Dr Sara Fregonese BA, MA, PhD

Dr Sara Fregonese

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

Contact details

Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
蝴蝶直播
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, 蝴蝶直播, 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

Sara is Director of the MSc Research in Human Geography and of the MA Cities, Sustainability, and Wellbeing programmes and she leads on the following modules in the School:

  • 40259 LM Research Project
  • 40221 LM Qualitative Research Methods
  • 36270 LH Geopolitics and global challenges. Middle East East/Russia/Cities

She also contributes teaching to the following modules:

  • 37690 LI Political Geographies

Research

Awards

2020听 听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听

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

2016-2017听 British Academy 鈥� 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听 British Academy. Small Research Grant (SG102042): 拢 7,301 Views from the Holiday Inn. War, urban landscape, and memory in Beirut

2009-2012听 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听听 UKRI-AHRC, Research Networking grant (Highlight Notice for International Development) AH/R004331/1听Humanities for resilience

2017-2019听 Initiative d鈥橢xcellence 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:

  • Member, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) peer review college
  • Remote referee, European Research Council (ERC)
  • Reviewer, Research Council of Finland

Peer reviewer 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, . International Library of Human Geography, 1st edn, I.B. Tauris. <>

Article

Benjamin, C, Berlin, S, Fregonese, S & Simpson, P 2025, '', City.

Fregonese, S, Simpson, P, Masson, D, Runkel, S, Benjamin, CA, Berlin, S, Ciax, K & Drongiti, A 2024, '', Progress in Human Geography, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 752-778.

Laketa, S & Fregonese, S 2023, '', Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 1521 - 1535.

Fregonese, S & Laketa, S 2022, '', Political Geography, vol. 96, 102569.

Fregonese, S 2021, '', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 26鈥�41.

Chapter

Fregonese, S 2024, . in K Dombroski, M Goodwin, J Qian, A Williams & P Cloke (eds), Introducing Human Geographies. 4th edn, Routledge, pp. 679-692.

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

Fregonese, S 2019, . in Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities. Routledge.

Book/Film/Article review

Fregonese, S 2018, '', Journal of Tourism History, vol. 10, no. 1.

Comment/debate

Fregonese, S 2025, '', Political Geography.

Fregonese, S 2020, '', Antipode.

Commissioned report

Fregonese, S 2019, .

Editorial

Laketa, S, Fregonese, S & Masson, D 2021, '', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-8.

Special issue

Laketa, S, Fregonese, S & Masson, D (eds) 2021, '', Conflict and Society, vol. 7, no. 1. <>