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Siān Butcher is a human geographer with teaching and research interests focused on urban and economic development geography. She has spent a significant part of her life in Southern Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe and South Africa, before relocating to the Midwest, where she now works at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Butcher earned her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and served as a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 2017 to 2020. Additionally, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Gauteng City Region Observatory in 2016. Her research examines developer-driven housing in the Global South, particularly in Southern Africa, and addresses critical geographies of property and race in real estate. She has been involved in projects that explore the financialization of affordable rental housing and the socio-spatial changes following post-apartheid dynamics in urban planning. Butcher employs qualitative methods and heterodox approaches to investigate the mundane processes of property projects in highly unequal urban contexts.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign • Urbana, IL
Teaching and researching urban and economic development geography.
University of the Witwatersrand • Johannesburg, South Africa
Taught courses related to human geography.
Gauteng City Region Observatory • Johannesburg, South Africa
Conducted research in urban studies.
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