Staff Profile

I am a political and urban geographer, originally from London. I completed my PhD in Geography at King's College London in 2015, and two postdoctoral fellowships in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the Centro de Estudos da Metrópole (CEM) and at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). In 2020, I returned to the UK to begin 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 looks at themes of urban governance, development, security and sustainability in Latin America, in particular the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. I am especially interested in how both state actors (from policymakers to street-level bureaucrats) and nonstate actors (whether NGOs, social movements or criminal groups) coexist and co-produce governance in particular urban spaces. In my work, I also explore subjectivity, political attitudes and the ways that everyday relationships to place are articulated in political projects.

I currently teach on the undergraduate courses 'GEO2047 Political Geography', 'GEO1018 Geographical Analysis' and '2111 Doing Human Geography Research'.

Please get in touch to discuss possible PhD projects on any topic linked to my own research interests.

• Articles

  • Müller F, Richmond MA. The technopolitics of security: Agency, temporality, sovereignty. Security Dialogue 2023, 54(1), 3-20.
  • Richmond MA, Garmany J. Rent gaps, gentrification and the ‘two circuits’ of Latin American urban economies. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 2023, Epub ahead of print.
  • 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 2023, Epub ahead of print.
  • Richmond MA. The pacification of Brazil's urban margins: Peripheral urbanisation and dynamic order-making. Contemporary Social Science 2022, 17(3), 248-261.
  • 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.
  • 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.