Dr Nathan Salvidge

1.     Current Research

I have recently been awarded an RGS-IBG Small Research Grant. ‘Investigating the role of smartphone technologies and digital platforms in (re)shaping young people’s everyday livelihood mobilities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’ will explore how smartphones and digital platforms are (re)shaping young vendors’ daily mobilities and lifecourse trajectories. The project was selected for the Jasmin Leila Award. More information on this can be found here: https://www.rgs.org/in-the-field/grants/research-grants/jasmin-leila-award.

I am also undertaking a project (funded by The University of Reading) investigating how undergraduate students at the University rely on and experience food service delivery work in the gig economy. 

2.     Other / Previous Research 

My PhD entitled‘Analysing the lives and livelihoods of young informal vendors in urban Tanzania’ involved undertaking in-depth ethnographic research for one year from August 2018 with 51 participants (37 youth participants (aged 15 – 35) and 14 key stakeholders) in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From this research, I have recently published on how parental death impacts the life and livelihood of a young informal vendor, as well as how mobile GPS technology can develop rounded insights into young people’s spatial livelihood mobilities in and across urban spaces. I continue to work on papers from this project that will make substantial empirical, conceptual and theoretical contributions to understanding young people’s complex and diverse urban informal livelihoods.

Link to Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZppyX90AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Links to recently published articles:

·      https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/area.12782

·      https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/area.12958