Linda J. Peake | EUC | York University

Professor, FRSC

Credentials

PhD Political Geography, Reading University
BA (Honours) Geography, Reading University

Research Keywords

Urban Studies; Feminist And Anti-Racist Geographies; Urban Geographies; Feminist Methodologies; Mental Health In The Academy; Guyana

Contact Information

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

416 736 2100

lpeake@yorku.ca

https://lpeake.info.yorku.ca/

Research Interests

Linda Peake FRSC is Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.She is a feminist urban geographer who has engaged in urban theory production and conducted empirically informed research on women in cities in both North America and the Anglo-speaking Caribbean, and in particular in Guyana, addressing issues confronting women in relation to economic policies, poverty, violence, and subject formation. She also has long standing interests in whiteness and on developing anti-racist practices in Geography and feminist methodologies, particularly in terms of the work these do in transnational feminist praxis. Her interests in knowledge production also extend to issues of engaging with people experiencing mental and emotional distress and she is co-founder and previous co-chair of the AAG Affinity Group on Mental Health. Until 2025 she was the Principal Investigator of Urbanization, Gender, and the global south: a transformative knowledge network (GenUrb) and a board member of the Urban Studies Foundation (2017-2026) and previous Director of the City Institute at York University (2013-2013). She is a previous editor of the journals Gender, Place and Culture and Social and Cultural Geography and her most recent publications include Decolonising Feminist Explorations of Urban Futures (with Nasya Ravazi, Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin and Elsa Koleth), Doing Feminist Urban Research: Insights from the GenUrb Project (with Araby Smyth and Nasya Razavi)and the Elgar Handbook on Gender and Cities (with Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin and Anindita Datta).Linda’s work has been recognised by York University with The Linda Peake Endowment Fund for Feminist Urban Research, York University President’s Research Excellence Award, and by the Canadian Association of Geographers with their main Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography and the AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors. In 2022 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Research Projects

Urbanization, gender, and the global south: a transformative knowledge network (GenUrb), PI Professor Linda Peake, 2017-2024, www.yorku.ca/genurb, @genurbnetwork (twitter)

Co-applicants – Dr. Beverley Mullings, Dr. Faranak Miraftab, Dr. Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyanking, Dr. Jack Gieseking, , Dr. Mudar Kassis, Dr. Sara Koopman, Dr. Anindita Datta, Dr. Michelle (Tsung-Yi) Huang

Collaborators: Dr. Cristina Temenos, Dr. Maria Esther Pozo, Dr. Natasha Aruri, Dr. Nazgol Bagheri, Dr. Richa Nagar, Dr. Sylvia Bawa, Dr. Andreas Bruck, Ms. Karen de Souza, Dr. Cindi Katz, Dr. Geraldine Pratt, Dr. Similolu Afonja, Dr. Susan Parnell, Dr. Swagata Basu

The ‘Urbanization, gender, and the global south: a transformative knowledge network’ (GenUrb) project is a SSHRC funded six-year global comparative research and public education project with over 35 feminist and academics and activists based in six cities in the global south (Cochabamba, Delhi, Georgetown, Ibadan, Ramallah, and Shanghai). Its aim is to investigate the gendered implications of urbanization to advance an understanding of practices of urban placemaking in the six cities are reconstituting gender relations and gendered rights to the city. The partnership aims to: conduct research on how gendered poverty is experienced in the lives of poor women in these cities; investigate how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and policies relating to women and cities map on to the everyday lives of these women; and to engage in public engagement initiatives as well as knowledge mobilization to promote inclusive, equitable and just urban development.

Summer Institute in Urban Studies (SIUS), PI, 2022

Co-applicants – Dr. Kevin Ward, Manchester University, and Dr. Matthew Siemiatycki, University of Toronto

In collaboration with Manchester University, the University of Toronto, and the City Institute, this SSHRC Connections grant will bring the Summer Institute in Urban Studies to York University in Summer 2022.

