I am Senior Lecturer in Cultural Geography and Theory at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Edinburgh. My research is interdisciplinary combining cultural geography, landscape studies and critical urban theory. Two key themes of my research are, a) how networked communities form and change through the collaborative activities of their members, and b) how, by doing so, they change the urban cultural landscape.  I am particularly interested in topics relevant to social and spatial justice, the commons, collaborative practices, feminist methodologies, decolonial epistemologies, emerging networks and ethnography. 

Since joining ESALA, I have led, as PI and Co-I, six externally and four internally funded projects. Many of these were major funding bids that developed innovative research and facilitated extensive knowledge exchange. These projects looked at the spatiality of emerging networks within the urban landscape (e.g., digital artists, community-based cultural organisations, spatial justice activists and social movements, alternative economy grassroots initiatives, refugee and migrant solidarity networks) and at how the collaborative practices developed in these networks are translated into cultural values (e.g., solidarity, mutual aid, caring, etc).   

Indicative project leadership roles include: (1) Co-I, ‘Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice’ (funding: EU-HERA, 2010-2014)—widely recognised as ground-breaking research on creativity within networked communities of digital artists and electronic literature creators. (2) PI, ‘The Digital Manual: Authorship, Authority and Voice’ (funding: AHRC, 2012). I led the successful bid for this project—an exploration of collaborative practices and authorship within emerging networks. ‘Digital Manual’ was listed as one of the 18 best-practice projects of the AHRC Digital Transformations programme. (3) Co-Leader, ‘From Sharing to Caring: The Socio-Technical Aspects of the Collaborative Economy’ (2017–2021). As a member of a consortium of European scholars, I co-led the successful COST Action funding bid for this project. As one of the Project Leaders, I co-ordinated one of the four working groups with 35 members across Europe, organised the project workshops and dissemination and knowledge exchange activities, and led the publication of conference proceedings and an edited book (forthcoming: 2022). (4) Research Partner For my research on collaboration, co-creation and solidarity networks in cities and their role in the making of intangible cultural heritage, I was invited to participate in the ‘Medellin Urban Innovation?” project (British Council/Newton Fund, 2015–2017) and lead the research theme: ‘Cultural Values and Intangible Cultural Heritage’. (5) PI To extend my ethnographic research in Medellin and to collaborate with local independent cultural organisations, major art institutions, and museums, I bid successfully for three ECA RKE grants (2018, 2019, 2023). (6) Research Advisor This work enabled me to develop a network of partner researchers and art organisations in Africa and South America to work on a collaborative study of ‘Cultural Commons in the Global South’ in 2020-21 (funded by DOEN Foundation, Netherlands). The latter is an ongoing collective project under the name “Power to the Commons!” presented in Afropixel8 (Dakar, Senegal 2020) and Documenta15 (Kassel, Germany 2022). (7) PI, I have also established ethnographic research in Athens where I look at collaborative practices within solidarity networks for refugees and anti-gentrification grassroots initiatives. This is self-funded research which findings have been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited books (e.g., in Design & Culture Journal, latest volume in 2021). I have also been invited to give public lectures, seminars and workshops on the subject by both academic institutions in Greece and abroad as well as by grassroots and third sector organisations. My work has been included in media outlets in the form of podcast interviews and newspaper articles. This transglobal research offers me the opportunity to look at both an international and local level ‘collaborative practices’ and develop further my ethnographic methodology emerging from participatory action research, militant anthropology and actor-networks theory. (8) Co-I From 2022 to 2023, I participated in the impact generator project “Decolonising the City: co-designing a participatory arts-based research toolkit with African descent communities in Athens, Greece” funded by Urban Studies Foundation and the Independent Social Research Foundation in the UK. (9) Currently, I participate as a Management Committee Member in the new COST Action Toolkit of Care (TOC) (2022 - 2026).  

Public engagement, as a knowledge-commoning practice, is central to my research ethos. I have delivered numerous public talks and workshops on collaboration in emerging networks, and cultural commons. Examples include my contribution as: (1) keynote speaker, Transmediale Festival for Art and Digital Culture in Berlin, 2018; (2) panel presenter, Cities of Welcome, Cities of Transit conference, University of the United Nations in Barcelona, 2016. I have also been interviewed about my research by several non-academic media (e.g., Le Monde Diplomatique, podcasts, videos). My interview about solidarity and collaboration during the refugee ‘crisis’ in Athens (European Commission Social Innovation website, 2016) was republished extensively on various online outlets.