Sebastiaan Bierema is a Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago. He has a background in political theory and recently completed his PhD at the University of Galway. His thesis explored the parallels between populism and early twentieth-century utopianism, with a specific focus on urban spaces and ideology.
His research and teaching interests are in cities and the built environment, urban spaces and hostile architecture, democratic theory, utopianism, populism, and conspiracy theories.
He works with the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities on the Governance Strand of the Public Housing & Urban Regeneration: Maximising Wellbeing research programme and is currently looking at the financial models in public and community housing.