Dr Ashraful Alam

• Teaching
• Research interests
• Current research projects
• Postgraduate student supervision
• Selected awards and grants
• Publications

Teaching

• ENVI 111 Environment and Society
• ENVI 311 Understanding Environmental Issues
• GEOG 214/374 Geographies of Global Economic Change
• GEOG 215/384 Envisioning Sustainable Cities
• PLAN 435 Planning Case Study I
• PLAN 438 Planning Practice
• PLAN 535 Planning Case Study II
• PLAN 590 Planning Project
• APPS 597 Supervised Independent Study

Research interests

• Politics of dwelling
• Urban informality
• Migration/ non-migration
• Non-human centred design and development thinking
• User centred research methodologies

My research falls under the broad umbrella of urban and cultural geography and planning. Migrant politics of housing and belonging in destination cities have been the consistent focus of my research ever since. I am particularly interested in exploring the ways different marginalised, less-represented (e.g., migrants, refugees, climate-displaced families, the urban homeless, students and women) and more-than-human (e.g., plants and animals) communities use their own agencies to (informally) negotiate urban infrastructures. I often use creative methods to empower my research participants so that they are able to explain alternative meanings and dynamics of the social worlds that may remain otherwise hidden through conventional methods.

Current research projects

• Migration retention in regional towns – experiences from Australia, Canada and New Zealand (2021– present)
• Minority ethnic migrants’ settlement experience in Aotearoa New Zealand (2021– present)
• Alternate urban imaginaries: Storying radically interdependent counter-cities (2020– present)
• Migrant imaginaries and the construction of Australian identities: the case of South Asian communities living in Australian gateway suburbs (2018– present)

PhD supervision available

I have the capacity to take on new PhD students. My current research projects align with following areas where I would be keen to supervise PhD students are as follows:

1. Politics of urban dwelling

• Migrant identity politics in gateway cities
• Politics of housing, home and homelessness
• Urban (in)formality in the Global South and North

2. Counter-Cities

• multi-species and more-than-human cities
• Care as infrastructure, and care-full approaches to planning
• Small town urbanism

If you are interested in any of the above or in a related field of urban planning and development or urban and cultural geographies, please email me at ash.alam@otago.ac.nz. I am happy to supervise students wishing to do research in Aotearoa New Zealand or in the student’s home country or country of interest. Suitably qualified students would be supported to apply for the University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship.

Postgraduate student supervision

PhD Students

• Bahamin Badihi, PhD – Gender-safe neighbourhood design guidelines for mid-sized Iranian cities
• Rajan Ghosh, PhD – Social impacts of Pasifika ‘climigration’
• Koritiemo James Fawei, PhD – Climate change vulnerabilities in the Niger Delta Region
• Tawfique Rahman, PhD – Designing urban spaces for play

Masters Students

• Kurt Bowen, MPlan - A study into the feasibility of a ‘land for affordable housing’ policy for private development in Dunedin City
• Matthew Campbell, MPlan – Precinct planning in Dunedin
• Wanli Cheng, MIDP – Hong Kong’s education and the “one country, two systems”
• Jack Cowie, MPlan – Network-oriented public transport planning in medium and small New Zealand cities
• Rachel Finlayson – Planning the economic viability and liveability of Kiwi small towns
• Dermot Frengley, MPlan – Public Participation in Environmental Planning in New Zealand: A Look at Predator 2050
• Josh Kenneally, MPlan – Resource Management Act (RMA 1991) Reform
• Trent Lynch, MPlan – High-density low-rise apartments influencing housing affordability
• Kelsey Newman, MPlan – Planning for Street Art in Aotearoa-New Zealand Cities
• James Nicol, MPlan – The influence of planning controls on the land market and urban development in New Zealand
• Sam O’Brien – Analysing inclusionary housing practices in Queenstown and their wider applicability in Aotearoa
• Grace Quinn-Foster – The future role of passenger rail transport in New Zealand’s mid-sized cities in emission reduction
• Brenna Sherson, MPlan – The impact of sea level rise on the residents of South Dunedin: learnings for future relocation planning
• George Van Pelt, MPlan – Post-earthquake urban regeneration in Christchurch CBD
• Jonty Wispinsky – Viability of Managed Retreat Planning in the Face of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise (SLR)

Selected awards and grants

• 2022 – Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant (CAN 200,000)
• 2022 – University of Otago Research Grant UORG (NZD 20,000)
• 2021 – New Zealand Geographical Society NZGS President’s Medal for 2021 Emerging Researcher in Geography
• 2021 – University of Otago Centre for Global Migrations Seed Grant (NZD 4,000)
• 2016 – Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) Alumni Funding, USD 10,000)

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Publications