THEMATIC GROUPS
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- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Planning/Conflict
Contested Istanbul: Urban development and planning conflicts in Turkey’s ‘aspiring global city’
(special session organized in association with the AESOP TG Planning/Conflict)
AESOP Annual Congress 2025 Istanbul, July 7th – July 11th 2025
Organizers: Enrico Gualini and Esin Özdemir
Contributions by Deniz Ay, Yildiz Erdoğan, Melis Oğuz Çevik, Adile Avar and Burcu Değerli Çiftçi
Turkish metropoles have experienced in the last decades the impact of state-led boosterist urban policies. Istanbul is at the forefront of this process, as the largest and most dynamic metropolis of the country in both economic and social and terms.
Istanbul has taken central place as an ‘aspiring global city’ (Ay and Özkul 2016) in national state urban policies. This has developed into a peculiar Istanbul way to authoritarian neoliberalism, based on massive investment in support of speculative private entrepreneurialism, and on corporate-style marketing and management framed within state-led governance arrangements.
At the heart of these urban policies are multiscalar interventions – some already implemented, some still on the national government agenda – ranging from infrastructural mega-projects to urban renewal projects at neighbourhood level. These interventions, particularly for large-scale infrastructure investments projects, are often implemented in public-private partnership arrangements lacking accountability and citizen involvement.
Framed by the national government’s globalist ambitions as well as emergency arguments – like earthquake disaster prevention – and by legally supported by ad-hoc legal frameworks, these measures have strongly impacted on the historical urban fabric and on the livelihood and identity of local communities. As a consequence, a broad range of issues of contention and conflict have emerged, concerning among others:
- the centralized-authoritarian decision-making logic, restraining civil society and local communities as well as local governments from democratic involvement;
- the negative impact on local communities such as displacement and dispossession;
- the depletion of natural resources for sustainable urban development, such as water basins and forests;
- the commodification and erosion of public spaces;
- the destruction of the historical urban fabric and identity;
- social inclusion, poverty and the integration of human and more-than-human diversity in the city.
Against this background, Istanbul has experienced a long season of state-authoritarian repression of urban insurgencies – with the case of Gezi Park as a hallmark. Over time, Istanbul has also marked a nation-wide unique if troubled attempt to introduce an original neo-municipalist path to urban reform, possibly introducing opportunities for a different approach to the contradictions and conflicts generated by its recent urban development path.
In this session – organized in association with the AESOP TG Planning/Conflict – we ask engaged scholars and activists to reflect on the contentious nature of urban politics and planning in Istanbul. The aim is not only to give a critical overview of current issues and their long-term causes, but also to reflect on the aftermath and heritage of democratic protest, civic insurgency and planner-activist engagement in a forward-looking perspective of generating possible alternatives.
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- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Planning/Conflict
By designing alternative futures and visions of a better life for all, utopias reveal the potential for the necessary socio-ecological transformation for a post-capitalist society. The concept of concrete utopias supplements the level of pure imagination of the possible with its concrete testing in the here and now. Based on this assumption, the lecture series undertakes an exploration of these here and now practices of possible futures for social transformation. The aim is to create a comprehensive perspective of alternative urban production, which is made possible by utopian thinking and prefigurative practice. Hereby, we also want to take a closer look at various empirical examples and discuss approaches for a possible research agenda.
The lecture series is organised by the Chair of Planning Theory and Analysis of Urban and Regional Policies of the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning (TU Berlin) and addresses scholars, students, and the interested public.
PROGRAMME
28/05/25
Utopian Citizenship: from South African neighbourhoods to a Mediterranean border
Laura Silva (Paris School of Economics)
04/06/25
Thinking from the kitchen: towards radically caring urban futures through collective cooking
Susanne Hübl (Universität Münster)
11/06/25
Compass for a solidary neighborhood – real utopias for the city of tomorrow
Maximilian Hellriegel (SoWo Leipzig) and
Sara Schmitt Pacifico (Stadt Frankfurt am Main)
18/06/25
Prefigurative politics and the capitalist city
Laura Monticelli (independent researcher)
25/06/25
Prefigurative planning: enacting utopias in the here and now
Simin Davoudi (Newcastle University)
28 May - 25 June 2025,
Wednesdays 5 - 6 pm (CET)
ZOOM:
https://tu-berlin.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/_9ObhoSbQau069BmGvAAeg
Information & Contact:
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Planning/Conflict
What is the potential for urban policy conflicts to bring about change? In its fourth international conference, the AESOP Planning/Conflict TG pursues further its inquiry into the meaning and role of contention and conflict in democratic urban politics and planning. The conference focuses on emergent issues of contention and conflict in urban transformation, as well as the generative potential for change that may arise from alternative practices of contestation and mobilization.
