Samuel Giraut MA
Assistant / PhD candidate
Assistant / PhD candidate
Urban Studies
Hebelstrasse 3
4056
Basel
Schweiz
Curriculum Vitae
Samuel is a PhD candidate in Urban Studies at the University of Basel under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kenny Cupers. His proposal questions the concept of public space and its implications in post-apartheid Cape Town. Building on Southern urbanism and post-colonial literature, his project investigates the making of contested and dynamic spaces of encounter that are produced through interferences and interplay between everyday practices and top-down urban policies.
Samuel pursued his Bachelor's Studies in Geography and Urban Planning in Grenoble and Bordeaux. He graduated with a Master of Geopolitics and Political Geography at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in 2021. Samuel completed two Master theses focusing respectively on the intricate role of private security in the spatial production of hyper-securitised (semi)public spaces in post-apartheid Johannesburg (South Africa) and on the extent of social action networks in the socio-political space of the fragmented Northern neighbourhoods of Marseille (France). Prior to starting his PhD, Samuel participated in the action-research project GRAPHITE "Youth and the City" with research laboratory LPED (University of Aix-Marseille). He also worked in an associative shared space committed to tackling issues of discriminations and inequalities in Marseille. Since October 2023, he has been awarded with the Start-up Stipend from the Graduate School of Social Science at the University of Basel.