Dr Abi O'Connor (she/her)

Dr Abi O’Connor is an urban sociologist. Her research explores the relationship between urban governance, local politics and the restructuring of place via stigmatisation and de/re-valuation. Her PhD (May 2024) revealed how the local state enables the financialization of communities deemed to “lack value.”

Abi joined Sheffield’s CRAFiC as an Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (October 2025). Her project 'Following Urban Assetisation' studies distinct but interconnected port cities - Liverpool, Glasgow and Pittsburgh - which experience acute urban decline simultaneous to extensive profit extraction. Her project advances existing research by combining urban sociology and critical accounting methods to expose how social power networks that underpin local state assetisation.

Abi regularly contributes expert analysis to media and policy development, collaborates with grassroots movements, and previously worked at the New Economics Foundation bridging research, policy, and community organising.