Thomas Betschart (Dr. des.) is an urban scholar and geographer whose work examines the socio‐spatial dynamics of infrastructure and urbanism in sub‐Saharan Africa and Europe. His research interests include the politics of large‐scale, state‐led infrastructure investments (roads, logistics, industrial parks), provisional spatial activations and how both permanent and interim interventions mediate governance practices, resource distribution and social relations.

From 2019 to 2024, Thomas conducted SNSF-funded doctoral research in Ethiopia’s Sidama Region, where he investigated how newly built roads and industrial parks reshape territorial governance at resource frontiers. Through extensive fieldwork he traced how infrastructure‐driven urbanization produces shifts in local decision-making, access to resources and social hierarchies. His work contributes to debates in urban studies, political geography and critical infrastructure studies by unpacking the material and political dimensions of infrastructure‐led development.

Since January 2025, Thomas has directed a Fondation Botnar–funded project on intermediary urbanism in Switzerland and beyond. In this capacity, he works with local municipalities, NGOs, local stakeholders and planners to study temporary spatial activations as catalysts for social innovation, governance experimentation and economic diversification. The project extends his analysis of permanent infrastructure to the intermediary urban. By focusing on incremental urbanism in Europe, he seeks to foster epistemological exchange between Global South and Global North approaches to urbanism.

Thomas holds a PhD in Urban Studies from the University of Basel (2024) and an MA in Geography, Linguistics, and Modern History from the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (2013). Prior to joining the Urban Studies Division at the University of Basel, he held research assistantships at the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment in Bern (FOEN) and at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and conducted extensive fieldwork in connection with international technical development assistance in the urban and peri-urban areas of Lusaka, Zambia.

The politics of large‐scale, state‐led infrastructure investments (roads, logistics, industrial parks), provisional spatial activations and how both permanent and interim interventions mediate governance practices, resource distribution and social relations.

• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Europe