Dr Sara Fregonese BA, MA, PhD

Dr Sara Fregonese

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Associate Professor of Political Geography

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 3635
Email
s.fregonese@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Fregonese is a political geographer with a background in Middle Eastern Studies. Her research is about the relations between geopolitics, security and urban space, and how geopolitical situations and events impact on the everyday life of cities, their built environment and residents. 

Qualifications

Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, University of Birmingham, 2020
Member of the Higher Education Academy, 2020
PhD in Geography, Newcastle University, 2009
MA Cross-Mediterranean Cooperation, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 2005
BA in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 2003

Teaching

I am a member of the Higher Education Academy and my teaching practice aims to foster understanding of the spatial and urban implications of armed conflict and terrorism. My teaching draws heavily on my research and produces an interdisciplinary and case-oriented learning and teaching experience for students. I lead and/or contribute to the following modules in the School:

Module leadership:

40259 LM Research Project

40221 LM Qualitative Research Methods

36270 LH Geopolitics and global challenges. Middle East East/Russia/Cities

Module teaching contribution:

37690 LI Political Geographies

38627 LH Human Geography or Planning Research

37141 LI Dissertation Labs for Human Geography and Planning

Research

Awards

2020   RGS-IBG Political Geography Research Group / Political Geography Journal book award for War and the city: urban geopolitics in Beirut (Bloomsbury 2019).

 

Research grants received/Principal Investigator 

2021-2024 UKRI - ESRC Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences (ES/V01353X/1)  Atmospheres of (counter)terrorism in European cities. (Co-funded with ANR and DFG)

2016-2017  British Academy – Council for British Research in the Levant Pilot Study Award. How a sectarian territory was made: mapping the Dual Qaimaqamiyya of Mount Lebanon (1842-1860)

2011-2012  British Academy. Small Research Grant (SG102042): £ 7,301 Views from the Holiday Inn. War, urban landscape, and memory in Beirut

 2009-2012  British Academy. Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF/2009/428): Geographical Perspectives on War and Cities: the case of Beirut

 

Research grants received/Co-Investigator

2018-2020   UKRI-AHRC, Research Networking grant (Highlight Notice for International Development) AH/R004331/1 Humanities for resilience

2017-2019  Initiative d’Excellence Paris/Seine. Living in the city with terror: what are the effects of terrorism on urban atmospheres?

Other activities

  • 2016 -  Chair of the Political Geography Research Group, Royal Geographical Society
  • 2016 -   Member, Editorial Board, Fennia
  • 2015 -   Foreign member of the board of studies, Doctoral Programme in Geopolitics and Geoeconomics, Niccolò Cusano University, Rome, Italy 
  • 2014 -   Editorial board, Geopolitics journal
  • 2014 -   Editorial board, “Geopolitics, bodies, materials” book series, Rowman and Littlefield International 
  • 2012 -   Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers. 

Referee for:

  • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
  • Italy's National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) 

Peer review for:

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Geographical Journal, Cultural Geographies, Journal of Urban Technology, Security Dialogue, Urban Geography, Geography Compass, Geopolitics, Progress in Planning, Political Geography.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Fregonese, S 2019, War and the city. Urban geopolitics in Lebanon. International Library of Human Geography, 1st edn, I.B. Tauris. <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/war-and-the-city-9781780767147/>

Article

Fregonese, S, Simpson, P, Masson, D, Runkel, S, Benjamin, CA, Berlin, S, Ciax, K & Drongiti, A 2024, 'Atmospheric geographies of (counter)terrorism', Progress in Human Geography, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 752-778. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325241268951

Laketa, S & Fregonese, S 2023, 'Lockdown and the intimate entanglements of terror, virus, and militarism', Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 1521 - 1535. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544221143041

Fregonese, S & Laketa, S 2022, 'Urban atmospheres of terror', Political Geography, vol. 96, 102569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102569

Fregonese, S 2021, 'Shockwaves. Atmospheres beyond the conflict city/ordinary city divide', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 26–41. https://doi.org/10.3167/arcs.2021.070103

Fregonese, S 2017, 'Affective atmospheres, urban geopolitics and conflict (de)escalation in Beirut', Political Geography, vol. 61, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.04.009

Chapter

Fregonese, S 2024, Critical Geopolitics. in K Dombroski, M Goodwin, J Qian, A Williams & P Cloke (eds), Introducing Human Geographies. 4th edn, Routledge, pp. 679-692. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429265853-59

Fregonese, S 2020, Atmospheric Urban Geopolitics. in Being Urban. Community, Conflict and Belonging in the Middle East. Routledge.

Fregonese, S 2019, “A demarcation in the hearts”: everyday urban frontiers in Beirut. in Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315625164-12

Book/Film/Article review

Fregonese, S 2018, 'Holidays in the danger zone. Entanglements of war and tourism', Journal of Tourism History, vol. 10, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2018.1452434

Comment/debate

Fregonese, S 2020, 'Intervention – “Elements of Contestation: Sectarianism, Extractive Violence, and the Forensics of Lebanon’s October Revolution”', Antipode.

Fregonese, S 2017, 'English: lingua franca or disenfranchising?', Fennia, vol. 195, no. 2, pp. 194–196. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.67662

Commissioned report

Fregonese, S 2019, How a Sectarian Territory was Made: (Re) Mapping the Dual Kaimakamate of Mount Lebanon (1842–1860). https://doi.org/10.1080/17527260.2017.1556930

Editorial

Laketa, S, Fregonese, S & Masson, D 2021, 'Introduction: Experiential landscapes of terror', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.3167/arcs.2021.070101

Special issue

Laketa, S, Fregonese, S & Masson, D (eds) 2021, 'I. Special Section: Experiential Landscapes of Terror', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1. <https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/conflict-and-society/7/1/conflict-and-society.7.issue-1.xml>

View all publications in research portal