Staff Profile

I am a political and urban geographer, with an interest in how cities are governed and transformed by diverse actors. This might include anyone from local governments and private developers to social movements or criminal groups. My research mainly focuses on the Latin American region, in particular Brazil.

I completed my PhD in Geography at King's College London in 2015, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at the Centro de Estudos da Metrópole (CEM) and at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) (both in Sao Paulo), and a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the London School of Economics. I have been Lecturer in Political Geography at Newcastle University since September 2023.

My research addresses diverse themes, including urban development, urban governance, security, political ecology, subjectivity and electoral geography, with a focus on Latin American American cities. I am particularly interested in how a range of state and nonstate actors act together to govern urban spaces. This has included projects looking at topics such as gentrification and displacement; informal urbanisation; subjectivity and everyday life; police/criminal relations; social movements and participation; illiberalism, populism and electoral geography. My current research is exploring the relationship between informal land development, environmental conservation and organised crime in Brazilian cities.

I currently teach on the following modules:

GEO2140: Research Design and Planning for Human Geographers

GEO2047: Political Geography

GEO2148: Urban Geography

GEO3099: Geography Dissertation

GEO3166: Geographies of Global South Cities

GEO3167: Geographies of Housing

GEO8017: Human Geography: Concepts in Action

SEC8026: Global Security: Politics, Space and Society

I am interested in receiving expressions of interest from potential PhD candidates. Please get in touch if you're interested in developing a project linked to any of my own research interests.

• Articles

  • Richmond MA, Jesús PM, Legroux J. Special Issue: The "poly-periphery" and the "peripheral turn" in urban studies. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais 2025, 27(1), E202535en.
  • Richmond M, Magri G. Assembling governance in São Paulo's "Cracolândia". Political Geography 2025, 116, 103225.
  • Richmond MA, Garmany J. Rent gaps, gentrification and the ‘two circuits’ of Latin American urban economies. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 2024, 115(1), 187-200.
  • Richmond MA, McKenna L. Placing the peripheries within Brazil’s rightward turn: Urban transformation and electoral realignment, 2002-2018. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 2024, 42(4), 509-526.
  • Beraldo A, Richmond MA, Feltran G. Coexisting normative regimes, everyday life and conflict in a Brazilian favela. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 2024, 115(2), 248-261.
  • Müller F, Richmond MA. The technopolitics of security: Agency, temporality, sovereignty. Security Dialogue 2023, 54(1), 3-20.
  • Richmond MA. The pacification of Brazil's urban margins: Peripheral urbanisation and dynamic order-making. Contemporary Social Science 2022, 17(3), 248-261.
  • Richmond, MA. Rhythms of individuation: Time, stratification and youth trajectories at the periphery. Subjectivity 2021, 14, 16.
  • Kopper, M, Richmond, MA. Housing movements and the politics of worthiness in São Paulo. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 2021, 26(2), 21.
  • Richmond MA. Narratives of crisis in the periphery of São Paulo: Place and political articulation during Brazil’s rightward turn. Journal of Latin American Studies 2020, 52(2), 241-267.
  • Garmany J, Richmond MA. Hygienisation, gentrification and urban displacement in Brazil. Antipode 2020, 52(1), 124-144.
  • Kopper, M, Richmond, MA. Apresentação: Situando o sujeito das periferias urbanas. Novos Estudos CEBRAP 2023, 39(1), 9.
  • Richmond M. "Hostages to both sides": Favela pacification as dual security assemblage. Geoforum 2019, 104, 71-80.
  • Richmond MA. Rio de Janeiro's favela assemblage: Accounting for the durability of an unstable object. Environment and Planning D 2018, 36(6), 1045-1062.
  • Richmond MA, Garmany J. A "Post-Third World City" or a neoliberal "City of Exception"? Rio de Janeiro in the Olympic era. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2016, 40(3), 621-639.

• Edited Book

  • Kopper M, Richmond MA, ed. Subjectivity at Latin America's Urban Margins. New York: Berghahn Books, 2025. In Preparation.