Dr Divine Asafo

Dr Divine Asafo is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Hull specialising in urban and development geography. His research focuses on urban and peri-urban development and change in Africa, with particular attention to the politics of land, housing development, informal urbanisation, and the governance of rapidly transforming city regions. He is especially interested in how everyday actors navigate urban change, negotiate access to land and housing, and respond to environmental and socio-economic vulnerabilities in African cities. His work also engages critically with questions of urban resilience, disaster risks, sustainability and inequality in contexts of accelerated urbanisation.

Theoretically, Divine’s work is grounded in critical urban geography and political ecology, drawing on perspectives from Southern urbanism, postcolonial urban studies and everyday governance to interrogate how power, inequality and exclusion are produced and contested in rapidly expanding African cities. His approach foregrounds the lived experiences of ordinary residents while situating them within the wider urban development processes shaped by competing interests, informality and institutional ambiguities, particularly within the rapidly expanding peri-urban spaces of African cities.

Methodologically, his work is informed by qualitative, participatory and interdisciplinary approaches that prioritise contextual understanding, lived experience and socially engaged scholarship. He employs qualitative and sometimes, mixed-methods research strategies to explore the intersections of land, housing, informality, governance and environmental change, often working collaboratively with local communities, researchers and policy actors. Empirically, his work focuses primarily on Ghana and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, engaging with both urban and peri-urban contexts and contributing to wider debates on urban futures, housing development, governance and sustainable development.

Divine’s doctoral research examined land conflicts and housing development in peri-urban Accra, Ghana, exploring how competing claims to land, informal practices and governance arrangements shape urban expansion and socio-environmental change. This foundational work continues to inform his current research on housing informality, alternative housing brokers and urban vulnerability. His recent research increasingly explores the role of informal intermediaries and everyday governance structures in shaping access to housing, land and peri-urban services.

Beyond his core research, Divine contributes advisory expertise to the British Academy’s Youth Futures programme, supporting the project ‘Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods: Unpacking Possibilities for Empowerment with Young Migrants in Ghana’, and has published collaboratively on young people’s meaningful involvement in migration research. He also served as Deputy Director of the Civil Society, Development and Democracy pathway of the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership, supporting and mentoring the next generation of social science researchers.

Prior to joining the University of Hull, Divine was working as a Human Geography Tutor at the Manchester Metropolitan University.