Harry Pettit

Pettit was born and grew up in Retford, United Kingdom, and obtained his PhD in geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2017. He subsequently held several short-term research and teaching positions at universities across the United Kingdom.^[3] In 2022, he served as a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam.

In 2023, Pettit was appointed assistant professor of social geography at Radboud University Nijmegen.^[4]

Pettit became involved in several controversies while at Radboud due to his outspoken pro-Palestinian positions on social media, particularly following the October 7 attacks. He was accused of antisemitism, glorification of violence, and incitement after making anti-Zionist statements. ^[5][6] These remarks became a subject of debate among Dutch politicians,^[7] and in October 2025, a petition calling on Radboud University to take action against Pettit received more than 12,000 signatures within a few days.^[6] Around the same time, 113 (former) students, professors, lecturers, and staff members of the university urged the institution to act, while Minister of Education Gouke Moes advised the university in an interview with journalist Sven Kockelmann to file a formal complaint against Pettit.^[8] Pettit in turn filed a complaint against Moes, stating that he “would not accept political repression in the service of Zionism.”^[5]

On 10 November 2025, Pettit announced on social media that he had reached an agreement with Radboud University to depart and claimed to have secured a new position elsewhere. The university confirmed his departure, stating that, after “an intensive process lasting several months,” both parties had “agreed to part ways” and that Pettit had made “statements inconsistent with the university's code of conduct.”^[8]

In early March 2026, Vrije Universiteit Brussel withdrew an offer of employment to Pettit following anti-Zionist and anti-US statements made on social media during the 2026 Iran war.^[9][10][1]

• Pettit, Harry (December 2024). "Theft, resistance and the struggle over cash circulation in Beirut's platform economy" Focaal Blog ^[11]
• Pettit, Harry (2023). The Labor of Hope: Meritocracy and Precarity in Egypt. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-3653-8.
• Pettit, Harry (October 2021). "Introduction: Hope, labour, disconnection". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 39 (5). Sage Publishing: 779–791. doi:10.1177/026377582110408.
• Pettit, Harry (August 2020). "Uncomfortable ethnography: Navigating friendship and 'cruel hope' with Egypt's disconnected middle-class". Emotion, Space and Society. 36 (3) 100714. Elsevier. doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100714.
• Pettit, Harry (August 2019). "The cruelty of hope: Emotional cultures of precarity in neoliberal Cairo". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 37 (4). Sage Publishing: 722–739. doi:10.1177/0263775818825264.
• Pettit, Harry and Ruijtenberg, Wiebe (2019) "Migration as hope and depression: Existential im/mobilities in and beyond Egypt" Mobilities ^[12]
• Pettit, Harry (November 2018). "Hopeful City: Meritocracy and Affect in Global Cairo". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 42 (6). Wiley-Blackwell: 1048–1063. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12695.
• Pettit, Harry (2015). "Iftar in Mcdonald's: the Everyday Encroachment of Cairo's Subaltern Cosmopolitans". Contentious Politics in the middle East, Fawaz, A. G. (ed) ^[13]
• Pettit, Harry (2014). "Cities without Suburbs: A Census 2010 Perspective". European Planning Studies 22 (9), 1989 - 1991 ^[14]