Professor Ryan Powell

School of Geography and Planning

Professor of Urban Studies

r.s.powell@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6182

Room D11d, Geography and Planning Building

Full contact details

Professor Ryan Powell
School of Geography and Planning
Room D11d
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND

Profile

I am Director of the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP) and sit on the University’s Research Culture Steering Group. I joined the University in September 2016 as Reader in Urban Studies. Prior to joining the School of Geography and Planning I worked for 14 years at the interdisciplinary Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University. I was awarded a BA in Economics and Public Policy from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2002 and I subsequently studied part-time for an MA in Human Geography at the University of Leeds, graduating in 2006.

My academic background and orientation is multidisciplinary and cuts across urban studies, sociology, geography, planning, history and politics, but my research is focused on urban marginality. I have always worked in a genuinely interdisciplinary environment and benefited greatly from exposure to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. I have worked on studies for the EU, ESRC, JRF, the Big Lottery Fund, DWP, CLG, Northern Ireland Executive, Scottish Government, Welsh Government, regional bodies, and various local authorities and charitable organisations.

I am affiliated to the Sheffield Migration Research Group, iHuman and the SMI within the University of Sheffield. Externally, I am a member of the Editorial Board of the international journal Housing Studies, a Fellow of the Norbert Elias Foundation, and a Trustee of Leeds GATE.

I welcome enquiries from research students and post-doctoral candidates, but I am particularly interested in research in the following broad areas: Gypsies and Travellers, Roma and the city; migrant youth and cities; housing and urban inequalities; class and place.

Research interests

The central theme of my research is seeking 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.

This reflects a commitment to striving for an objective understanding of the development of contemporary society and its unequal outcomes, alongside an explicit engagement with public policy and the challenges it faces. By extension, this often entails the exposure of policy "myths" and critique of the inadequacy of current conceptualisations. A distinguishing aspect of my 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. I often work with community organisations in understanding urban experiences of the margins, where our values, aims and priorities align.

Presently I am developing research with Leeds GATE (Gypsy and Traveller Exchange) on the harms of planning, and with FURD (Football Unites Racism Divides) on countering migrant stigmatisation and exclusion through sport.

I also act as mentor to ESRC postdoctoral fellow Yu-Tung Wu whose research is centred on housing transformations, financialization and everyday urbanism in Taiwan. He explores this unfolding through the story of "Military Dependents' Villages" (MDVs) in Taipei using urban history, archival analysis, observation, interviews, and qualitative GIS.

Recent research projects

2020-2023: MIMY - Migrant Youth Integration in Europe, EU Horizon2020
2020-2023: MIGREC – Migration, Integration and Governance Research Centre, EU Horizon2020

Publications

Edited books

Alexandrescu F, Powell R & Vilenica A (Eds.) (2025) Urban Marginality, Racialisation, Interdependence: Learning from Eastern Europe..
Emery J, Powell R & Crookes L (Eds.) (2023) Class, Emotions and the Affective Politics of Social Inequality. Sage.
Flint J & Powell R (Ed.) (2019) Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work. Springer International Publishing.

