Department of Development Studies
Dr Matteo Rizzo
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Key information
Key information
- Roles
- Department of Development Studies Senior Lecturer in Development Studies Student experience Convenor Centre of African Studies Member
- Department
- Department of Development Studies
- Qualifications
- Laurea (Political Science with focus on Africa, Naples, L’Orientale), MSc (Development Studies, SOAS), PhD (History, SOAS)
- Building
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office
- 256
- Email address
- mr3@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone number
- 0207 8984836
Biography
Matteo Rizzo is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS University of London.
Matteo honed his interdisciplinary training in the study of the political economy of development through degrees in Political Sciences from "L'Orientale" (Naples, Italy) and in Development Studies and History from SOAS (MSc and PhD), where he also completed an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship. Matteo has taught at the LSE, at the African Studies Centre in Oxford, in Cambridge, where he was a Smuts Research Fellow in African Studies at the Centre of African Studies and in the Economics Department at SOAS. He also worked for three years as a policy advisor at Save the Children UK.
His work has been published in leading development studies and African studies journals, including the Review of African Political Economy, the Journal of Modern African Studies, African Affairs, Development and Change, the Journal of Development Studies and Work, Employment and Society. In 2017 Matteo’s long-term research on the political economy of public transport was published by Oxford University Press in the book Taken for a Ride: Grounding Neoliberalism, Precarious Labour, and Public Transport in an African Metropolis. Since 2018 Matteo has been researching digital capitalism, ride-hail apps and their impact on labour through mixed method research in 3 African cities: Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Nairobi.
Matteo is part of the Editorial Working Group of the Review of African Political Economy and has worked as a consultant for a number of organizations, including the International Transport Workers’ Federation, the ILO, SIDA and Oxfam GB.
At SOAS, Matteo teaches on cities and development, theories and key thinkers in development, and on the political economy of development. Matteo welcomes new PhD applications on the political economy of cities, especially of urban infrastructure; on urban labour; on public transport; and on digital technology and work.
Office hours
Research interests
- The gig economy and digital labour
- Cities
- Public transport
- Urban infrastructure
- Economic informality and labour markets
- Political economy of development
Geographical areas of expertise:
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tanzania
- South Africa
- Kenya
PhD Supervision
| Name | Title |
|---|---|
| Mr Prince Asafu-Adjaye | Trade Union Responses to Neoliberalism in Ghana |
| Mr Julian Manuel Goetz | The Impact of Informal and Rural Labour Markets on Poverty Reduction: A Mixed Methods Study of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Northwest Tanzania. |
| Dr Jesse Harber | The statecraft of large transport projects: Bus Rapid Transit in Johannesburg. (Commonwealth Commission studenship) |
| Jess Whelligan | Questioning BRTs: A win-win solution to public transport problems in developing countries? (ESRC-ITF collaborative studentship) |
Publications
Contact Matteo
- Telephone
