THEMATIC GROUPS
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures
AESOP Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures
Series UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS
First meeting, Beirut, 9-11 November 2016
Call for papers Defragmenting and Activating Public Spaces in Unstable Urban Settings
The Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design at the Notre Dame University – Louaize will host the first meeting of the AESOP Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (AESOP TG PSUC) in Beirut, Lebanon. This meeting launches the new thematic series: Unstable Geographies – Dislocated Publics, with its four sub-themes:
- City, refugees, and migration
- Fragmented social fabric – individualised patterns of consumption
- The decline of national politics – Resurgence of the urban political
- Change of perspective – worlding urban studies
The series aims to address current issues related to public spaces common to cities globally, from an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective, while engaging a variety of actors and stakeholders. The purpose of this meeting, organized in parallel to the City Street2 Conference (refer to http://www.ndu.edu.lb/citystreet2016/index.htm), is to unfold themes under the title of the series within the local and unstable context of Beirut. The meeting will combine the keynote speeches of CS2 presentations from the contributions to this call, a field visit and a workshop. The workshop will provide the opportunity for stakeholders to discuss, exchange views, and propose ideas with the purpose of sharing resources and producing knowledge on contemporary public space concerns. A concluding roundtable discussion will consolidate the ideas, concerns and recommendations presented during the meeting, and set the basis for further practical and theoretical explorations.
Theme
This first AESOP TG PSUC meeting in the new series in Beirut is proposed as an amalgam between the thematic group’s meeting and the CS2 conference thus bringing together a diversity and richness to the discussion on public spaces. Based on the characteristics and issues in Beirut that are also
pertinent to other cities in the global South as well as the global North, this TG meeting would focus on the two sub-themes: City, Refugees and Migration, and Fragmented Social Fabric: Individualised Patterns of Consumption. Similar to other countries hosting immigrants and refugees, Lebanon is undergoing various dynamics related to refugees, migration and social fragmentation, which lead to changes in urban spaces and everyday social life, thus turning it to fertile ground for collaborative ideas among public space scholars and practitioners from different backgrounds. Through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives, the City Street2 Conference addresses the role of streets in relation to the sudden and sometimes recurring dynamics that affect everyday urban life. Unexpected events are affecting streets worldwide, without differentiation between developed and developing cities. Therefore, learning from cities in either hemisphere, which have gone through conflicts and instabilities becomes significant.
As Beirut has a prolonged history of conflict that affected its public spaces, it serves as a laboratory to explore, unravel, and question the lives of its public spaces, and their evolution through time. In the Lebanese civil war period 1975-1990, public spaces were annihilated, being the most vulnerable urban spaces and least desirable to be in. This fifteen-year absence contributed to an initial neglect of public spaces in the post-war period, while local authorities catered for the more urgent urban needs such as the transportation network, water, and waste water infrastructure to name few. In parallel, and not unusual for the Lebanese case, individual and group initiatives, which are independent from the local authorities, have addressed other everyday needs in response to their lack.
Beirut is a city that has hosted refugees in the past and more recently with the waves of refugees entering the country from neighbouring countries in conflict. It has a strong local identity, yet a global image. Beirut is a city that never sleeps, yet falls silent during turbulences. It is the city of contrasts in terms of its spatial, social, cultural and economic composition. All the stated circumstances impact the city’s urban spaces. Within political conflicts, the escalation of tensions, and increased security measures, the deterioration of urban spaces, and the pedestrian environment within Beirut is striking. Nevertheless, some people still commute on foot, and some public activities persist. The contestations are many, and various borders are drawn, forming obstacles to undisrupted pedestrian mobility, and convivial urban open spaces. Despite the various obstacles, pockets of public spaces that are either managed by the local authorities or invented by urbanites emerge within the city. These signal the co-presence of contrasts on many levels including the social, economic, spatial, functional, and political. Within these contrasts, various ‘publics’ navigate through the city’s urban spaces, and generate social interactions, activities, and relations over time, despite the broader conflicts that the city keeps witnessing.
The purpose of the investigation is to determine the roles of various stakeholders in providing further opportunities for the sustained accommodation of differences, encounter, and exposure to ‘the other’, in an attempt to defragment public spaces within turbulent and unpredictable contexts. Several questions are raised:
As Beirut has a prolonged history of conflict that affected its public spaces, it serves as a laboratory to explore, unravel, and question the lives of its public spaces, and their evolution through time. In the Lebanese civil war period 1975-1990, public spaces were annihilated, being the most vulnerable urban spaces and least desirable to be in. This fifteen-year absence contributed to an initial neglect of public spaces in the post-war period, while local authorities catered for the more urgent urban needs such as the transportation network, water, and waste water infrastructure to name few. In parallel, and not unusual for the Lebanese case, individual and group initiatives, which are independent from the local authorities, have addressed other everyday needs in response to their lack.
