Dr Cosmin Popan
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
My profile
Biography
Cosmin Popan is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow whose project, ‘Doing gig work: Social implications of platform-based food deliveries’ (2020-2023), investigates the gig economy and its reconfiguration of urban spaces. His research focuses on the management, solidarity and resistance of cycle couriers in three European cities: Manchester, Lyon (France) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania). More updates on his research can be accessed at www.gigwork.city.
Since joining Manchester Metropolitan University in 2018, Cosmin has been involved in the project Gendered Cycling Cultures and, more recently, he worked as a Research Associate on the Horizon 2020 pan-European cross-disciplinary programme MiCreate. This project is concerned with stimulating the inclusion of diverse groups of migrant children at policy and educational levels.
Cosmin holds a doctorate in Sociology from Lancaster University, which investigated the broader social, political and cultural processes through which cycling could expand into dominant mobility replacing the system of automobility. The results of his PhD research were published by Routledge as a book monograph titled Bicycle Utopias (2019).
His areas of interest are: gig economy, platform labour, the future of work, urban mobilities and cycling.
Academic and professional qualifications
2017: PhD in Sociology, Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Thesis title: ‘Utopias of slow cycling. Imagining a bicycle system’.
2012: M.Sc. in Anthropology, The National School of Political Science and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania.
2004: Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, Faculty of Political Sciences and Public Administration, University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
2017: Associate Fellow of The Higher Education Academy
Languages
Romanian, French
Personal website address
Research outputs
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Popan, C., Psarikidou, K., Zuev, D. (2021) Cycling Societies. Innovations, Inequalities and Governance. Routledge.
Popan, C. (2020) Bicycle Utopias Imagining Fast and Slow Cycling Futures. Routledge.
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Chapters in books
Popan, C., Anaya-Boig, E. (2021) 'The intersectional precarity of platform cycle delivery workers.' Center for Open Science.
Popan, I.C. (2021) 'Algorithmic governance in the gig economy: entrepreneurialism and solidarity among food delivery workers.' Cycling Societies Innovations, Inequalities and Governance. Routledge,
Spinney, J., Popan, C. (2020) 'Mobilising Street Culture: Understanding the Implications of the Shift from Lifestyle Bike Messengers to Gig Economy Workers.' Routledge Handbook of Street Culture. Routledge,
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Journal articles
Popan, C. (2023) 'The fragile ‘art’ of multi-apping: Resilience and snapping in the gig economy.' Environment and Planning A,
Szymczyk, A., Popan, C., Arun, S. (2022) 'Othering through language: English as an Additional Language in England’s educational policy and practice.' Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 22(2) pp. 117-131.
Popan, C. (2021) 'Embodied Precariat and Digital Control in the “Gig Economy”: The Mobile Labor of Food Delivery Workers.' Journal of Urban Technology, pp. 1-20.
Badwan, K., Popan, C., Arun, S. (2021) 'Exploring schools as potential sites of foster-ship and empowerment for migrant children in the UK (Exploramos las escuelas como posibles centros de acogida y empoderamiento de los niños migrantes en el RU).' Cultura y Educación. Culture and Education, 33(4) pp. 1-27.
Themen, K., Popan, C. (2021) 'Auditory and visual sensory modalities in the velodrome and the practice of becoming a track cyclist.' International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 57(4) pp. 618-633.
Popan, C., Arun, S., Bailey, G. (2020) 'Education outside the mainstream : valuing cultural heritage through alternative resources for the integration of migrant children in the UK.' Annales: Anali za istrske in mediteranske studije - Annali di Studi istriani e mediterranei - Annals for Istrian and Mediterranean Studies. Series historia et sociologia, 30(4) pp. 613-628.
Psarikidou, K., Zuev, D., Popan, C. (2020) 'Sustainable cycling futures: can cycling be the future?.' Applied Mobilities, 5(3) pp. 225-231.
Popan, C. (2020) 'Beyond utilitarian mobilities: cycling senses and the subversion of the car system.' Applied Mobilities, 5(3) pp. 289-305.
Popan, I.C. (2020) 'Fast and Slow Bicycle Utopias.' Utopian Studies, 31(1) pp. 118-118.
Leach, J.M., Lee, S.E., Boyko, C.T., Coulton, C.J., Cooper, R., Smith, N., Joffe, H., Büchs, M., Hale, J.D., Sadler, J.P., Braithwaite, P.A., Blunden, L.S., De Laurentiis, V., Hunt, D.V.L., Bahaj, A.B.S., Barnes, K., Bouch, C.J., Bourikas, L., Cavada, M., Chilvers, A., Clune, S.J., Collins, B., Cosgrave, E., Dunn, N., Falkingham, J., James, P., Kwami, C., Locret-Collet, M., Medda, F., Ortegon, A., Pollastri, S., Popan, C., Psarikidou, K., Tyler, N., Urry, J., Wu, Y., Zeeb, V., Rogers, C.D.F. (2017) 'Dataset of the livability performance of the city of Birmingham, UK, as measured by its citizen wellbeing, resource security, resource efficiency and carbon emissions.' Data in Brief, 15pp. 691-695.
Boyko, C.T., Clune, S.J., Cooper, R.F.D., Coulton, C.J., Dunn, N.S., Pollastri, S., Leach, J.M., Bouch, C.J., Cavada, M., De Laurentiis, V., Goodfellow-Smith, M., Hale, J.D., Hunt, D.K.G., Lee, S.E., Locret-Collet, M., Sadler, J.P., Ward, J., Rogers, C.D.F., Popan, C., Psarikidou, K., Urry, J., Blunden, L.S., Bourikas, L., Büchs, M., Falkingham, J., Harper, M., James, P.A.B., Kamanda, M., Sanches, T., Tuner, P., Wu, P.Y., Bahaj, A.B.S., Ortegon, A., Barnes, K., Cosgrave, E., Honeybone, P., Joffe, H., Kwami, C., Zeeb, V., Collins, B., Tyler, N. (2017) 'How sharing can contribute to more sustainable cities.' Sustainability (Switzerland), 9(5)