Robert Deakin is Research Associate in Sociology at Loughborough University. He holds a PhD in Anthropology (Goldsmiths), MA degrees in Social Anthropology (SOAS and the University of California, Davis) and a BA in Human Sciences (Oxford). His research explores people’s experiences and responses to urban change in contexts of structural inequality. Within this, he pursues collaborative research working across multiple media. Robert’s PhD examined the entanglements of heritage and urban regeneration in Poplar, east London. Attending to several place-specific regeneration projects through a concept of affective infrastructure, he explored the circumscribed forms of political agency which take shape in this context, with particular attention to intersecting inequalities of race and class. His current research examines contemporary anxieties around the issue of pub closures in the UK, and the impacts pub closure has on people and communities.