2020-21 York University – China Canada Initiative Fund, Women and urbanization in China: Building a transformative knowledge network, PI, 2020-2021

Co-applicant – Dr. Penn Ip, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

This project brought a network of Chines feminist urban scholars from China, Europe and North America for 3 workshops held virtually at York University in August 2021 to discuss gender and urbanization in Chinese cities. A manuscript is forthcoming with Routledge, Urbanizing China in the New Era: Gender and Urban Placemaking(editor, Prof. Penn Ip).

SSHRC Connections Grant, Feminist Explorations of Urban Futures International Conference (FEUF), co-applicant, 2019-2020
PI – Dr. Elsa Koleth, PDV, GenUrb, York University

This project brough GenUrb’s Mid-term international conference, Feminist Explorations of Urban Futures Conference, to York University in September 2019. A theme issue stemming from this conference is forthcoming in Urban Geography (2022).

Research Output

Books Edited

2022 Bain, A. and Peake, L. (eds.) Urbanization in a Global Context. 2nd edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press

2021 Peake, L., Koleth, E., Tanyildiz, G., S. Narayanareddy, R. N., and Patrick, D. (eds) A Feminist Urban Theory for our Time: Rethinking Social Reproduction and the Urban. London: Antipode Book Series, Wiley Press

2017 Bain, A. and Peake, L. (eds) Urbanization in a Global Context. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Journal issues edited
2023 Co-editor with Koleth, E., Razavi, N. and Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, O. Introduction: “Decolonising feminist explorations of urban futures”. This is the introduction to a special issue of Urban Geography 44 (9) on “Decolonising feminist explorations of urban futures”.

2019 Co-editor with Prof. S. Ruddick, Prof. R. Reddy, Prof. R. Tchoukaleyska, Mr. D. Patrick, and Mr. G. Tanyildiz, of a theme issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space on “Placing Planetary Urbanization in Other Fields of Vision”

Book chapters

2022 Bain, A. and Peake, L. “Introduction: Urbanization and urban geographies” in Bain, A., and Peake, L. (eds) Urbanization in a Global Context. 2nd edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-15

2022 Peake, L. and Pratt, G. “Why women in cities matter” in Bain, A. and Peake, L. (eds) Urbanization in a Global Context. 2nd edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

2022 Peake, L. and Sheppard, E. “USA and Anglo-Canada” in Berg, L., Best, U., Gilmartin, M., and Larsen, H. (eds) Placing Critical Geography: Historical Geographies of Critical Geography. London: Routledge, pp. 44-65.

2021 Adeniyi Ogunyankin, G. and Peake, L. “The Importance of a Gendered Analysis of COVID-19”. In Andrews, G. J., Crooks V., Pearce, J., and Messina, J.P. (eds) COVID-19 and Similar Futures: Pandemic Geographies. Springer Press, pp.341-348.

2021 Tanyildiz, G., Peake, L., Koleth, E., S. Narayanareddy, R. N., Patrick, D., and Ruddick, S. “A feminist urban theory for our time: rethinking social reproduction, the urban and its constitutive outside”. In Peake, L., Koleth, E., Tanyildiz, G., S., Narayanareddy, R. N., and Patrick, D. (eds) A feminist urban theory for our time: rethinking social reproduction and the urban. (London: Antipode Book Series, Wiley Press), pp.1-41.

2021 Ogunyankin, G. and Peake, L.“Tiwa’s morning”. In McFarlane, C. and M. Lancione (eds) The Handbook of Global Urbanism: Essays on the City and its Future (London: Routledge). pp.116-123.

