Core Faculty

Faranak Miraftab

Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 1995


My research interest concerns social aspects of urban development. In this broad area, I am interested in how low-income groups and women in particular access housing and basic urban services. Key concepts in my research include debates on community-based strategies and mobilizations, non-governmental non-profit organizations and grassroots social movements, participatory planning processes, empowerment, citizenship and development.  A native of Iran, I completed my undergraduate education at the College of Fine Arts at the Tehran University. While in political exile in Trondheim, Norway, I graduated with a Masters degree in Architecture at the Norwegian Institute of Technology and then completed my doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  Over the years my research and teaching has spanned several countries including Chile, Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the United States.

My teaching covers multi-cultural understanding of cities as social processes; community development and the role of grassroots mobilizations; transnational urbanism; migration and development nexus; the reconfigured state-society relations for provision of basic services and housing within the dominant global neoliberal policy framework.  I also serve as the Director of the PhD program and the coordinator of the Transnational Planning Stream at DURP.  Students who are interested to find out more about thePhD in Regional Planning or about Transnational Planning Stream and the International Programs and Activities at DURP should consult the respective websites and feel free to contact me for further information.

Contact Information
Room 218, Temple Buell Hall
611 Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.265.8238
Fax: 217.244.1717
E-mail: faranak@illinois.edu

Current Research Areas

My current research projects include the following:

  • Historical examination of the contemporary urban policies in Cape Town, South Africa, uncovering the colonial roots of neoliberal urban governance.
  • Ethnographic study of transnational processes of community development, examining the trans-local dynamics of immigration that intimately connects development processes in the rural Midwest of the U.S., with those of the communities in Mexico and West Africa.

Selected Publications

2012

Miraftab, F.  “Emerging Transnational Spaces: Meat, Sweat and Global (re)Production in the Heartland.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01070.x first published online: 22 July 2011.

2011

Miraftab, F.  “Faraway Intimate Development: Global Restructuring of Social Reproduction.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 31(4).  DOI:10.1177/0739456X11420573 first published on September 8, 2011.
2010

Miraftab, F. “Contradictions in the Gender-Poverty Nexus: Reflections on the Privatisation of Social Reproduction and Urban Informality in South African Townships” in Silvia Chant (ed.) The International Handbook on Gender and Poverty: Concepts, Research and Policy. Edward Elgar Publishers.
2009

Miraftab, F. “Insurgent Planning: Situating Radical Planning in the Global South.”  Planning Theory 8(1):32-50.

Diaz McConnell, E. and F. Miraftab. “Sundown Town to ‘Mexican Town’:  Newcomers, Old Timers, and Housing in Small Town America,” Rural Sociology 74 (4): 605-629.
2008

Miraftab, F. and E. Diaz McConnell.  “Multiculturalizing Rural Towns: Insights for Inclusive Planning.” International Planning Studies 13(4): 343-360.

Beard, V, Miraftab, F and C Silver (eds). Planning and Decentralization: Contested Spaces for Public Action in the Global South. New York: Routledge (Taylor and Francis).

Miraftab, F. “Decentralization and Entrepreneurial Planning,” in Victoria Beard, Faranak Miraftab and Chris Silver (eds.) Planning and Decentralization: Contested Spaces for Public Action in the Global South.  New York: Routledge.Pp. 21-35

Miraftab, F. Victoria Bear and Chris Silver. “Introduction: Situating Contested Notions of Decentralized Planning in the Global South" in Victoria Beard, Faranak Miraftab and Chris Silver (eds.) Planning and Decentralization: Contested Spaces for Public Action in the Global South.  New York: Routledge. Pp. 1-18

Silver, Chris, Faranak Miraftab, and Victoria Beard. “Conclusion: Decentralized Planning and the Ways Ahead,” in Victoria Beard, Faranak Miraftab and Chris Silver (eds.) Planning and Decentralization: Contested Spaces for Public Action in the Global South.  New York: Routledge. Pp. 216-224
2007

Miraftab, F. "Governing Post-apartheid Spatiality: Implementing City Improvement Districts in Cape Town." Antipode: Radical Journal of Geography 39(4): 606-626.
2006 “Informalizing the Means of Reproduction: The Case of Waste Collection Services in Cape Town, South Africa,” in Beneria, Lourdes and Neema Kudva (eds.) Rethinking Informalization: Precarious Jobs, Poverty and Social Protection. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University e-Publishing Program. Pp 148-162.  Open access

Miraftab, F. "Feminist Praxis, Citizenship and Informal Politics: Reflections on South Africa’s Anti-Eviction Campaign." International Feminist Journal of Politics vol. 8.

Miraftab, F. "On Loan from Home: Women’s Participation in Formulating Human Settlements Policies” in Jaquette, Jane and Gale Summerfield (eds.) Institutions, Resources, and Mobilization: Women and Gender Equity in Development Theory and Practice. Duke University Press.

2005

Miraftab F. and S. Wills. “Insurgency and Spaces of Active Citizenship: The Story of Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in South Africa.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 25(2):200-217.

Miraftab, F. “Making Neoliberal Governance: The Disempowering Work of Empowerment.” International Planning Studies 9(4):239-259.

2004

Miraftab, F. “Can you Belly Dance? Methodological Questions in the Era of Transnational Feminist Research.” Gender, Place and Culture: Journal of Feminist Geography 11(4):595-604.

Miraftab, F. “Neoliberalism and Casualization of Public Sector Services: The Case of Waste Collection Services in Cape Town, South Africa.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28(4): 874-92.

Miraftab, F. “Public-private Partnerships: the Trojan Horse of Neoliberal Development?” Journal of Planning Education and Research 24(1):89-101.

2003

Miraftab, F. “ The Perils of Participatory Discourse: Housing Policy in Post-apartheid South Africa .” Journal of Planning Education and Research. 22(3):226-239.
2001

Miraftab, F. “Risks and Opportunities in Gender Gaps to Access Shelter: A Platform for Intervention.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. 15(1):143-160.

2000

Miraftab, F. “Sheltering Refugees: The Housing Experience of Refugees in the Metropolitan Vancouver, Canada.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research. Vol. 9(1): 42-63.

1999

Miraftab, F. “ Sustainability in Environmental Design: Case Studies from the Vernacular Tradition in Iran.” Australian Planner Vol. 36 (4): 210-215.

1998

Miraftab, F. “Complexities of the Margin: Housing Decisions of Female Householders in Mexico.” Society and Space: Environment and Planning D Vol. 16: 289-310.

1997

Miraftab, F. “Flirting with the Enemy: Challenges Faced by NGOs in Development and Empowerment.” Habitat International Vol 21 (4):361-375.

Miraftab, F. “Revisiting Informal Sector Homeownership: The Relevance of Household Compositions for Housing Options of the Poor.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. June Vol 21(2): 303-322.

1996

Miraftab, F. "Space, Gender and Work: Home-Based Workers in Guadalajara, Mexico,” in Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prugl (eds.) Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More. New York: Routledge. Pp.63-80.

1994

Miraftab, F. “(Re)Production at Home: Reconceptualizing Home and Family." Journal of Family Issues Sept. Vol. 15(3): 467-489.

1993

Miraftab, F. "Shelter as Sustenance: Exclusionary Mechanisms Limiting Women's Access to Housing," in Hemalata Dandekar (ed.) Shelter, Women and Development. Ann Arbor: Wahr Publishing Co. Pp. 225-233.

Faranak Miraftab