Colin McFarlane

New paper in @urbanstudiesjournal.com on urban density in Asia. I argue for a focus on the everyday life of densities through two lenses: material provisioning and the politics of crowds. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Forum in Ephemera on my book, Waste and the City: ephemerajournal.org/contribution... Explores the relations between waste & the urban imagination, politics, labour, & property. Big thanks to Sally Cawood, Colin Marx, Rahul Raj, Glyn Williams & Alex Vasudevan, & to Charlotte Cator for organising!

The University of Nottingham is cutting over 600 academic jobs. This includes 1 in 3 #geography lecturers. "The lecturers *are* the University, and without them it's nothing" - Geography student (BBC interview): www.instagram.com/reels/DYprAN...

URGENT - UCU St Andrews Member - Antonis Vradis is on the Qannir La Cirena boat in the Global Summid Flotilla which has been intercepted by Israel Contact your MP and MSP Contact the Principal Please share

🦫🦫 Our new paper on urban #rewilding with #beavers is out now in EPE! We characterise the Ealing Beaver Project in London as a form of prefigurative urban ecological politics. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @jlorimer.bsky.social @geogdurham.bsky.social @naturerecovery.bsky.social

Yes to a radical bookshop in Newcastle! Help make it happen by contributing to this crowdfunder

A study published in The Lancet, the London-based medical journal, found that Trump administration cuts in U.S.A.I.D. funding “would result in approximately 1,776,539 all-age deaths and 689,900 deaths in children younger than 5 years” in 2025 alone. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/o...

Want to know about my new book - The Citizen and the Vagabond? Find out all about it on this podcast. podscan.fm/podcasts/new...

New postdoc opportunity: We’re looking for an independently-minded postdoctoral Research Assistant/Associate in biogeography, ecology, environmental science or a related field to join our Leverhulme Trust funded project studying urban sensory pollution. jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

We've worked with the Geographical Association to develop some school learning materials for A-Level students to think through financialisation, displacement, gentrification etc 'Post-industrial urban change in the UK: A Manchester case study' geography.org.uk/resources/po...

My new book is out!🍾Nonauthoritarian Authority: Cities, Materiality, and the Aesthetics of Power. press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.3... II argue that in shattered times, a radical, speculative reinvention of authority is needed. Open-access with @lsepress.bsky.social @rgs.org #geosky #socialtheory

We are looking to recruit an Assistant Professor in Human Geography, with expertise in Health Geography (closing May 10th). Health geography is broadly defined here - see examples in the text in the link.

New piece in Progress in Human Geography, 'Crisis-thinking and critical urbanism'. What might crisis-thinking be doing to how the urban is conceived, researched, and politicised? How might it impact how we see urban possibility? Open access here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Really importance piece in the Times Higher on cuts to Geography at a time when it matters most www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/uk-u...

⏰ Urban Urgencies call now open! 🗓️ Deadline: 23 March 2026 (23:59 UTC) This new grant supports collaborative research on pressing urban challenges worldwide, addressing issues such as the climate crisis, housing, health, governance, conflict, AI, and more. 🔗 Learn more & apply: ow.ly/FUIn50XGtgz

We are looking forward to welcoming Dr Hashem Abushama (Oxford University) to the Department on February 3rd for an event organised by our Urban Worlds research cluster. Hashem will present on the theme 'Palestine: urban spatial disarticulations, national questions'.

Once again sharing this phenomenal report proposing a £1.5m UK Comics Fund, on top of also being a bangin' evidenced manifesto for comics in general: www.thecomicsculturalimpactcollective.org/CCIC%20DCMS%...

Fantastic that a long interview with @ajsecor.bsky.social and I is the cover story for the January issue of Byline Times - was a pleasure to talk to Hardeep and Peter about the ideas in the The Politics of Feeling! @bylinetimes.bsky.social @peterjukes.bsky.social @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social

📢December Issue of TIBG📢 Our latest issue gathers papers around 3 broad themes: the more-than-human, borders, and working from home. It also features the third collection in our 'Geography in the World' series. 23/24 papers are #OpenAccess ⬇️ rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755661...

Please share widely - new editor opportunity at The GJ ⬇️

A special issue here of the journal Agoriad entitled 'Thinking with fragments: The allure of the broken, discarded, and disjointed in urban space'. Exploring what the 'fragment' might offer as a way of thinking about and writing the urban. agoriad.cardiffuniversitypress.org

Nice collection of essays on David Harvey at 90, on the Verso site www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

New: Dialogues in Urban Research exploring what it means to think about crisis as urban & how locating crisis in the urban reconfigures relations between eventful & everyday crisis politics, materiality, discourse & movement. Part of a great set of interventions. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Some thoughts on what what crisis is doing to the urban imagination - short piece as part of a collection in Dialogues in Urban Research: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

That’s a wrap on our first panel in Ljubljana 🌍 A clear message from today: Europe’s green transition won’t succeed without strong public infrastructure, long-term investment, and public control of public services. Public services are the backbone of a fair, sustainable future. 💧⚡️🗑️

A huge thank you to the wonderful people at Metropolis for this award! I was so honoured & grateful opportunity in Seoul to focus attention on the global urban sanitation crisis. Thank you to @versobooks.bsky.social for nominating the book, & to Pattis. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Congrats to Rozy Fredericks and collaborators on this great film on waste in Dakar - trailer available here for 'The Waste Commons'. vimeo.com/1006661903?s...

