معرفی
Colin Mcfarlane is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Durham University, where his research focuses on the experience and politics of urban life. His work critically examines urban density, sanitation crises, and inequality across global cities, with emphasis on how cities are known, lived, and politicized. Mcfarlane leads major research projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and Leverhulme Trust, exploring themes from waste infrastructure to crowd dynamics.
His research interests converge on three interconnected strands:
- Urban density: Analyzing how high densities shape public space, mobility, and housing in cities like London, Manila, and Tokyo.
- Sanitation & urban justice: Investigating the political economy of waste management and the right to citylife, with fieldwork in Mumbai, Dar es Salaam, and Cape Town.
- Urban fragments: Studying material, epistemic, and expressive practices that remake marginalized urban worlds.
McFarlane's recent publications reveal a consistent focus on crisis-driven urban transformations: pandemic density, sanitation governance failures, and climate adaptation. His articles employ comparative methodologies across Asian, African, and European contexts, blending political ecology with critical urban theory. Recurring subfields include austerity urbanism, sensory geography, infrastructure exclusion, and grassroots resistance.
He actively mentors PhD students in urban geography and collaborates internationally on edited volumes like Global Urbanism and Infrastructural Lives. McFarlane also co-organizes academic initiatives such as the 2025 Detroit conference Urban Life: Concept, Politics, Expression, fostering dialogues on urban futures.
