Background and experience
I specialise in urban development in East Africa, and focus on placemaking in the Arctic and Sápmi, working comparatively on issues related to decolonisation, social inequalities, identities, futures, and climate breakdown. I have a background from Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, and have established and run interdisciplinary urbanism practices in both Tanzania and in Norway where I have worked on urban strategies for organisations, municipalities, county government, and national government clients.
Teaching
I divide my teaching activities between the foundation year in urbanism and landscape, and the masters course Post Growth – exploring the consequences and opportunities of climate altered futures and local knowledges in Sápmi – where we critically reassesses concepts of societal development and sustainability.
Research
I am interested in work that explores interdisciplinary overlaps between urbanism and the humanities. I have a PhD in mapping, data collection, and analysis of complex urban settings in Nairobi. My book The City Makers of Nairobi (Routledge 2020) investigates African urban identities in Nairobi during the colonial period, arguing that the city’s cosmopolitan African population had a far greater impact on urban developments than what is popularly believed. My recent research covers women’s roles and power in poor urban communities in Nairobi during and after COVID-19, youth mobilities and social media interaction in urban settings along the South Sudanese–Uganda border, and local knowledges in securing water resources in marginalised territories in Central Equatoria (South Sudan) and Várnjárga/Varenkinniemi/Varangerhalvøya (Norway).