to the urban citizenship of refugees and migrants across Beirut, Berlin and London.

The event will be followed by a drinks reception in 25 Bute Gardens. 

 

Wednesday 25 May 2022, 3pm

Unhoming, trauma and the slow violence of waiting in the post-Grenfell building safety crisis

Presenters:Dr Jenny Preece (University of Sheffield), Paul Afshar (End Our Cladding Scandal).

Location: Online via Zoom: https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/96067762228?pwd=aUpOWDA1U21YK2hsR0svdkczWisvZz09 (Meeting ID: 960 6776 2228, Passcode: 590342)

Leaseholders’ experiences of the building safety crisis represent a new dimension in debates on urban slow violence and unhoming. To date, unhoming has largely been considered in relation to forms of urban displacement and dispossession relating to loss of home and neighbourhood, for example due to urban renewal programmes or gentrification. By contrast, unhoming through the building safety crisis occurs in place and is driven in part by forced immobility and waiting. Another core characteristic of the unhoming experienced by leaseholders highlights its multi-scalar nature, related to a wider sense of not belonging resulting from the political and policy approach to the crisis, and the erosion of seemingly stable societal values related to property ownership.

Dr Jenny Preece is an applied housing researcher at the University of Sheffield. She is a Research Associate at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. Jenny’s research primarily focuses on understanding housing choices, aspirations and the lived experience of home, particularly in changing contexts and with relevance to issues of constraint and exclusion. Prior to her academic research, Jenny spent several years in policy and research roles in the social housing sector.

Paul Afshar leads https://endourcladdingscandal.org/

 

Wednesday 15 June 2022, 3pm

European football fandoms and the construction of the ‘everyday’ in urban Africa

Presenter: Dr Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, University of Zimbabwe

Location: Main Building, Humanity Lecture Theatre 255

European football fandom is part of the everyday milieu in urban Africa. In this paper Manase explores how urban areas provide a fertile space for the growth, celebration, and valorization of European football in everyday life. Across most African cities the most visible forms of globalisation are football related billboards, replica jerseys on the streets, posters on public transport, sports bars and lately soccer betting halls. The presentation draws from various theoretical explanations of the ‘everyday’ to explore how European football fandoms have morphed into a unique urban experience. It draws from studies in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Tunisia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to highlight how football fandoms are interweaved in the everyday of urban life through consumption, celebration, and discussion among fans. The televising of football has increased and changed the spatial experience of European football through creation of new spaces and opportunities for enjoyment of the game. Bars, restaurants, theatres, cafes, and sport betting shops have become the main spaces for localisation of matches played in Europe as fans have grown accustomed to adapting and supporting European teams. The urban space in Africa provides physical and social infrastructure that are germane for cultivating fandoms such as bars, restaurants, theatres, viewing spaces, cafes, electricity, internet connectivity and sport betting shops. This infrastructure is largely found in urban spaces, leading to European football fandoms becoming a largely urban experience. The crowded markets, public transport, and high numbers of young people in informal economies across urban Africa provide further space for what Waliaula (2017) calls ‘football talk’ amongst fans. Urban areas also provide a ready market of emerging black middle class that can pay for satellite subscriptions and affords smart phones and data to participate in online and second screen fan practices.

Manase Kudzai Chiweshe is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Zimbabwe and winner of the 2015 Gerti Hessling Award for the best paper in African studies. His work revolves around the sociology of everyday life in African spaces with specific interest in gender (identities and intersectionalities), agrarian studies, land and livelihoods.