Fizzah is a PhD candidate in Human Geography and Urban Studies. Her research focuses on speculative practices in residential real estate in Lahore, Pakistan, and examines their links with real estate growth, public investment in housing, and the market for adequate housing.
Fizzah has a background in urban planning, and has nine years of research and project management experience. Her research interests focus on questions of land, housing, transport, and the politics of infrastructure development. She has worked on affordable housing development, gender equity in transport planning, and dispossession in rapidly urbanizing cities of the Global South.
Most recently, she worked as a researcher on the project ‘Kinship and Care after Dislocation in Urban South Asia: Colombo and Lahore Compared,’ as part of the British Academy’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) on Cities and Infrastructure. She is also co-lead of the Pakistan team for the project ‘Navigating the grid in the ‘world-class city: poverty, gender and access to services in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka,’ under the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) GCRF ‘(Re)Thinking the Off-Grid City’ programme.
Fizzah holds a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with a specialization in International Development Planning, and a Bachelors in Social Sciences from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Research interests
- Land and housing
- Gender and mobility
- Dispossession and resettlement
- Cities and Infrastructure
- Urban inequality and politics
Provisional thesis title
Speculation and Shelter in the Global South: The Case of Housing in Lahore, Pakistan
Publications
- Democracy, Legitimacy, and Mega-Project Politics: The Evolution of Lahore’s First BRT Corridor. Antipode. Fizzah Sajjad and Umair Javed. 2022. .
- Victim, broker, activist, fixer: Surviving dispossession in working class. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Ammara Maqsood and Fizzah Sajjad. 2021. .
- Discipline in Sri Lanka, punish in Pakistan: neoliberalism, governance, and housing compared, (w/ Dr. Asha Abeyasekera, Dr. Ammara Maqsood, Iromi Perera, Dr. Jonathan Spencer), Journal of the British Academy September 2019. .
- Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Mobility, policy brief and policy paper, supported by the Punjab Commission on the Status for Women (PCSW), January 2019. .
- Resource Urbanisms: Asia’s divergent city models of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Hong Kong,” report commissioned by the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Middle East Center, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities, November 2017. .
- High Streets for All, report commissioned by the Greater London Authority/Mayor of London , ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities & We Made That, September 2017. Read report.
- Gender Equity in Transport Planning: Improving Women’s Access to Public Transport in Pakistan, policy paper, supported by the International Growth Centre, CERP, March 2017. .
Media
- Non-fiction: Urban mobility and its discontents. .
- Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policies – The Need for a New Approach. .
- Cities: Who makes planning decisions for us? Dawn. .
- Who will benefit from relief package for construction industry — the vulnerable or builders and developers? Dawn. .
- Losing a home in Colombo and Lahore. Himal Southasian. .
- A review of Michael Levien’s Dispossession Without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India. Jamhoor. .
Scholarships
- Fulbright Graduate Scholarship 2012-2014
Affiliations/memberships
- Research Fellow, Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre, Lahore University of Management Sciences
- Graduate Researcher, Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, Pakistan
Skills
ArcGIS, QGIS, NviVo
Supervisors
Prof Claire Mercer
Dr Romola Sanyal