Beirut is a city that has hosted refugees in the past and more recently with the waves of refugees entering the country from neighbouring countries in conflict. It has a strong local identity, yet a global image. Beirut is a city that never sleeps, yet falls silent during turbulences. It is the city of contrasts in terms of its spatial, social, cultural and economic composition. All the stated circumstances impact the city’s urban spaces. Within political conflicts, the escalation of tensions, and increased security measures, the deterioration of urban spaces, and the pedestrian environment within Beirut is striking. Nevertheless, some people still commute on foot, and some public activities persist. The contestations are many, and various borders are drawn, forming obstacles to undisrupted pedestrian mobility, and convivial urban open spaces. Despite the various obstacles, pockets of public spaces that are either managed by the local authorities or invented by urbanites emerge within the city. These signal the co-presence of contrasts on many levels including the social, economic, spatial, functional, and political. Within these contrasts, various ‘publics’ navigate through the city’s urban spaces, and generate social interactions, activities, and relations over time, despite the broader conflicts that the city keeps witnessing.
The purpose of the investigation is to determine the roles of various stakeholders in providing further opportunities for the sustained accommodation of differences, encounter, and exposure to ‘the other’, in an attempt to defragment public spaces within turbulent and unpredictable contexts. Several questions are raised:
- What is the people’s understanding of public space in specific cities in unstable contexts, and how does it vary across generations?
- What are the current public space practices of defragmenting public space? How do the various spaces accommodating these practices differ? What does the current state of public spaces in a specific city that has been facing conflict look like?
- Who are the current public space actors involved in public place making in cities within unstable contexts?
- What is the relation between social media networks and public space practices that defragment public space? How does it affect the ecology of city’s public spaces, particularly in times of sudden and sometimes recurring dynamics of stability and instability?
- What can be learned from people’s identification or/ and practices in ‘activated’/ ‘invented’ public spaces in unstable contexts?
- How can we (actors from various fields) intervene in improving the state of public spaces in terms of accessibility and inclusiveness in the current environment of low governmental investment, and a financially capable market-driven approach, particularly in cities and regions facing geopolitical instability?
Important Dates
Deadline for abstract submission is Monday 4 July 2016.
Please submit an abstract of 200-250 words along with a max 100 words biography to 150 words Authors will receive notification regarding their abstracts by Friday 15 July 2016. Use the online submission on: https://citystreet2.exordo.com
Deadline for paper submission is Monday 19 September 2016.
Preliminary Program
Tuesday 8 November - Arivals* | CS2 Registration
Wednesday 9 November - AESOP TG Meeting registration, Presentations | First day CS"
Thursday 10 November - Field visit | Second day CS"
Friday 11 November - AESOP TG Meeting: Workshop & Roundtable | Third day CS2
Saturday 12 November - Departures* | CS2 tours
Sunday 13 November - Optional for those staying after the AESOP TG Meeting | Beirut Marathon
* Arrivals and departures could also take place respectively on Wednesday 9 November early morning, and Friday 11 November evening.
Fees
Participation in the AESOP TG meeting with all its related activities is free of charge. This AESOP TG meeting is interdisciplinary, and targets the inclusion of actors with different perspectives, with the objective of providing insights on public spaces. Therefore, submissions from academicians, practicing professionals, and interested persons from any background are invited as contributions to this call. AESOP TG delegates who would like to participate in the full CS2 conference and receive the full package and documentation, they will have to register for the conference (http://www.ndu.edu.lb/citystreet2016/ index.htm) Otherwise, the AESOP TG delegates are offered to attend the CS2 opening and closing ceremonies, welcome reception and the three keynote speeches free of charge. Moreover, coffee breaks are offered. Furthermore, if they wish, AESOP TG delegates can register for the conference banquet and/or post-conference tours separately, against a fee.
