Dr Melissa Fielding

Biography

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Cambridge, 2023
• MPhil Architecture and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge, 2017
• BA (Hons) Painting, Camberwell College of Arts, 2013

Awards and scholarships

• Vice-Chancellor’s and King’s College Award, University of Cambridge 2018-2022
• Kettle’s Yard Travel Fund Award- 2017
• Darwin Travel Award- 2017

Research

I am a feminist geographer exploring social housing in regional Britain, focusing on the material, day to day lived experience of women. I explore how housing policy and housing provider practices shape women’s access and experience of the social housing system.

Political processes are engendered due to these situations; I examine the manifestation of activism and the needs claimed through such methods. Theoretically, I ground my work within the broad scope of feminist geographical and urban inquiry, reflecting on the ways in which women’s experiences have been understood, and using such analyses to think through alternative and potentially transformative living practices.

Grounding my research in an ethnographic approach, I also draw on creative research techniques, engaging in participatory filmmaking workshops to explore ideas of the home.

Publications

Conference presentations

• Fielding, M. September 2021. Hiding The Gaps of Austerity: Housing Conditionality Assessments and the Moral Governance of Homemaking. Panel Presentation. European Research Conference on Homelessness. Budapest.
• Fielding, M. September 2021. Sex-for-rent: Discussions of Gender, Sex, Production and Power Online. Panel presentation. RGS Annual Conference. London
• Fielding, M. September 2021. Hiding The Gaps of Austerity: Housing Conditionality Assessments and the Moral Governance of Homemaking. Panel presentation. RGS Annual Conference. London.
• Fielding, M. April 2021. What is Safe Accommodation? Refuges Under Austerity. Virtual Panel Presentation. AAG Annual Conference. Denver, Colorado.
• Fielding, M. November 2020. Panel presentation. ‘Are You Ready For Independent Living?’ Care, Control and Material Practices in Women’s Transitional Housing. Panel presentation. University of Sheffield and University of York. Online.
• Fielding, M. August 2019. The Architecture of Protest: Making spaces of resistance from sites of repression. Panel Presentation. Royal Geographic Society annual conference. London.
• Fielding, M. August 2019. Disparate voices, disparate bodies: connecting women’s housing activism. Panel Presentation. Royal Geographic Society annual conference. London.
• Fielding, M. June 2019. Initial perspectives on feminist activism and transformative housing politics. Panel Presentation. Intersectionality and the City, DMU. Leicester.

Conference panels convened

• April 2021 Co- convener with Ed Kiely. Mediating the Crisis – Voluntary Sector Geographies in Turbulent Times. AAG Annual Conference. Denver, Colorado.

Invited lectures

• Fielding, M. April 2020. Setting Up Home: Performing Domesticity in Women’s Emergency Housing in Regional Britain. Solo Lecture. CUNY Graduate Center, New York City.

Teaching

• Geographical Tripos Part IB, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
  • Austerity
  • Inequality
• Dissertation Advisor, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge

External activities

• Editor-in-chief, King’s Review