Last month the latest global data on sanitation was published. I wrote a short blog on it below. Spoiler: for all that there has been very welcome improvements, 1 in 5 people still lack even basic sanitation. cityfragment.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/s... #sanitation

This is a great little collection in Transactions on 'worlding geography' and area studies... rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1... @rgs-ibghe.bsky.social

My review, "An introduction to a non-fascist geography", of Chris Philo, Adorno and the Anti-Fascist Geographical Imagination (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) is now published online first in @dialogueshg.bsky.social Dialogues in Human Geography. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (1/3)

New piece with Simon Marvin & Jon Rutherford on 'infrastructural extensions'. We examine how infrastructure is being stretched into new domains (the elemental, care, more-than-human, cyber-physical, & neurotechnical). Open access in @ijurresearch.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Roger Keil @rkeil.bsky.social and I are proud to announce the release of an @urbanaffairsreview.bsky.social collection celebrating the life and work of the late political theorist and scholar of cities Warren Magnusson, who passed away earlier this year. www.urbanaffairsreview.com/walter-magnu...

Coming soon. The Citizen and the Vagabond. A Politics of Mobility.

New article by S. Harris Ali, Creighton Connolly & myself on the relationship of infectious disease and urban peripheries Governing infectious disease in the urban periphery: marginality, informality and vulnerability: City: Vol 0, No 0 - Get Access www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Chuffed that my book 'Waste and the City' has gone from the longest to the shortlist with two excellent books here, alongside @shakirahh.bsky.social and Stephanie Wakefield... Many thanks to Metropolis...  www.metropolis.org/news/meet-fi...

Exclusive: Global health research projects halted by latest UK aid cuts. Winners of UK government grants for global health research have had their funding suspended after ministers decided to cut spending on international development, we can reveal. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

So... here's why I havent posted much. Been writing a book! Thrilled to share The Feminist Art of Walking is out on Pluto October 20th www.plutobooks.com/978074535100... Thanks so much to everyone who has helped make this happen, I am excited and a bit scared for you to read it

📣 Call for Papers: Debt Urbanism and the Housing Question ℹ️ I'm putting together a symposium proposal to The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) with co-editors @sklosterkamp.bsky.social & Mel Nowicki 🗓️ Deadline for abstracts 22 August 2025 🏹 Please spread the word!

Our GlobalCORRIDOR paper is out in the latest edition of Urban Studies journal "The unending corridor: Critical approaches to the politics, logics and socio-technics of urban corridorisation" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Special forum in honour of pioneer development, feminist and participatory methods geographer, Janet Townsend, late of Durham University, for Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.

It’s now been out for a while, but this was such a fun project with Vickie! The Promise of Cultural Geography. 86 entries, all between 1-1000 words, focusing on what, for them, is the promise of cultural geography. It’s open access, so please share! research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publicati...

I have an article in the Guardian today on how finance capitalism is wreaking havoc on housing across Europe www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The @britishacademy.bsky.social postdoc fellowship deadline is Oct 1st - if you are interested in applying with us at @geogdurham.bsky.social do get in touch... www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/post...

New paper on density - asking how residents experience everyday densities as 'resource', 'threshold', & imaginary of the urban future. Open access. Such a pleasure to work with wonderful colleagues in Dar es Salaam on this. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Good news for Paris!🥳 It's great that the Olympics have brought attention to the city's sewage issue, but we shouldn’t need big events like this to remind us how important proper sanitation infrastructure is. Hopefully, other cities, including in the US, will take note and follow through.

My book 'Waste and the City' is listed here amongst 9 others for the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award. Should you wish some additional summer reading :) www.metropolis.org/news/10-book...

The relentless & vast machine-like production of writing arguing 'compact density is good' that list-off a set of 'ingredients' (trees, walkability, better health, nice places) but which either refuse or don't see that the neighbourhoods highlighted are *almost always rich* melts my noggin-brain.

The Politics of Feeling, with @ajsecor.bsky.social , is now out! It’s a book of propositions about the affective politics of three political forms - right wing populism, progressivism, liberalism - in the present post 2008 conjunctural crisis: mitpress.mit.edu/978191598329...

This is out today! It is such a great book that explores contemporary politics, time and feeling @benandersongeog.bsky.social @ajsecor.bsky.social