Contacts
For further information on AESOP TG PSUC Beirut meeting please contact:
- Christine Mady (Lebanon)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (local host) - Nadia Charalambous (Cyprus)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (AESOP TG representative) - Matej Niksic (Slovenia)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (AESOP TG representative)
The general TG blog at the AESOP page:
▪ The TG wiki page: http://publicspaces-urbancultures.wikispaces.com/
▪ The TG FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AESOPPSUC/
▪ The TG contact:
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures
2016
Date: 10th/11th November 2016
Name: Christine Mady
Institution: Faculty of Architecture, Art, and Design (FAAD), at the Notre Dame University Louaize
Place: Louaize. Lebanon
AESOP TG Representative: Matej Niksic (Slovenia), Nadia Charalambous (Cyprus)
Contacts:
2017
Date: 29th/31th March 2017
Name: Sabine Knierbein, Elina Kränzle, Tihomir Viderman
Institution: Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, TU Wien
Place: Vienna, Austria
AESOP TG Representative: Gabriella Esposito de Vita (Italy), Katarzyna Bartoszewicz (Poland)
Contacts:
Date: 25th/26th/ (27th) May 2017
Name: Biba Tominc /Nina Goršič /Matej Niksic
Institution: Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia
Place: Ljubljana, Slovenia
AESOP TG Representative: Weronika Mazurkiewicz (Poland), Stefania Ragozino (Italy)
Contacts:
Date: 11th-14th July 2017
Name: Gabriella Esposito De Vita, Sabine Knierbein, Ceren Sezer
Institution: AESOP Annual Conference 2017, Lisbon, Portugal
Place: Lisbon, Portugal
AESOP TG Representative: Sara Santos Cruz, Katarzyna Bartoszewicz, Nikolai Roskamm, Plus: All TG members attending the conference and further colleagues
Contacts:
Date: Autumn 2017
Name: Carlo Cellamare
Institution: Tracce Urbane and Laboratory of Urban Studies, La Sapienza, Rome
Place: Rome, Italy
AESOP TG Representative: Sabine Knierbein (Austria), Burcu Yigit Turan (Turkey)
Contacts:
2018
Date: March 2018
Name: Marleen Buizer
Institution: Land Use Planning Group, Wageningen University
Place: Wageningen, Netherlands
AESOP TG Representative: Burcu Yigit Turan (Turkey), Sara Santos Cruz (Portugal)
Contacts:
Date: May 2018
Name: Nadia Charalambous
Institution: Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus
Place: Nicosia, Cyprus
AESOP TG Representative: Ceren Sezer (The Netherlands), Nikolai Roskamm (Germany)
Contacts:
Date: July 2018
Name: tbc
Institution: AESOP Annual Conference 2018, Gotheborg, Sweden
Place: Gotheborg, Sweden
AESOP TG Representative: tbc
Contacts: tbc
Please note that for attending the AESOP Annual Conference, conference fees are required. For the Lisbon and Gothenborg Meetings during the Conference, travel and accommodation costs cannot be covered, so each listed participant needs to cover for him-or herself (travel, accommodation, conferences fees, etc.). Otherwise, the AESOP TG PSUC has established the policy that all meetings should be free of cost to AESOP TG members (urban cultures and public spaces and that affordable accommodation proposals are provided by the local host.
** In case colleagues from the same country/city have volunteered or colleagues have volunteered for many meetings, I have sometimes put them in brackets as possible second option in case we do not find two colleagues from other contexts. Generally, the idea is to have a abroad inter- and beyond European exchange, therefore the basic idea is to have two local hosts and two colleagues from different partners so at least two have a dialogue between three institutions involved.
*** As for budget: The AESOP TG PS-UC can apply for an annual maximum support of 500 Euro for events. Publications, keynote speaker costs and conference proceedings can be financed out of this budget, however, no positions other than these three. Our chances will depend on the number and quality of the other applications. In the past, we have only twice asked for this budget to be allocated, particularly when a partner school was situated in an austerity context. Please note that this funding cannot be used to finance the travel and accommodation costs of TG members (e.g. as TG representatives or keynote speakers). Travelling for the TG representatives needs to be provided by the local organizers. In case, the local organizers are facing hardship, other ways can be agreed with the TG representatives (e.g. Erasmus Teaching Exchange or payment of occurring costs by local institution of TG representative). @local organizers: In case you do want to apply for funding (max. 500 Euro) for hosting an event in 2016 we will need your funding bid by 15th May 16, for all events scheduled for 15th May, we will need all funding bids until 15th December 2016, for 2018, until 15th December 2017. Please note that if we receive more then one funding bid for 2017, we will need to take a decision for which event we will issue the funding bid. So please only submit it if you can’t rely on other funding sources. The funding bid decision will be taken by the AESOP EXCO during their specific meetings.
