Matt is an interdisciplinary social scientist who specialises in ethnographic research on energy and natural resources, urban politics, morality and the state. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2013 and previously held research and teaching positions with the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS), the University of Sussex and the LSE.

Matt's regional interests cover Latin America, the UK and the USA. His work has been funded by the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS), the Camel Trust and the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

Matt's research explores how contemporary capitalism shapes people's everyday lives in urban settings. He is particularly interested in the challenges that progressive urban social movements face, and in the diverse democratic experiments, moral subjectivities and life trajectories that are produced through efforts to overcome entrenched injustices.

Matt's first monograph examined the lived experience of political change, moral uncertainty and economic crisis amid Venezuela's controversial Bolivarian Revolution. Titled A Blessing and a Curse: Oil, Politics and Morality in Bolivarian Venezuela (2023, Stanford University Press), the book draws on ethnographic research conducted in an urban barrio over the course of a decade (2008-2018) to explore how Venezuela's contradictory relationship with petroleum shaped myriad aspects of urban life during a period of complex social upheaval. As well as offering an accessible way of understanding the many paradoxes of Bolivarian Venezuela, the book also provides an original take on current debates about democracy, fossil capitalism and revolutionary change.

Matt's current research traces the experiences of Venezuelan migrants who have left the country amid a decade-long multidimensional crisis. After beginning this work in Colombia, he is now focusing on those who have made their way to the United States. This emerging research uses the Venezuelan migrant experience to explore wider questions about the (geo)politics of sanctuary cities.

Alongside his work in the Americas, Matt has also carried out ethnographic fieldwork on the politics of housing in London as part of a collaborative Europe-wide project looking at advice, austerity governance and community activism. His work is undergirded by a broad political and theoretical interest in the emancipatory potential of cities and urban life.

Matt's work has appeared in a range of scholarly publications including Anthropology Today, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Critique of Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnos, Latin American Perspectives and the Radical Housing Journal. He has also written op-ed pieces for Counterpunch, Public Books, The Conversation and The Guardian.

Books

Wilde, M (2023) A Blessing and a Curse: Oil, Politics, and Morality in Bolivarian Venezuela. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Journal articles

Wilde, M., P Golovátina-Mora, P Kramer and L García (2025) Contingent hope: everyday crisis and future imaginaries among Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 

Wilde, M (2022) Eviction, gatekeeping and militant care: moral economies of housing in austerity London. Ethnos 87(1): 22-41.

Wilde, M (2019) Resisting the rentier city: grassroots housing activism and renter subjectivity in post-crisis London. Radical Housing Journal 1(2): 63-80.

Wilde, M (2018) To Fill Yourself with Goodness: Revolutionary Self-Making in Bolivarian Venezuela. Bulletin of Latin American Research 37(2): 130-143.

Wilde, M (2017) Embryonic alternatives amid London's housing crisis. Anthropology Today, 33(5): 16-19.

Wilde, M (2017) Utopian disjunctures: popular democracy and the communal state in urban Venezuela. Critique of Anthropology, 37(1): 47-66.

Wilde, M (2016) Contested Spaces: Participatory Democracy and the Communal Councils in Chávez’s Venezuela. Latin American Perspectives, 212, 44(1): 140-158.

Commentary 

Wilde, M (2024) For many Venezuelans in the US, working all hours means hope for a life back home. The Conversation.

Wilde, M (2020) After Corona: The Ethical Case for a Green New Deal. University of Leicester Research Bites seminar.

Wilde, M (2018) Debt and precarious housing: ending a vicious cycle. UCL Institute for Global Prosperity.

Wilde, M (2017) Why Theresa’s May pledges won’t fix the UK’s housing disaster. The Guardian.

Wilde, M (2017) Populism, Right and Left. Public Books.

Wilde, M (2016) Our immoral housing policy is set up to punish the poor. The Guardian.

Wilde, M (2015) Participation and Polarization After Chávez. Cultural Anthropology (online special issue on political crisis in Venezuela).

Wilde, M (2011) On the Riots and the Need for a New Commons. Counterpunch.

Reviews

Wilde, M (2022) State of Heath: Pleasure and Politics in Venezuelan Health Care under Chávez, by Amy Cooper. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (114) Rev. 4.

Wilde, M (2019) Channeling the State: Community Media and Popular Politics in Venezuela, by Naomi Schiller. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (108), Rev. 3.

Wilde, M (2014) Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism, by Roger Burbach, Michael Fox and Federico Fuentes. Bulletin of Latin American Research 34(1): 131-133.

Wilde, M (2014) Chávez’s Children: Ideology, Education, and Society in Latin America, by Manuel Anselmi. Journal of Latin American Studies, No. 46, 622-624.

Wilde, M (2011) Who Can Stop The Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela, by Sujatha Fernandes. Alborada: Latin America Uncovered.

Matt is interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:

• Activism and urban politics
• Democracy and populism
• Critical urban studies
• Ethnographic approaches to the state
• The politics of energy transition
• Latin America, the UK and the USA

Matt teaches on the following modules:

GY1422: Introduction to Leicester Geographies

GY2412: Economy, Society and Space

GY2415: Overseas Field Course

GY2416: Space, Territory and Power

GY3412: Cities of the Global South

GY7411: Contemporary Critical Geographies

GY7412: Creative Geographies in Practice

Matt is available for comment in the following areas:

• The social and political life of Venezuela
• Urban politics in Latin America, the UK and the USA
• The politics of energy transition