Journal articles

Emery J, Powell R & Crookes L (2023) Class, affect, margins. The Sociological Review, 71(2), 283-295.
Powell R & Simone A (2022) Towards a global housing studies: beyond dichotomy, normativity and common abstraction. Housing Studies, 37(6), 837-846.
Hincks S & Powell R (2022) Territorial stigmatisation beyond the city: habitus, affordances and landscapes of industrial ruination. Environment and Planning A, 54(7), 1391-1410.
Burgum S, Jones H & Powell R (2022) Manufacturing mandates: Property, race, and the criminalisation of trespass in England and Wales. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40(6), 1219-1236.
Cretan R, Kupka P, Powell R & Walach V (2022) Everyday Roma stigmatization: racialized urban encounters, collective histories and fragmented habitus. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 46(1), 82-100.
Cretan R & Powell RS (2018) The Power of Group Stigmatization: Wealthy Roma, Urban Space and Strategies of Defence in Post‐socialist Romania. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(3), 423-441.
Powell R (2017) Gypsy-Traveller sites in the UK: power, history, informality – a response to Richardson. Global Discourse, 7(4), 516-520.
Lever J & Powell RS (2017) ‘Problems of involvement and detachment’: Norbert Elias and the investigation of contemporary social processes. Human Figurations, 6(2).
Powell R & Lever J (2017) Europe’s perennial ‘outsiders’: A processual approach to Roma stigmatization and ghettoization. Current Sociology, 65(5), 680-699.
Crisp R & Powell R (2017) Young people and UK labour market policy: A critique of ‘employability’ as a tool for understanding youth unemployment. Urban Studies, 54(8), 1784-1807.
Powell R (2016) Gypsy-travellers/Roma and social integration: Childhood, habitus and the "We-I balance". Historical Social Research, 41(3), 134-156.
Cole I, Powell R & Sanderson E (2016) Putting the Squeeze on "Generation Rent": Housing Benefit Claimants in the Private Rented Sector - Transitions, Marginality and Stigmatisation. Sociological Research Online, 21(2).
Powell R (2015) Housing Benefit Reform and the Private Rented Sector in the UK: On the Deleterious Effects of Short-term, Ideological “Knowledge”. Housing, Theory and Society, 32(3), 320-345.
Flint JF, Kruithof B & Powell RS (2015) Introduction to the Special Issue of Human Figurations on Civilising Offensives. Human Figurations, 4(1).
Powell RS (2014) Editorial: Special Issue - 'Roma Integration in the UK'. People, Place and Policy, 8(1), 1-3.
Powell RS (2013) The theoretical concept of the "civilizing offensive" (beschavingsoffensief): Notes on its origins and uses. Human Figurations.
Powell R (2013) Loïc Wacquant's ‘Ghetto’ and Ethnic Minority Segregation in the UK: The Neglected Case of Gypsy-Travellers. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(1), 115-134.
Flint J & Powell R (2012) The English City Riots of 2011, ‘Broken Britain’ and the Retreat into the Present. Sociological Research Online, 17(3), 153-162.
Powell R (2011) Gypsy-Travellers and Welfare Professional Discourse: On Individualization and Social Integration. Antipode, 43(2), 471-493.
Powell R (2010) Spaces of Informalisation: Playscapes, Power and the Governance of Behaviour. Space and Polity, 14(2), 189-206.
Beatty C, Fothergill S, Houston D & Powell R (2010) Bringing Incapacity Benefit numbers down: to what extent do women need a different approach?. Policy Studies, 31(2), 143-162.
Beatty C, Fothergill S, Houston D, Powell R & Sissons P (2009) A Gendered Theory of Employment, Unemployment, and Sickness. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 27(6), 958-974.
Powell R & Flint J (2009) (In)formalization and the Civilizing Process: Applying the Work of Norbert Elias to Housing‐Based Anti‐Social Behaviour Interventions in the UK. Housing, Theory and Society, 26(3), 159-178.
Powell R (2008) Understanding the Stigmatization of Gypsies: Power and the Dialectics of (Dis)identification. Housing, Theory and Society, 25(2), 87-109.
Allen C, Powell R, Casey R & Coward S (2007) 'Ordinary, the same as anywhere else': Notes on the management of spoiled identity in 'marginal' middle-class neighbourhoods. Sociology, 41(2), 239-258.
Powell R (2007) Civilising offensives and ambivalence: the case of British gypsies. People, Place and Policy Online, 1(3), 112-123.
Beatty C, Fothergill S & Powell R (2007) Twenty Years on: Has the Economy of the UK Coalfields Recovered?. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 39(7), 1654-1675.
Casey R, Coward S, Allen C & Powell R (2007) On the planned environment and neighbourhood life: Evidence from mixed-tenure housing developments twenty years on. Town Planning Review, 78(3), 311-334.
Gore T, Powell RS & Wells P (2006) 'The contribution of rural community businesses to integrated rural development: "Local services for local people"'. Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales.
Beatty C, Fothergill S & Powell R () Living in seaside caravans: new survey evidence and the implications for local authority funding. People, Place and Policy Online, 6(2), 90-100.