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Transboundary Planning and Governance
XXXXX---- DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE THE 6TH, 2016 ----XXXXX
The AESOP Thematic Group on Transboundary Spaces, Policy Diffusion, Planning Cultures and the University of Kaiserslautern cordially invite proposals for contributions to the:
1st Symposium of the AESOP Thematic Group Transboundary Spaces, Policy Diffusion, Planning Cultures
TRANSBOUNDARY SPACES, POLICY DIFFUSION AND PLANNING CULTURES: NEW CHALLENGES - WAYS FORWARD
University of Kaiserslautern - September 19-20, 2016
[Deadline for Abstracts: June 6th, 2016]
We warmly invite interested researchers to present their research and ideas. Please find submission details and draft programme in the attached call for paper
A journal special issue and/or book proposal will be developed following the symposium, including a selection of the presented contributions.
The participation to the event is free of charge. However, participants must provide for their transportation to the venue and for their accommodation.
If you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact the Symposium Secretariat in the person of Patricia Hammer (
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Planning/Conflict
Where: RMIT University, Barcelona Campus, Spain
When: 16th & 17th June 2016
Hosts: Critical Urban Governance Program, RMIT University, Australia & AESOP Planning/Conflict Thematic Group
Abstracts (300 words): Due January 30th
Short papers (3,000 words): Due May 30th
Planning decisions are often the artefact of locally situated political struggles to attract, resist or prepare for the impact of change (Gualini et al, 2015; Gualini, 2015). These decision processes shape the physical city, but can unsettle normative framings of citizenship and belonging, values and ethics, and also expose a democratic paradox of planning praxis. Dominant economic growth imperatives and urban austerity strategies combined with global challenges related to climate change and urbanisation serve to intensify the political in planning. Yet, there is a concern that city planning has transitioned into what has been described as a postpolitical urban condition tempering episodes of conflict and undermining critical discourse (Metzger et al, 2015; Legacy, 2015; Blühdorn, 2013; Bylund, 2012; Oosterlynck and Swyngedouw, 2010).
Critics argue that by managing conflict out of planning and prioritising consensus-generating processes, the political is suppressed preventing citizens from questioning and challenging planning orthodoxy. The processes that do remain may offer opportunities for limited citizen engagement however still placing considerable demands on citizens as political subjects (Inch, 2014). Conflict that does mount is displaced elsewhere positioning conflict and consensus into a dichotomous relationship (Bylund, 2012; Purcell, 2013). This binary, while useful as an analytical tool, is highly problematic and overly simplistic as a normative framing, removing the conflict/consensus nexus from nuanced analysis and critical engagement (Bond, 2010).
This symposium, co-hosted by the AESOP Planning/Conflict thematic group and the Critical Urban Governance program at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, will bring together early, mid and late career planning academics to interrogate, reimagine and critically engage with the idea that planning is political. It will do so by exploring the potential for ‘everyday politics’ as well as ‘extraordinary politics’ to expose and challenge the conception that ‘consensus’ and ‘conflict’ form a dichotomous relationship. The aim of the symposium will be to develop a more nuanced understanding of how planning processes interact with moments of conflict and consensus and the spaces ‘in between’. In particular, the symposium will invite papers that offer responses to the following questions:
- How can planning/urban theory relate a more nuanced analytical understanding of conflict dynamics in planning processes?
- In what ways can we move beyond treating 'consensus' or 'conflict' as transcendent ideals and instead work towards engendering a more immanent evaluation of always situated conflict dynamics?
- What pathways of transformation may emerge from the dialectics of conflict/consensus in terms of either innovative social practices or new policing and disciplining orders?
- How are ideas about conflict/consensus (e.g. from agonistic political theory for instance) transforming planning practice? (Are we seeing a move from the "engineering of consent" towards the choreography of carefully curated conflict? Or is that too cynical an approach?
- Which contemporary theoretical contributions / strands of theoretical research can inform and support further research on this line of inquiry?
- Which possible shifts in research questions does this imply and what kind of research programs can be developed in order to pursue them?
The symposium will invite papers that respond to questions that engage critically with the conflict/consensus nexus and interrogate how this incites new and different ways of thinking about planning as a contested domain across space and time.
*All papers will be circulated to participants before the symposium*. We are currently in the early stages of approaching an international journal to publish the body of papers as a special issue. For more information about the call for papers and the symposium please contact Dr. Crystal Legacy by email at
References
Blühdorn, I. (2013). The governance of unsustainability: ecology and democracy after the post-democratic turn. Environmental Politics, 22(1), 16-36.
Bond, S. (2010). Negotiating a 'democratic ethos': moving beyond the agonistic-communicative divide. Planning Theory, 1-26.
Bylund, J. (2012). Postpolitical correctness? Planning Theory 11(3), 319–327.
