Contact Information
1301 W. Green St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Biography
I am a human geographer with teaching and research interests in the areas of urban, economic and development geography. Most of my life has been spent in Southern Africa (Zimbabwe where I grew up, then South Africa since university). But the Midwest is becoming my third home, working now at UIUC and having done my PhD at the University of Minnesota. Prior to coming to UIUC, I was a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 2017-2020, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Gauteng City Region Observatory in 2016.
Research Interests
Developer-driven housing in the Global South
Southern Africa
Critical geographies of property
Race and real estate
Provincializing global urbanism
Provincializing urban political economy
Pluralizing southern urbanism
Research Description
My doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on developer-driven housing for a growing Black middle class on the edges of Johannesburg, South Africa, and what these suburban spaces teach us about 'emerging market' middle-class housing as a new asset class; about race, real estate and post-apartheid socio-spatial change, and about urban political economy and urban planning.
My current research projects extend these interests by investigating the financialization of affordable rental housing and senior housing in South Africa, as well as the afterlives of and alternatives to developer-driven urbanism for the aspirant and middle classes of South Africa and elsewhere.
I work with qualitative methods, heterodox approaches, and predominantly mid-level concepts to grapple with the multiscalar and mundane processes at work in property projects in highly unequal, but also ‘ordinary’ cities.
Education
Ph.D., University of Minnesota
M.A., University of Cape Town
B.Soc.Sci., University of Cape Town
Additional Campus Affiliations
Affiliate, Center for African Studies
Affiliate, Global Studies
Recent Publications
Harrison, K. & Butcher, S. (2025). Financialization, affordable housing and urban governance: a spatio-temporal analysis of four South African REITs. Urban Geography, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2025.2486995
Butcher, S. (2023). Making Land ‘Developable’ for Market-Driven Affordable Housing in Gauteng, South Africa. In M. Rubin, S. Charlton & N. Klug (eds) Housing in African Cities: a lens on urban governance. Springer. 65-84. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37408-1_4
Butcher, S. (2022). The Economy: Metaphors and Models of Social Change. In R. Ballard, & C. Barnett (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social Change (pp. 219-231). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351261562-21
Butcher, S. (2021). New Ward for a New Johannesburg? Reformatting Belonging and Boundaries in the City’s South. Urban Forum, 32(2), 183-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-021-09426-8
Butcher, S. (2020). Appropriating rent from greenfield affordable housing: developer practices in Johannesburg. Environment and Planning A, 52(2): 337-361. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19895278
Ballard, R. & Butcher, S. (2020). Introduction: Comparing the relational work of developers. Editorial for theme issue of Environment and Planning A, 52(2): 266-276. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19893684
Butcher, S. (2020). Creating a gap that can be filled: Constructing and territorializing the affordable housing submarket in Gauteng, South Africa. Environment and Planning A, 52(1): 173-199. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x19885391
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