Chapters

Alexandrescu F, Powell R & Vilenica A (2025) Thinking from the East: Urban marginality, racialisation and interdependence in Eastern Europe, Urban Marginality, Racialisation, Interdependence: Learning from Eastern Europe (pp. 1-16).
Marshall M, Hincks S & Powell R (2023) Housing and welfare in England, The Routledge Handbook of Housing and Welfare (pp. 38-53). Routledge
Flint J & Powell R (2021) Beyond the noosphere? Northern england’s ‘left behind’ urbanism, Global Urbanism: Knowledge, Power and the City (pp. 80-87).
Powell R & van Baar H (2019) The Invisibilization of Anti-Roma Racisms In van Baar H, Ivasiuc A & Kreide R (Ed.), The Securitization of the Roma in Europe (pp. 91-113). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Powell R (2019) Beyond "employability": youth unemployment, socialisation and social stratification In Becke G & Ernst S (Ed.), Transformationen der Arbeitsgesellschaft / Transformation of working Society (pp. 189-210). London: Springer.
Powell R & Robinson D (2019) Housing, Ethnicity and Advanced Marginality in England, Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work (pp. 187-212).
Flint J & Powell R (2019) Introduction: Putting Wacquant to Work, Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarized Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work (pp. 1-21).
Crisp R & Powell RS (2017) Youth unemployment, interdependence and power: Tensions and resistance within an alternative, ‘co-produced’ employment programme In Bevir M, McKee K & Matthews P (Ed.), Decentring Urban Governance: Narratives, Resistance and Contestation (pp. 38-63). Abingdon: Routledge.
Flint J & Powell R (2016) Scottish enlightenment and the sectarianism civilising offensive, Bigotry, Football and Scotland (pp. 82-96).
Powell RS & Cole I (2015) Housing and welfare reform In Foster L, Brunton A, Deeming C & Haux T (Ed.), In Defence of Welfare 2
Flint J & Powell RS (2014) Anti-social Behaviour and ‘Civilizing’ Regulation in the British City: Comparing Victorian and Contemporary Eras In Pickard S (Ed.), Anti-Social Behaviour in Britain: Victorian and Contemporary Perspectives (pp. 42-52). Palgrave Macmillan London
Flint J & Powell R (2014) 'We've got the equivalent of passchendaele': Sectarianism, football and urban disorder in Scotland, Football Hooliganism, Fan Behaviour and Crime: Contemporary Issues (pp. 71-91).
Powell RS (2014) Civilizing Process In Cope H & Forsyth CJ (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Deviance
Flint J & Powell R (2013) Individualization and Social Dis/integration in Contemporary Society: A Comparative Note on Zygmunt Bauman and Norbert Elias, Norbert Elias and Social Theory (pp. 261-274). Palgrave Macmillan US
Flint J & Powell R (2013) Scottish enlightenment and the sectarianism civilising offensive, Bigotry, Football and Scotland (pp. 82-96).
Flint J & Powell R (2011) "They Sing That Song": Sectarianism and Conduct in the Informalised Spaces of Scottish Football In Burdsey D (Ed.), Race, Ethnicity and Football (pp. 191-206). London: Routledge.
Beatty C, Fothergill S, Houston D & Powell R (2010) Women on incapacity benefits: New survey evidence from the UK In Kemp PA (Ed.), Social Protection for a Post-Industrial World
Flint J & Powell R (2009) Civilising offensives: Education, football and ‘Eradicating’ sectarianism in Scotland, Securing Respect: Behavioural Expectations and Anti-Social Behaviour in the UK (pp. 219-238).

Book reviews

Powell R (2025) Silicon Valley Imperialism: techno fantasies and frictions in postsocialist times, by Erin McElroy, Duke University Press, 2024, 296 pp., $27.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-4780-3021-8. Housing Studies, 40(2), 511-512.
Powell R (2023) The right to be counted: The urban poor and the politics of resettlement. Housing Studies, 38(7), 1365-1366.
Powell R (2023) The fringes of citizenship: Romani minorities in Europe and civic marginalisation. Housing Studies, 38(2), 349-350.
Powell R (2021) Against the public interest: Power, financialization and PFI housing in England. Dialogues in Human Geography, 11(2), 337-340.
Powell R (2021) City of segregation: 100 years of struggle for housing in Los Angeles. Housing Studies, 36(4), 617-618.
Powell R (2020) Home-land: Romanian Roma, Domestic Spaces and the State, by Rachel Humphris, Bristol, Bristol University Press, 2019, 256 pp., £80.00 (hbk), ISBN: 978-1-5292-0192-5. Housing Studies, 35(7), 1332-1333.
Powell R (2017) A Review of "The financialization of housing: a political economy approach", By Manuel B. Aalbers. International Journal of Housing Policy, 17(4), 603-605.
Powell R (2014) Gypsies and Travellers: Empowerment and Inclusion in British Society. Housing Studies, 29(7), 994-996.
Powell R (2012) The Public and its Possibilities: Triumphs and Tragedies in the American City. Housing Studies, 27(8), 1214-1216.

Reports

Robinson D, Hickman P, Casey R, Green S & Powell R (2007) Understanding Housing Demand. Learning From Rising Markets In Yorkshire And The Humber

Teaching activities

My primary teaching focus is on urban marginality, housing issues and the challenges facing cities and publics in the contemporary period. I teach on the following module:

GPL313, Housing and Urban Inequalities

PhD supervision

I am Primary Supervisor for the following postgraduate research students:

Camille Rantz Mc Donald: Gypsies and Travellers and the harms of planning: counter-mapping, oral histories and housing justice (with Ste Hincks and Ellie Rogers (Leeds GATE) – WRDTP collaborative award)
Charly Morris: Migrant women and urban activisms (with SJ Cooper-Knock and Will Mason)
Francesca Guarino: Beyond the sea, beyond the border: exploring racialised borders and solidarities from the urban ground in Palermo (with Michele Lancione)

I am a member of the Supervisory team for the following ESRC-funded students:

Isla MacRae (Sociological Studies): Everyday negotiations of space and place amongst refugees and asylum seekers in the North West of England (with Sarah Neal and Julie Walsh)