Dr Andrew Wallace
- Position: Associate Professor in Urban Sociology
- Areas of expertise: urban sociology, urban planning; social and urban policy; housing studies; left politics and movements; community studies; infrastructures
- Email: A.R.Wallace@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 4419
- Location: 12.15 Social Sciences Building
- Website: Twitter | ORCID
Profile
Growing up around Glasgow in the 1980s, it was predictable that I would be drawn to the classic social science themes of urban restructuring, social conflicts and inchoate solidarities. Migrating south in my 20s, it was in Northern England that I began to really explore these themes empirically, gaining my PhD from Leeds for my thesis on urban regeneration and community (dis)engagement in Salford, Greater Manchester. My work today takes in a range of themes and interests across urban, housing and community studies.
Research interests
I am lucky to be currently involved in two major ESRC-funded projects. These reflect my commitment to empirical research which confronts head on the major social, political and economic challenges facing contemporary society:
- https://northernexposure.leeds.ac.uk/ (CI, 2018-2021). As well as being an active field researcher on the project, during the pandemic, I created a webinar series as a forum of exchange between academics and practitioners around our themes of identity, conflict, isolation, nationalism, racism, disaffection and austerity.
- https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV015923%2F1 (PI, 2021-2024). Working with industrial partners and with colleagues from across the University, this study will break new ground in housing futures as we confront crises of housing affordability, sustainability and safety.
Both of these projects speak to my interest in inequalities, peripheralities, (im)mobilities, infrastructures, regional imbalances and the tensions and struggles faced by the forces of progressive social development. In addition to this, I am also working on a book project for Zed / Bloomsbury on how a politics of solidarity might survive the chauvinisms and enclosures of our time. On this topic, it is worth mentioning that I look after the democracy research area for the Bauman Institute.
I welcome collaborative and supervisory opportunities on these and other areas where I have expertise: critical urban studies, municipalist politics and histories, critical social policy, forms of organising and resistance, social innovations and alternatives, critical theory, migration and mobilities, left-wing politics and culture, nationalist and communitarian politics.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Professional memberships
- British Sociological Association
- Social Policy Association
- ISA RC21 Sociology of Urban and Regional Development
Student education
I teach across BA and MA sociology and social policy programmes in SSP. I supervise numerous MA students each year and currently supervise five PGR students.