Tom Gillespie

I am Lecturer in Global Urban Development at the University of Manchester. My research sits at the intersection of development studies, urban geography and political economy, and is driven by a commitment to understanding and addressing global urban inequalities.

The primary focus of my research is on cities in the global South, with a particular specialism in urban Africa. My work is informed by an understanding of development that disrupts traditional geographical binaries, and as such also draws on insights from cities in the global North. This research explores the socio-spatial outcomes of urban processes of commodification, dispossession and enclosure, and examines how city dwellers respond to, participate in and contest these processes.

To date, this research has been funded by the British Academy with Leverhulme, the Feminist Review Trust and the ESRC with the Universities of Leeds and Manchester, and has been published in journals such as Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

Prior to my current role, I was a Lecturer in International Development and Hallsworth Fellow at the University of Manchester, and a Teaching Associate in International Development at the University of Sheffield.

My non-academic writing includes articles for The Guardian, Novara and Tribune.