Fiona Anciano

Fiona Anciano is an Associate Professor in Political Studies and founder of the Politics and Urban Governance Research Group (PUG) at the University of the Western Cape, and a Visiting Researcher at University West, Sweden.

She is a qualitative researcher with an interest in urban governance, democratisation, citizenship and civil society. Working with student teams, she conducts research in informal settlements on urban democracy.

Fiona has managed 11 grant projects in Cape Town over the last eight years and has produced numerous local and international publications, including a co-authored book Democracy Disconnected: Participation and Governance in a City of the South, in 2019 and edited the 2021 book Political Values and Narratives of Resistance: Social Justice and the Fractured Promises of Post-colonial States both published in the United Kingdom by Routledge.

She completed her MSc and PhD in Political Studies at the University of London, with her doctoral research focusing on the link between social movements, democracy and socio-economic inequality.