infrapolitics

About me

León Felipe Téllez Contreras, profile photo
León Felipe Téllez Contreras

I am a Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, in the School of Education and Social Sciences (Lanarkshire Campus).

Since my PhD, I have been consolidating my research agenda around the study of grassroots organisations and subaltern collectives and their engagements in urban politics and infrastructure governance.

My research investigates the contentious politics and repertoires of collective action of marginalised urban actors as they emerge and consolidate around urban infrastructure. This work examines four critical issues in urban politics: 1) the subaltern’s instances of political socialisation and organisation; 2) their influence in law and policy-making and institutional design; 3) their role in reproducing and contesting infrastructural configurations. My research engages in current debates about subaltern struggles for the right to subsistence, infrastructure and stay put.

In 2021, I was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue this work in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield. I also completed my PhD in Geography at the University of Leeds in 2021. Previously, I was awarded an MSc in Social Anthropology (CIESAS-DF) and a BSc in Sociology (UNAM). In Mexico, where my academic career started, I had the opportunity to engage in and contribute to various research and editorial projects.

This work helped me forge my interest in the urban and a portfolio of academic publications. Urban regeneration and nostalgia, the grassroots understandings of the right to the city, the production of public space, informality and the right to subsistence, urban contestation, and football are among the topics discussed in this body of work.

Contact me via email or on Twitter.

ORCID iD icon https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1468-4119