Idalina Baptista

Keywords: African urbanization, urban planning and governance, energy infrastructure, urban theory.

Idalina Baptista is an Associate Professor in Urban Anthropology, a Fellow of Kellogg College and an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities at the University of Oxford. She is also the Director of the DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development. Idalina teaches urban theory in the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development and has taught in the past on diverse themes relating to urban planning and environmental management at the University of California, Berkeley, the New University of Lisbon, Universidade Aberta, and Universidade Atlântica, in Portugal. Idalina also held a visiting position at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon and collaborated with colleagues at the New University of Lisbon on projects and initiatives involving public participation in urban and environmental planning and policymaking. Her teaching and research is informed by her past experience as an environmental planning consultant and as a volunteer to NGOs in the environmental sector. She holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning (2009) and a Master in Landscape Architecture (Environmental Planning concentration) (1999) from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and a BEng in Environmental Engineering (1996) from the New University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Idalina's current research focuses on the colonial and post-colonial geographies of urban energy infrastructure and urbanization in African cities, with a special focus on Maputo, Mozambique. Her latest research project, “Electric Urbanism: the Governance of Electricity in Urban Africa”, was funded by Oxford's John Fell Fund. The project uses the case study of the prepaid electricity system in Maputo, Mozambique, to examine the challenges of accessing utility services in the global South. Through her research, Idalina seeks to deepen her understanding of African urbanization and the challenges of governing urban infrastructures in Africa. In particular, she’s interested in understanding how different forms of infrastructure governance emerge and the patterns of urbanization, citizenship and urban livelihoods these engender. Idalina’s work has been published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies, Urban Geography, City & Society and in edited collections.