2019 Peake, L. and Mullings, B. “Mental Health” in Antipode Editorial Collective: Tariq Jazeel, Andy Kent, Katherine McKittrick, Nik Theodore, Sharad Chari, Paul Chatterton, Vinay Gidwani, Nik Heynen, Wendy Larner, Jamie Peck, Jenny Pickerill, Marion Werner and Melissa W. Wright. Keywords in Radical Geographical Thought: Antipode at 50. (London: Wiley, Antipode Book Series), pp. 175-180. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12449

2019 Shepherd, E. and Peake, L. “The Union of Socialist Geographers” in Antipode Editorial Collective: Tariq Jazeel, Andy Kent, Katherine McKittrick, Nik Theodore, Sharad Chari, Paul Chatterton, Vinay Gidwani, Nik Heynen, Wendy Larner, Jamie Peck, Jenny Pickerill, Marion Werner and Melissa W. Wright. Keywords in Radical Geographical Thought: Antipode at 50 (London: Wiley, Antipode Book Series), pp. 264-268. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12439.

Refereed journal articles

2023 Koleth, E., Peake, L., Razavi, N. and Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G. Decolonising feminist urban futures. Urban Geography 44 (9): 1843- 1852. DOI.org/10.1080/02723638.2023.2257473.

2023 Razavi, N., Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G., Balogun, D., Basu, S., Datta, A., de Souza, K., Koleth, E., Ip, P., Marcus, J., Miraftab, F., Mullings, B., Nmormah, S., Pardo Burgoa, S., and Peake, L. ‘Everyday urbanisms in the pandemic city: a feminist comparative study of the gendered experiences of Covid-19 in Southern cities’. Social and Cultural Geography. 24 (3-4): 582-599.DOI.org/10.1080/14649365.2022.2104355.

2020 Peake, L. “Urban feminist imaginaries for the ‘21^st century of the city’”. GRAMMA: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 27: 37-61 (Invited paper for theme issue on The Cultural Politics of Space, (eds) Rapatzikou, T., E. Yiannopoulou).

2019 Peake, L. and K. England. (What Geographers Should Know About) The State of U.S. and Canadian Academic Professional Associations’ Engagement with Mental Health Practices and Policies. The Professional Geographer 72 (1): 37-53. DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2019.1611455.

2019 Peake, L., Patrick, D., Reddy, R. N., Tanyildiz, G. S., Ruddick, S., Tchoukaleyska, R. Placing planetary urbanization in other fields of vision. Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 36 (3): 374-386.

2019 Ruddick, S., Peake L., Tanyildiz G. S., and Patrick, D. Planetary urbanization: An urban theory for our time? Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36(3): 387–404.

2016 Peake, L. “The twenty-first century quest for feminism and the global urban,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40 (1): 219-227. DOI:10.1111/1468-2427.12276. Part of theme issue edited by Ananya Roy and Jennifer Robinson, on “Global Urbanisms and the Nature of Urban Theory”

2016 Peake, L. “On feminism and feminist allies in urban geography,” Urban Geography 37 (6): 830-838. DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2015.1105484.

2016 Peake, L., and Mullings, B. Critical Reflections on Mental and Emotional Distress in the Academy. ACME. 15(2);253-284.

2016 Mullings, B., Peake, L.,and Parizeau, K. Cultivating an Ethic of Wellness in Geography. The Canadian Geographer 60 (2): 161-67. DOI: 10.1111/cag.12275

Recognition & Awards

2023: President’s Research Excellence Award, York University
2023: American Association of Geographers (AAG) Lifetime Acheivement Honors
2022: Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
2022: Dean’s Research Excellence Award, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University
2022: Enhancing Diversity Award, AAG (with Dr. Beverley Mullings and Dr. Kate Parizeau) for work on mental health in the academy
2020 – 2021: York University Research Leader
2020: Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography, Canadian Association of Geographers (highest award given for research)
2019: Inaugural Solidarity Award, AAG Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers to the Past and Present Editors of Gender, Place and Culture
2017 – 2018: York University Research Leader
2016: Distinguished Scholar Award, Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group, AAG
2015: Jan Monk Service Award, Geographic Perspectives On Women (GPOW) Specialty Group, AAG
2013 – 2014: Award for Distinction in Research, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University