Profile

Will is an urban and cultural geographer. His research focusses on the governance of homelessness in public spaces and marginal city environments. This encompasses both 1) how this governance is implemented and developed from the ‘top-down’, including the use of bylaws, PSPOs, policing and urban development projects, and 2) how this governance is experienced and contested by people living on the margins of the city, looking at geographies of affect and using ethically driven qualitative methodologies.

Will is interested in the overlap between everyday experiences of homelessness and migration broadly conceived, and the way that border politics are enacted and embodied in public spaces. Connected to his focus on city spaces that are characterised by encounters and informal inhabitations, Will also had an emergent project on urban rivers, in collaboration with John Cabot University in Rome, where he held a visiting fellowship in 2023. Will’s ‘watery’ research also relates to a critical concern for toilet access in cities (particularly for those experiencing homelessness) and the discursive relationship between urban waste, sanitation and development.

Prior to the awarding of his PhD at the University of Sheffield, Will was a Research Associate at the British Council, and a Research Assistant at the Amsterdam Centre of European Studies. Will has conducted research on a wide range of urban and social issues in several countries, including Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK.