Frida Timan is an urban geographer and ethnographer. Her work is dedicated to uncovering how law and legal processes play out in space and become formatted both in relation to everyday interpersonal exchanges and high-level urban planning goals. Her work is deeply rooted in critical legal geography. In addition to this perspective, Frida contributes to debates in sensory/affective urbanism and settler colonial studies.
In her doctoral work, Frida uncovered the legal rule constitutive of self-proclaimed progressive, livable and settler colonial Vancouver. Through a critical legal geographic study of event permitting, this research project demonstrated the hierarchies instilled in space through permissive and affective legal rule specific to the self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ city. Where permitting has previously only been researched in high-profile cases of overt spatial exclusion, Frida’s work demonstrates the production of inequality through permitting where such overt exclusions are absent, and permitting may appear apolitical as a result. Frida’s PhD dissertation was submitted in September 2024.
In the academic year 2024-25, Frida works as Education Innovation Analyst and Class Teacher at the LSE. In addition to teaching and conducting pedagogy enhancement projects, Frida continues research on the legal regulation of permitted spaces in urban sidewalks. Frida’s research has been published in Geoforum, and she has presented at multiple conferences, including AAG and First Annual Conference of Critical Legal Geography. In 2022, she won the award for “Best Student Paper” at the conference of Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. In addition, Frida has worked as a consultant on research and urban planning.
Frida has experience of teaching and lecturing at both the postgraduate and undergraduate level. In 2021, Frida was a runner-up for Inclusive Teaching and Exceptional Teaching in an Unprecedented Year at the LSESU Student-led Teaching Awards.
Research interests:
Policing of public space
Urban leisure space
Material implications of urban self-regard
Carceral and legal geographies
Urban social justice
Positions held:
Organizer and participant of the reading group “Feminist Research Methods”
Publications
Timan, Frida. (2021). This is a very kind space: Vibes, enjoyment and inclusionary control in a fortified Cape Town market. Geoforum. Vol. 119. pp. 152-162. Read article.