Miriam de Oliveira Gonçalves (PhD Candidate)

CIAUD, Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Design, Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

2026 RSA Conference Bursary

2025 RSA Research Network on Peripheries and Peripherality (EdgeNet) Workshop and Presentation, Peripheries Research at the Edge, University of Umea, Umea, Sweden

2025 RSA Research Network on Smart Policies for Regional Innovation, Sustainability and Transitions (SPRINT),  Presentation at the SPRINT Panel at 2025 RSA Annual Conference Navigating Regional Transformation, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, University of Porto

2023 RSA Travel Grant: Presentation at AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) Conference 2023 in Lodz, Poland.

2022 RSA Commissioner’s Seminar Series on Cohesion European Commission, DG REGIO European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

RSA Regional Studies Regional Science Early Careers Papers Section  (abstract selected; full paper in preparation)

I am a PhD researcher in Urbanism at the Lisbon School of Architecture (Universidade de Lisboa), and a member of URBinLAB and CIAUD. My research examines the implementation of the European Commission’s policy instrument Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) in Portugal through the lens of the politics of space with particular attention to its implications for community empowerment. I analyze how local development initiatives assemble actors, mediate power relations, and shape spatial imaginaries in urban and metropolitan contexts. Trained as an architect and urban planner in Brazil, and having lived and worked across different national settings, I bring a perspective informed by both Global South and Global North planning traditions and lived experiences. This background informs my interest in plural approaches to spatial planning that foreground participation, collective agency, and community-based governance. I explore how governance arrangements enable and constrain local agency and territorial development, and how institutional practices are sustained through proximity and institutional memory. My work combines empirical research in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area with conceptual debates on soft planning and performative imaginaries. I analyze processes of trust-building, mutual learning, and social cohesion, reflecting on their transformative potential across different temporalities of urban development. I seek to contribute to discussions on how community development initiatives can be understood not merely as policy delivery mechanisms, but as political infrastructures shaping socio-spatial justice and inclusive territorial futures.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:

Community development approaches framed by the politics of space: a review.
de Oliveira Gonçalves, M., Mourato, J. M., & Cavaco, C. (2025). Community development approaches framed by the politics of space: a review. Journal of Planning Literature.

Examining local action groups as territorial development polities: CLLD in Lisbon Metropolitan Area
de Oliveira Gonçalves, M., Mourato, J. M., Pereira, A., & Cavaco, C. (2024). Examining Local Action Groups as territorial development polities: CLLD in Lisbon Metropolitan Area. European Planning Studies, 32(12), 2597–2618.