This perspective invites exploring contention and conflict as possible drivers and opportunity structures for generating alternative futures. While this requires adopting a non-deterministic ontology of emergence, it also requires pushing our understanding of conflict beyond received schemes. Against reducing the radicality of contention and conflict to a matter of negotiated debate and manageable resolution – of ‘taming antagonism’ – as well as against reducing attention to reactive moments of protest and resistance. The conference invites papers that explore how conflict dynamics may be constitutive of capacities that bring about alternatives, papers that critically reflect on the conditions that hamper or enhance such change, and papers that analyze related practices that reinforce capacities to engage conflict and contention.
While radical democratic theory and critique of the ‘post-political city’ emphasize the need to recover the political as agonistic affirmation of difference, articulations of the debate also point to the variety of social sites and practices wherein this affirmation is possible.
Here, the idea of concrete utopia as a form of prefigurative action comes into play. As actualizations of possibilities not-yet-there intimately related to conditions and perceptions of the here-and-now, concrete utopias embody, at the same time, a critique of the present, an affirmation of its contingency, and a concretization of alternative aspirations and intentions. Their prefigurative nature resides in realizing a convergence of motivations and resources for local collective action that merges envisioning and enacting, i.e., the capacity of pre-figuration and of pre-formation, of imaging as well as making.
As an expression of insurgent practices, concrete utopias represent political moments in that they establish a link between the critical delegitimization of the present and the praxeological legitimation of alternatives. Just as conflict is a political moment marked by affirmation of the existence of an absence, of a gap, concrete utopias are political moments turning this affirmation into a capacity of envisioning and enacting alternatives.
The conference invites to adopt the idea of concrete utopia as a heuristic, exploratory hypothesis for critical research on urban policy conflicts. By discussing how prefigurative actions and concrete utopias are being experimented with in contemporary cities, the conference aims to contribute to exploring how the contestation of urban policies may produce seeds for political transformation.
Contributions are welcome that address contexts, conditions, and challenges for introducing change in a variety of urban domains of contestation – including, but not limited to work, care, housing, social autonomy and commoning, sustainability transitions, solidarity, and citizenship – both empirically and theoretically.
Call for papers:
Contributions are welcome that address contexts, conditions, and challenges for introducing change in a variety of urban domains of contestation – including, but not limited to work, care, housing, social autonomy and commoning, sustainability transitions, solidarity, and citizenship –both empirically and theoretically.
Submission of paper proposals:
Please submit your paper proposal including
- an abstract of 300-500 words, outlining its relation to the conference theme, conceptual framework and methodology
- three to five keywords
- a short bio-note of up to 100 words, including current affiliation, position and address
before 30 June 2025 to:
Upon completion of selection and registration, papers will be organized in thematic sessions and scheduled to form the final program.
Plans for special issues of international peer-reviewed journals will be discussed during the conference.
Key dates:
- abstract submission: 30 June 2025
- decision on paper proposals: 15 July 2025
- registration deadline: 15 August 2025
- final program: 1 September 2025
Preliminary program (t.b.c.):
- two keynote speeches:
Miguel A. Martinez, Uppsala Universitet and Nanke Verloo, Universiteit van Amsterdam
- thematic paper sessions
- field-trips to related sites in Berlin
The final program will be published before 1 September 2025.
Conference fee:
100 Euros / 50 Euros (students) to cover meals and refreshments, due to current budget cuts. Payment is requested together with registration before 15 August 2025. Receipt of payment is provided.
Concept and organization:
Chair of Planning Theory and Urban-Regional Policy Analysis, Technische Universität Berlin
Scientific committee:
Francesco Campagnari, EHESS Paris
Enrico Gualini, Technische Universität Berlin
Verena Lenna, Vrije Universiteit Brussels
Alessandra Manganelli, Universitat de Barcelona
Miguel A. Martinez, Uppsala Universitet
Stijn Oosterlynk, Universiteit Antwerpen
Carolina Pacchi, Politecnico di Milano
Nanke Verloo, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Venue:
Technische Universität Berlin, Building A
Straße des 17. Juni 153, 10623 Berlin
Contacts:
Conference link:
http://www.planningtheory.tu-berlin.de
AESOP Planning/Conflict thematic group link:
https://aesop-planning.eu/thematic-groups/planning-conflict
Open the call here:
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- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Small Towns
First European Lecture Series on Small Towns will start in winter term 2025/2026, starting in October.
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- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Small Towns
Meet us in Istanbul 2025 in the Special Session "SMALL TOWNS – Big challenges and high potentials?"
