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About Sonia
Sonia Roitman is an Associate Professor in Planning at the University of Queensland's School of Architecture, Design and Planning in the Architecture and Design faculty. Trained as an urban sociologist and planner, she has made influential contributions to development planning and urban sociology, particularly through research on urban inequalities in cities of the Global South. Her academic interests encompass housing and poverty alleviation policies, the role of grassroots organisations in urban planning processes, disaster planning and informal practices, as well as gated communities, residential segregation, and planning instruments. Her fieldwork spans Indonesia, Samoa, Uganda, Argentina, and Australia. Roitman has held leadership roles such as Planning Program Lead (2019-2023) and current Convenor for Bachelor of Regional and Town Planning and Master of Urban and Regional Planning programs (2023-2024). She coordinates and lectures in key courses including PLAN7612 Global South Cities (since 2014), PLAN3005/7121 Community Planning and Participation (since 2019), and PLAN3200/7200 Understanding Development Complexities: Indonesia Fieldtrip Course (since 2015).
Her scholarly output includes editing the Routledge Handbook of Urban Indonesia (2023, with Deden Rukmana), featuring chapters like "Urban Indonesia: challenges and opportunities" (2022) and "Conclusion: Seeing from Urban Indonesia" (2023). Recent publications comprise "Inclusionary planning instruments in two Indonesian cities: a missed opportunity to address urban inequalities" (2025, Housing Studies), "Urban planning in Indonesia and its contribution to Southern Planning" (2024, in Governing Urban Indonesia), and "The logic of informality in shaping urban collective action in the Global South" (2024, in Research Handbook on Urban Sociology). She has authored the book Descubriendo Uganda: Relatos desde una mirada muzungu (2013) and numerous book chapters on topics such as urban activism in Yogyakarta and slum dwellers' strategies. Roitman has secured competitive grants, including a DFAT-KONEKSI project on socio-ecological pathways for climate change adaptation in Semarang, Indonesia (2023-2025), an ARC Linkage Project on mapping Aboriginal routes (2017-2022), and a UQ Early Career Researcher grant on gated communities in Indonesia (2016-2018). Professionally, she serves as Specialty Chief Editor for Urban Sociology at Frontiers in Sociology (2025-), was Board Member of the RC21 Research Committee (2014-2023), and holds positions on scientific committees for journals in Colombia and Indonesia. Her research has informed urban policy in Mendoza, Argentina, and supported advocacy with grassroots organizations in Yogyakarta. Additionally, she delivered an invited online lecture for UN-Habitat on gated community development (2020) and contributes regularly to media outlets like The Conversation.
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