Dr Charlie Gillon is a Research Associate at the City Futures Research Centre. He is a human geographer by training with an empirical focus in housing and urban studies. Much of his research to date focuses on interrogating housing challenges in Australian cities, approaching housing and home via cultural, emotional and material geographies. He was awarded his PhD in human geography from the University of Wollongong in 2018, Houses built on sand: Rethinking cultures of homemaking, nature and finance in a coastal master-planned estate, which examined conflicting ideals of owner-occupation through a case study of a new housing development in coastal Sydney.
Charlie is currently working at CFRC on three Australian Research Council funded projects, which collectively focus on the planning, construction and redesign of multi-unit apartment buildings:
Prior to joining City Futures in November 2021 Charlie held posts as a postdoctoral research associate at Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney and spent two years working in the private sector at Astrolabe Group, a change management consultancy in Sydney.
Charlie represents CFRC on the UDIA NSW Research Committee.
Journal Articles
Klocker, N., Gillon, C., Gibbs, L, Atchison, J. and Waitt, G. (2021) Hope and grief in the human geography classroom. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. Epub ahead of print 12 Sep 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2021.1977915.
Power, E. and Gillon, C. (2021) How housing tenure drives household care strategies and practices. Social and Cultural Geography 22 (7), 897-916, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1667017.
Power, E. and Gillon, C. (2020) Performing the ‘good tenant’. Housing Studies. Epub ahead of print 29 Sep 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1813260
Dowling, R., McGuirk, P. and Gillon, C. (2019) Strategic or Piecemeal? Smart City Initiatives in Sydney and Melbourne. Urban Policy and Research 37 (4), 429-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2019.1674647
Gillon, C. and Gibbs, L. (2019) Coastal homemaking: Navigating housing ideals, home realities, and more-than-human processes. Environment and Planning D 37 (1), 104-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775818811140.
Gillon, C. and Gibson, C. (2018) Calculated homes, stretched emotions: unmasking ‘rational’ investor occupier subjects in large family homes in a coastal Sydney development. Emotion, Space and Society 26, 23-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2018.01.001
Gillon, C. (2018) Under construction: how home-making and underlying purchase motivations surface in a housing building site. Housing, Theory & Society 35 (4), 455- 473. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2017.1337650
Gillon, C. and Gibbs, L. (2018) Selling surf and turf: throwntogetherness and real estate advertising on the suburbanising east Australian coastline. Social & Cultural Geography 19 (8), 1006-1027. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1328737
Gillon, C. (2014) Amenity migrants, animals and ambivalent natures: More-than-human encounters at home in the rural residential estate. Journal of Rural Studies 36, 262-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.09.005
Conference Presentations
2019 Power, E. and Gillon, C. ‘Indebted relations, housing investment and household care’. Australasian Housing Researchers Conference 2019, The University of Adelaide.
2018 Gillon, C. ‘Calculated homes, stretched emotions: unmasking “rational” investor- occupier subjects in large family homes in a coastal Sydney development’. 2018 Housing Theory Symposium: ‘The Financialisation of Housing’, University of Wollongong.
2017 Gillon, C. ‘Calculated homes, stretched emotions: unmasking “rational” investor- occupier subjects in a coastal master-planned estate’. Institute of Australian Geographers Annual Conference 2017, University of Queensland.
2017 Gillon, C. ‘Tarnishing the coastal home: how exposing home-making as more- than- human questions expression and function in a coastal master-planned estate’. 2017 Housing Theory Symposium: ‘Housing Networks, Relations and Assemblages: The View From Housing Studies’, University of Sydney.
2016 Gillon, C. ‘Cultural and economic approaches to house construction and homemaking within a newly built master-planned estate in southern Sydney’. Institute of Australian Geographers Annual Conference 2016, University of South Australia.
2015 Gillon, C. ‘Fluid homes, sand castles: A materialist, multi-elemental account of housing in a coastal master-planned estate’. Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference (RGS-IBG), University of Exeter.
2015 Gillon, C. ‘Community under construction: Exploring the homes and everyday lives of residents in a newly built master-planned estate’. Institute of Australian Geographers Annual Conference 2015, Australian National University.
2014 Gillon, C. ‘Fluid encounters: More-than-human, more-than-terrestrial interactions in a new coastal master-planned development’. Institute of Australian Geographers Annual Conference 2014, University of Melbourne.
2014 Gillon, C. ‘Shifting sands, rolling waves: Investigating sense and movement in lived experiences of coastal master-planned estates’. Cultures of Sense, Cultures of Movement Workshop (organised by Institute of Australian Geographers Cultural Geography Study Group), Australian National University.
2013 Gillon, C. ‘A new way of living with nature? Zones of friction and traction in Nangarin Vineyard Estate, South West Sydney’. State of Australian Cities Conference 2013, Shangri- La Hotel, Sydney.
2013 Gillon, C. ‘“We’re just, you know, houses inside a natural environment”: Dwelling and the rural residential estate’. Institute of Australian Geographers Annual Conference 2013, University of Western Australia.
2013 Gillon, C. ‘A new way of living with nature? Zones of friction and traction in Nangarin Vineyard Estate, a rural residential estate in Sydney’s South West’. Natures, cultures, identities, materialities: An interdisciplinary ECR Workshop on environmental humanities/social sciences with Prof. Sarah Whatmore. University of Queensland.
2012 Gillon, C. ‘A new way of living with nature? Zones of friction and traction in Nangarin Vineyard Estate, a rural residential estate in Sydney’s South West’. Geographical Society of New South Wales Honours Conference, University of Sydney.
Other
Gillon, C. (2020) Is working from anywhere driving a new sea/tree change for millennials? New Planner 125 (December 2020), 11-12.