Carla Rivera Blanco

Carla Rivera is an LSE-funded PhD researcher in the Department of Sociology. She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and an MA in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University (CEU). She is a member of the Social and Political Theory Research Group (SPTG) at UPF.

Key expertise: Social Theory, Political Theory, Intellectual History.

(Working) Thesis Title: On Public Space: The Spatial Transformation of the Public Sphere

Supervisors: Dr David Madden and Professor Jonathan White

Carla’s research investigates the historical formation of the concept of public space, tracing its evolution from a physical notion to one imbued with moral and political significance in the late 20th century. Focusing on Barcelona, she examines how public conceptions of space have transformed since the 19th century through archival research. A key question she explores is the relationship between concepts and conceptions, asking how conceptual transformations relate to longer-standing ways of understanding the social world. Even if a concept emerges in a specific historical period, its underlying conception may be older—raising questions about whether concepts merely reflect existing ideas or mark substantive shifts in thought. And if the latter, what do concepts allow us to do? In this regard, her work also addresses the question of normativity in the social sciences, exploring its relation to the divide between social and political theory. She is currently developing an article on the analytical function of normativity in social research, together with Jan Gilles.

She draws on the genealogical tradition of Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault, and Elias, as well as on Marxist approaches to social and historical analysis. Alongside her doctoral research, she is writing about the “right to stay” in contemporary housing struggles. Two book chapters on this topic are forthcoming: “No Marxem. Crònica d’una obstinació col·lectiva” (“We Don’t Leave: Chronicle of a Collective Obstinacy”), in a co-edited volume by the Observatory of Anthropology of Urban Conflict (Barcelona: Bellaterra); and “De Ponsi no marxem! Struggles to Remain in a Financialized Metropolis,” co-authored with Roger Ramírez and Stefano Portelli, in Fighting to Stay Put: Learning from the Global Struggle Against Gentrification and Displacement, edited by Loretta Lees, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Kenton Card, and Stefano Portelli (London: UCL Press).

GV262 Contemporary Political Theory, 2025/2026

SOC201 Key Concepts: Advanced Social Theory, 2024/2025