Ryan Powell is a Reader in Urban Studies and Director of Research in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His academic background and orientation is multidisciplinary and cuts across urban studies, sociology, geography, politics and history, but his research is focused on urban marginality. His research seeks to combine empiricism and theory in understanding the socio-dynamics of unequal power relations and their consequences in terms of urban marginalisation, both contemporary and historical. This includes access to housing and employment as well as wider questions of citizenship, urbanization, and the stigmatisation of “outsider” groups. A distinguishing aspect of his research is sensitivity to a long-term perspective in terms of capturing the dynamic and intergenerational development of human societies and the cities they produce. He has worked on studies for the EU, ESRC, JRF, UK and devolved governments, regional bodies, and various local authorities and charitable organisations. Ryan is a member of the Management Board of the international journal Housing Studies and Co-Editor of the international journal Human Figurations: Long-term Perspectives on the Human Condition. He is also a Fellow of the Norbert Elias Foundation.
Migration-related publications
Flint, J. and Powell, R. (Eds) (2019) Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work. London: Palgrave.
Powell, R. and Robinson, D. (2019) ‘Housing, ethnicity and advanced marginality in England’, in Flint, J. and Powell, R. (Eds) Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work. London: Palgrave.
Powell, R. and Van Baar, H. (2019) ‘The invisibilization of anti-Roma racisms’, in Van Baar, H., Ivasiuc, A., and Kriede, R. (eds) The Politics of Security: Understanding and Challenging the Securitization of Europe’s Roma. London: Palgrave.
Cretan, R. and Powell, R. (2018) ‘The power of group stigmatisation: wealthy Roma, urban space and strategies of defence in post-socialist Romania’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(3), pp.423-441
Powell, R. and Lever, J. (2017) ‘Europe’s perennial “outsiders”: A processual approach to Roma stigmatization and ghettoization’, Current Sociology, 65(5), pp.680-699.
Powell, R. (2016) ‘Gypsy-Travellers/Roma and social integration: childhood, habitus and the “we-I balance”‘, Historical Social Research, 41(3), pp.134-156
Powell, R. (2014) ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on “Roma integration in the UK”‘, People, Place and Policy, 2014, 8(1). (online journal).
Migration-related projects
2019-2022: Integrating Vulnerable Migrant Youth (MIMY), EU2020
2018-2021: Migration, Integration and Governance Research Centre (MIGREC), EU2020