AbdouMaliq Simone is an urbanist in the broad sense that his work focuses on various powers, cultural expressions, governance and planning discourses, spaces and times in cities across the world.

Simone is presently Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has taught at New School University, the University of Khartoum, University of Ghana, University of the Western Cape, University of the Witwatersrand,and the City University of New York, as well as working for several African NGOs, municipal governments and regional institutions,including the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements.

Key publications include In Whose Image?: Political Islam and Urban Practices in Sudan (University of Chicago Press, 1994) and For the City Yet to Come: Changing Urban Life in Four African Cities(Duke University Press,2004), and City Life from Jakarta to Dakar: Movements at the Crossroads (Routledge, 2009).