Professor Alexander Vasudevan

BA Honours (University of British Columbia); PhD (University of British Columbia)

I joined Christ Church and the School of Geography and the Environment in January 2017 having previously taught at the University of Nottingham and Durham University. I have a BA (Hons, first class) and PhD from the University of British Columbia. I was the recipient of a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship in 2016. 

I teach the Human Geography core papers, and an option paper on New Approaches in Urban Geography.

My research interests combine cultural and historical geography and urban studies with a commitment to experimental artistic practices and grassroots social activism. My work explores, in particular, the city as a site of political contestation drawing on a range of methods (archival, ethnographic and participatory). For the past 15 years, I have conducted extensive fieldwork in Germany (most notably in Berlin). More recently, I have worked across Europe as well as North America. 

I have published widely in major geography and other interdisciplinary journals. I am the author of The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2023; Spanish Edition with Alianza Editorial), Metropolitan Preoccupations: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015) and co-editor of Geographies of Forced Evictions: Dispossession, Violence, Insecurity (London: Palgrave).

My current research focuses on radical politics and precarious urban living. I am working on a project on the history of the anti-psychiatry movement. 

I am a member of the editorial collective at Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.

Books

Vasudevan, A. (2023) La ciudad autónoma: Una historia de la okupación urbana. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. 

Vasudevan, A. (2023). The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting, 2nd revised and expanded edition. London: Verso.

Vasudevan, A, Brickell, K. and Fernandez Arrigoitia, M. (eds.) (2017). Geographies of Forced Eviction: Dispossession, Violence, Resistance. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Vasudevan, A. (2015). Metropolitan Preoccupations: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Journal articles

Vasudevan, A. and Burgum, S. (2023). "Critical Geographies of Occupation, Trespass and Squatting." City 27(3-4), pp. 347-359. 

Vasudevan, A. (2022). "Tenant Trouble: Resisting Precarity in Berlin’s Märkisches Viertel, 1968–1974." Annals of the American Association of Geographers 112(6), pp. 1537-1552. 

Vasudevan, A. (2021). "Celluloid Critique: Documentary filmmaking and the politics of housing in Berlin’s Märkisches Viertel." Radical Housing Journal 3(2), pp. 119-142. 

Vasudevan, A. (2019). "Between appropriation and occupation: the spatial politics of “squatting” in East Berlin." Urban Geography 42(9), pp. 1230-1251. 

Vasudevan, A. (2017). “Squatting the City.” The Architectural Review 1442 July/August (2017), pp. 8-14.

Vasudevan, A., Ferreri, M. and Dawson, G. (2017). “Living Precariously: Property Guardianship and the Flexible City.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42 (2), pp. 246-259.

Vasudevan, A. (2015). “The Autonomous City: Towards a Critical Geography of Occupation.” Progress in Human Geography 39(3), pp. 316-337.

Vasudevan, A. (2015). “The Makeshift City: Towards a Global Geography of Squatting.” Progress in Human Geography 39(3), pp. 338-359.

Vasudevan, A., Jeffrey, A. and McFarlane, C. (2012). “Rethinking Enclosure: Space, Subjectivity and the Commons.” Antipode 44(4), pp. 1247-1267.

Vasudevan, A. (2011). “Dramaturgies of Dissent: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin, 1968-“ Social and Cultural Geography 12(3), pp. 283-303.