Higor Carvalho is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva. He is a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship holder and works under the supervision of Prof. Armelle Choplin and Prof. Didier Péclard. He holds a Bachelor in Architecture and Urban Planning (University of Sao Paulo), a Master's in Geography (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and a Master's in Habitat (University of Sao Paulo).
For the last ten years, he has researched / worked in Brazil, France, Mexico, Reunion Island, Angola and China. In Brazil, he worked in governmental and parliamentary positions and, among others, was the Sao Paulo city hall first advisor of the Housing Secretariat, and was in charge of a 700,000-inhabitants city's Master Plan. He engages with social movements for the right to the city and has taken part in research projects for a diversity of bodies, including the United Nations and the United Cities and Local Governments, besides his own academic projects.

Research

The production of urban space is the core of Higor's research. He is interested in analysing its forms and agents of production as well as its social, economical and environmental effects in a diversity of geographies, focused in -but not limited to- the Global South. The effects of broader political and economical shifts over the making of the built environment (i.e. neoliberalism, financialization...) call particularly his attention. His current PhD research analyses the influence of Brazilian and Chinese capitals in the urbanization of Sub Saharan Africa, taking Angola as a study case.

Interests

The political economy of urbanization; the production of space, its forms (capitalist, socialist and others) and contradictions (spatial segregation, inequalities, informalities); Spatial Justice; Financial Geography; Urban Development and Planning; Real estate; Housing policies and markets; Social Movements; Gender, Race and Diversity in the city.

Research projects

• 2021 onwards. When Brazil and China build the emerging Africa: capital flows and the production of space in Angola.
• 2020-2021 - RECOVIDA: Revaluation of mortality from natural causes in the municipality of São Paulo during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 2019-2021 - The production of space with Chinese characteristics.
• 2013-2016 - Social Housing in Brazil and Mexico: shifts in housing policies and markets.
• 2011 - A cidade como um canteiro de negócios: a produção da habitação e da cidade pelos grandes promotores imobiliários no Brasil e na França. O caso das aglomerações urbanas de Sao Paulo e de Paris.
• 2009-2010 - La ville comme un chantier d'affaires: la production du logement et de l’espace urbain par les grands promoteurs immobiliers en Ile-de-France.
• 2008-2009 - Campos Elíseos: Um bairro, um patrimônio, uma cidade: um caso historico de mutação urbana e patrimônio publico na cidade de São Paulo.

Teaching

• J2M285: Ville et Mondialisation dans les Suds
• T206058: Géographie de la mondialisation
• T406030: Etats, territoires et développement en Afrique
• T406012: Public policies for spatial justice

Publications

Scientific Papers

• CARVALHO, H., HIRATA, M., & LAIATE, C. (2022). O urbano pós-pandemia: ensaio sobre as contradições da produção e apropriação capitalista do espaço sob a crise sanitária da COVID-19 no Brasil [The post-pandemic urban: an essay on the contradictions of capitalist production and appropriation of space from the health crisis of covid-19 on in Brazil]. Revista Da Universidade Federal De Minas Gerais, 28(2), 414–445. 
•  赵守谅, 卢诗霞, 陈婷婷, 林善施 CARVALHO, H.(2021). 理性的辉煌与局限——巴西利亚规划60年回溯 (The Glory and Limitations of Reason- A Retrospect of the 60 Years of the Brasilia Plan). 国际城市规划 (International Urban Planning Journal – Pre-print).
• FERREIRA, J., ROJAS, E., CARVALHO, H., RAGO, C., LUPO, L. (2020). Housing policies and the role of local governments in the Latin America: recent experiences. Environment & Urbanization, Vol 32, No 2, October 2020.
• TASAN-KOK, T.; BERTOLINI, L.; OLIVEIRA E COSTA, S.; LOTHAN, H.; CARVALHO, H.; DESMET, M. ; DE BLUST, S. ; DEVOS, T. ; KIMYON, D.; ZOETE, J. A. ; AHMAD, P. (2016). Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee: giving voice to planning practitioners. Planning Theory & Practice (Print), v. 17, p. 621-651, 2016.

Book Chapters

• CARVALHO, H., BELMONT, M. Insurgency, feminism and urban planning in conservative realities: Gabinetona’s resistance towards Belo Horizonte’s master plan. In: ROCCO, R., LOEWI, P. (orgs). How do you employ an insurgent planner? (in press)
• CARVALHO, H., ROYER, L., KARA-JOSE, B., ROCCO, R. Inequalities, social resilience and pandemics: the resistance of Paraisopolis slum, in São Paulo. In: RAJENDRAN, L. (org.). Learning resilience from the Global South. (in press).
• ROCCO, R.; KARA-JOSE, B., CARVALHO, H., ROYER, L. (2021). The Impacts of Socio-Spatial Inequity: COVID-19 in São Paulo. In: DOUCET, Brian. (org). Global Reflections on COVID-19 and Urban Inequalities Series, Volume 1, Community and Society. Bristol, Bristol University Press.

Papers presented in Conferences

• CARVALHO, H.; CHOPLIN, A. (2022). Are financialization and gentrification also present in Africa? Paper for congress. International Geographic Union. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France.
• CARVALHO, H. (2021). The production of space with Chinese characteristics. 5th Researching China Conference. University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil.
• CARVALHO, H. (2019). Housing production in the circuits of real estate and financial capitals reproduction in Latin America and Europe: the cases of Brazil, Mexico and France. FinGeo First Global Conference of Financial Geography. Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
• CARVALHO, H. (2014). Políticas de vivienda de interés social en la era de la acumulación financiera: un estudio comparado entre agentes y impactos en Brasil y México. XXXIII International Congress of LASA. San Juan, Porto Rico.
• CARVALHO, H. (2014). Land Rights and the Place of Social Housing in the City: The Experience of Sao Paulo, Brazil. International Sociological Association. Yokohama, Japan.
• CARVALHO, H., CALDEIRA, D. A. (2013). Housing under finance influence: the case of Sao Paulo, Brazil. International Sociological Association, RC43. University of Amsterdam, Centre of Urban Studies, The Netherlands.

Non-scientific papers

• CARVALHO, H. (in press). Chicago. In: Staszak, J.F.; Pieroni, R. Villes enchantées – in press.
• CARVALHO, H. (in press). La Montagne. In: Staszak, J.F.; Pieroni, R. Villes enchantées – in press.
• HIRATA, M. S.; CARVALHO, H. (2015). Desigualdade globalizada: a situação da população de rua no Japão (parte 2). In: O Trecheiro, Ano XXII ed. Março 2015. Editora Paulus, Sao Paulo.
• HIRATA, M. S.; CARVALHO, H. (2014). Desigualdade globalizada: a situação da população de rua no Japão (parte 1). In: O Trecheiro, Ano XXI, ed. Setembro-outubro 2014. Editora Paulus, Sao Paulo.

Events organization

• 2022    Université de Genève. Genève, Switzerland. African Urban Futures. – an event organized by professors Choplin, Péclard and Perrazone. Member of the organizing committee.
• 2019    Beijing Normal University. Beijing, China. FinGeo First Global Conference of Finance Geography. Chair of panel: Financing and Regional Development.
• 2016    HABITAT III – United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Quito – Equator. Organization, in partnership with the UN-Habitat team of the Networking Event “Place Matters: affordable social housing in the centre of cities”, with representatives of housing policies institutes from Mexico, Thailand, Burkina Faso and Nepal.
• 2015    LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION. XXXIII LASA International Congress. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Chair of the Panel Session “Neoliberalismo y cambios en las políticas de vivienda, energía y abastos”.