Hanae Soma
Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning
Hanae is a doctoral researcher in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. Key areas of interest: urban informality, gender and planning, gender and development, everyday politics, feminist methods, qualitative methods
In her current project, Hanae focuses on informal urbanism through a gender lens, exploring how space, place, and everyday practices intersect. The study asks: what are women’s roles in alternative systems of property governance in urban informal social settings and what forms of power do they contribute to? Her research aims to uncover gendered experiences of property governance in informal social settings of urban areas in Bangladesh and Ghana.
Hanae holds an M.A. in Urban Design and Planning from the University of Sheffield with Distinction where she was also awarded the ADH Crook Prize for Contributions Towards Social Justice in Planning. Hanae is also a member of the Informal Sustainability Lab at School for Environment and Sustainability.
Publications
Soma, H., Sukhwani, V. & Shaw, R. (2022). An Approach to Determining the Linkage Between Livelihood Assets and the Housing Conditions in Urban Slums of Dhaka. Journal of Urban Management, 11(1), 23-36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jum.2021.08.006
Soma, H. (2022). Place Identities of Japanese Social Housing (Danchi): The Role of Urban Design in Creating a ‘Place’. Space for Species: Redefining Spatial Justice – Book of Proceedings, 34(2), 384–399.
Conference Presentations
“The Role of Urban Design in Creating a ‘Place’: Placemaking activity by residents of a social housing in Japan,” Ordinary Cities in Exceptional Times RC21 2022. Athens, Greece. August 2022.
“Place Identitis of Japanese Social Housing (Danchi): The Role of Urban Design in Creating a ‘Place,” AESOP Conference 2022 Space for Species: Redefining Spatial Justice. Online. July 2022.
“Assemblages of informal housing,” International Conference on Urban Affairs, Cities on the Edge. New York, US. April 2024.
