Bas Spierings is Associate Professor in Urban Geography (of Consumption, Retail and Public Space) at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University. In addition, he is Director of the PhD training program for the Netherlands Graduate School of Urban and Regional Research (NETHUR) - a cooperation of the universities of Amsterdam, Delft, Eindhoven, Groningen, Nijmegen and Utrecht. Prior to joining Utrecht University, he studied at Tilburg University and Trinity College Dublin, and received his PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen - for the dissertation Cities, Consumption and Competition: the Image of Consumerism and the Making of City Centres. Moreover, he was Postdoctoral researcher at Groningen University and visiting scholar at universities in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Stockholm and Ankara.
Combining urban geography, cultural studies, political economy and urban design, his research focuses on the nexus between consumption, retail and public space – with specific interests in city centre competition, commercial streets, retail development, touristification and commercial gentrification, urban tourism, leisure shopping, walking mobilities, and encounters with difference. He analyses how urban competition for mobile consumers and consumption capital culminates in the planning and management of public space with commercial objectives, and what the increasing commercialisation and commodification of urban public space implies for practices and experiences of various social groups - for processes of social interaction, differentiation, and in/exclusion in particular. Acknowledging his research expertise, Bas is member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Tourism Research and the Space and Culture journal.
Combining qualitative and quantitative methods - with specific interests in qualitative participatory and visual methods, including go-alongs, mental mapping and photovoice - his research develops around the following interrelated themes. See also the research tab for a selection of research projects per theme with funding granted by a variety of international and national funding agencies.
+ Urban tourism and commercial gentrification, with a focus on how a variety of public spaces (located in downtown areas, residential neighborhoods, and suburban settings) transform and gentrify when they become planned and managed as important sites and objects of tourism and retail consumption.
+ Consumption spaces and everyday mobilities, with a focus on how diverse urbanites perform and experience a variety of mobilities (including walking and cycling) through multiple public spaces, while negotiating, assembling and (re)making their preferred everyday space for leisure, shopping and recreation.
+ Differentiation processes and public space, with a focus on implications of the commodification of urban public space, including their planning and regulation with commercial objectives, for processes of social interaction, differentiation, and in/exclusion (of various user groups).