Staff profile

I am an urban geographer with a focus on home, housing, and housing insecurity. Grounded in feminist and participatory methodologies, my research focuses on how inequalities are lived and experienced through the space of home to explore the everyday impacts of economic change and urban processes. 

I joined the Department of Geography at Durham University as a PhD researcher in October 2026, funded by the ESRC. My PhD research is entitled ‘Searching for a home: exploring young people’s experiences of navigating London’s private rented sector’ and supervised by supervised by Professor Colin McFarlane and Dr Jonny Turnbull.

Prior to joining the department, I worked in sustainability in the built environment for four years. I completed an MPhil in Geography at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Professor Mia Gray and funded by the Trinity Hall Taylor Atlantic Studentship. My research examined cumulative affects of austerity and neoliberal housing insecurity on marginalised residents’ unequal experiences of home in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. I hold a BA in Geography from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.

Alongside Sam Allen, I am the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Routes: The Journal for Student Geographers. Routes is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to providing a platform for student geographers to share their work, aiming to include student knowledge in academic geography. Through this role, I am interested in supporting emerging geographical voices and broadening opportunities for students to contribute to geographical research.

Research

I. Searching for a home 

My PhD research explores the process of searching for a home in London. While many drivers of London’s housing crisis are well-documented, the process of searching for a home remains under-researched. However, searching is a key interface through which people interact with London’s housing crisis.

My research draws upon feminist participatory methodologies to explore how young people experience searching in London’s private rented sector. Through these participatory methods, my research aims to centre young people’s experiences and stories of searching. In doing so, my research contributes a novel focus on searching as a critical process through which housing inequality and crisis are produced, experienced, and contested.

II. Home, housing, and the city

I have broader interests in questions around housing and home in the city, particularly the processes through which urban homes are made and unmade. My earlier research with unhoused residents in north London developed the concept of home(un)making to explore the continual making and unmaking of home, and its role in shaping marginalised urban residents’ experiences of precarity in the contemporary city.

My current research in this area develops the concept of home(un)making through furthering the relational understanding of urban homes. Together with Dr Sam Strong, our research explores how the making of home for some urban residents may constitute the unmaking of home for others. Drawing on research across Newham and Kensington & Chelsea, we explore the diverse registers of home(un)making and the unequal experiences of urban precarity they produce. 

Running through my work is a broader interest in how we understand geographical research in the city. My research draws on feminist, participatory, and digital methods to understand everyday experiences of urban processes and inequalities. I am particularly interested in diverse different methodologies and open research practices can create space for creating novel understandings of the urban. 

III. Geographies of impact

I am also interested in understanding how geographers conceptualise and practice research impact. Together with Dr Jonny Turnbull and Dr Caitlin Hafferty, I conducted a large-scale survey of human geographers to ask how they understand ‘impact’ and their experiences of working on impact within the context of the impact agenda in the UK academy. Combining survey responses with interviews of nearly 30 human geographers from across the UK, this research aims to explore the diverse practices through which geographers seek to create meaningful change in the context of the Research Excellence Framework. The research is currently being prepared for publication. 

More broadly, alongside Dr. Caitlin Hafferty, I hosted a participatory workshop session at the RGS Annual International Conference 2026 entitled ‘Geographies of impact’ which aimed to foster open, critical, and constructive discussion about how geography might cultivate more inclusive, diverse, and imaginative approaches to research impact. 

Publications

Paul, J., 2023. ‘My room is like my sanctuary’: Exploring homelessness and home(un)making in the austere city. Area, 55(1), pp.150-159. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12830

Paul, J., 2020. Where is the economy? Towards an everyday epistemology of economic geography. Routes, 1(1), pp.74-83. DOI: https://routesjournal.org/2020/08/16/r2015-2/