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School of Geography
  1. School of Geography
  2. Research
  3. Research centres
  4. The City Centre
  5. Research themes

Research themes

The interdisciplinary research interests of City Centre affiliates are reflected in the below themes. We are particularly keen to receive inquiries from prospective postgraduate students interested in one of the following listed on this page.

Convivial cultures

  • This research is concerned with spaces of hospitality and care; localities of welcoming; food-related practices and trends; stranger intimacies; migrant refuge and care; sanctuary cities; life in superdiverse neighbourhoods; and urban communes. 

Rent and renting

  • This strand incorporates historical geographies and cultures of rent; issues of housing affordability; home-city geographies of mobility and precarity; the challenges of affordable works spaces in London; rent and housing activism.

The public life of cities

  • This broad theme includes research on urban building and design, regulation and licensing, urban play; children and the city; urban visibilities and invisibilities; social movements and activism; home-city geographies. 

Urban livelihoods

  • Focusing in particular on cities in the global South, this theme is concerned with urban livelihoods, labour and basic income; markets and marketplaces; workspaces; and sharing economies.

Urban politics 

  • Queen Mary has a number of scholars interested urban activism, political parties, the politics of the neighbourhood, migration, and comparative perspectives on theory and urban politics. This theme is particularly driven by researchers working on Latin American cities and beyond.

Urban imaginaries and performances

  • Interdisciplinary work across Queen Mary explores the envisioning and enactment of urban visions; utopias; hopes and failures; cultures of performance; theatre; dance; film; urban encounters; queer imaginations and experiences; postcolonial urban studies.
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