Gualini, E., Mourato, JM., Allegra, M. (2015). ‘Conflict in the City: Contested Urban Spaces and Local Democracy’, Berlin: Jovis.
Gualini, E. (2015). ‘Planning and Conflict: Critical Perspectives on Contentious Urban Developments’. New York: Routledge.
Inch, A. (2014). Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning: In search of the subject of a new democratic ethos, Planning Theory, 1-21.
Legacy, C. (2015). Transforming transport planning in the postpolitical era, Urban Studies, 1-17.
Metzger, J., Allmendinger, P., & Oosterlynck, S. (Eds.). (2015). ‘Planning Against the Political: Democratic deficits in European territorial governance’. New York: Routledge
Oosterlynck, S., & Swyngedouw, E. (2010). Noise reduction: the postpolitical quandary of night flights at Brussels airport. Environment and Planning A, 42 (1577-1594).
Purcell, M. (2013). ‘The down-deep delight of democracy’. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures
Call for Interest ‘UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS’ (2016-2018)
Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP)
Thematic Group ‘Public Spaces and Urban Cultures’ (TG PS-UC)
December, 2015
To Whom It May Concern,
The AESOP Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (AESOP TG PS-UC) has opened a call to potential institutional partners, in Europe and beyond, to host the group’s meeting in the series UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES - DISLOCATED PUBLICS, during the period from 2016 to 2018. Previous meetings of the Thematic Group have been organised under the themes of “Conviviality” (2010-2012; in Vienna, Ljubljana, Naples, Brussels, and Lisbon) and “Becoming Local” (2013-2015; in Istanbul, Bucharest, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Glasgow, and Oporto). The new topic UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES - DISLOCATED PUBLICS has been developed during the group’s meetings in Prague and Oporto between July and September, 2015. This umbrella topic builds on the group’s approaches and activities aimed to critically reflect upon, analyse, and discuss current trends and tendencies in public spaces and urban cultures in the fields of urban research, design, and planning. If you are interested in hosting an upcoming group’s meeting, please contact us at
‘UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS’
The theme
Public spaces, as a manifestation of cities’ different cultures, are recognized as valuable social and cultural capital of urban societies. They have increasingly been celebrated as crossroads of different interests, backgrounds, and values, allowing - if not inviting - diverse urban populations to enjoy the fruits of (past) emancipatory struggle(s). A thriving scene of actors and performative practices mainly rooted in the fields of urban design and planning for the city centres and adjacent districts, engages in creating places of everyday life for multiple city publics. This renaissance of diverse public spaces, however, takes place against the bleak backdrop painted by fear and uncertainty now also spilling onto the privileged part of the world, which has found itself overwhelmed by the scale of the recent crisis of capitalism and the waves of migrants. A response carved out by policymakers and institutions, which has not shied away from morally ambiguous means to put capitalism back on track and curb the influx of (uninvited) people, has shown that the institutions and the order of the West, while building on the achievements of past emancipatory struggles, often sustain hostile practices of exclusion and othering. A number of initiatives and activists’ movements stand in opposition to such neo-colonial practices, calling on urban publics and emerging cultures to challenge and rethink the prevailing political and institutional ethics. In the meantime, a strong call for strengthening dialogue and mutual learning between cities and regions of the Global South and of the Global North is gaining momentum in urban research and practice. The UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES - DISLOCATED PUBLICS series combines inclusive urban theory, methods, and practice to promote (post)migrational perspectives between different world regions and their cities. It simultaneously reflects on the changing structural constraints in times of multiple crises in which public space is emphasized in various, partly contradictory ways: social, cultural, ecological, political, and economic. Our standpoint takes public spaces as a key catalyst in the process of accommodating diverse cultural values and meeting basic human needs. Among many salient and urgent issues that need to inform current planning, design, and research communities both in theory and practice, we suggest focusing on four main subtopics.
1. City, refugees, and migration
We consider the city as a constant migration process where ‘citizenship’ (relating to the ‘city’ as base for human rights) is not a matter of national status, administrative reference, or ethnic privilege, but an emerging category of arriving, settling, and making a living in a city while both interacting with and forming ever-changing urban cultures. This historical process is nothing new, yet the mechanics and speed with which cities accommodate different needs seems to increase, accompanied by the seemingly ubiquitous presence of social media. The current migration and refugee situation in and beyond Europe, and in and beyond cities, puts planners, designers, and researchers into a position of uncertainty. This is because the numbers used to describe migratory influxes are often speculative, forecasts of global emigration are frequently wrong, and the whole conception of planning as a rational, long-term discursive process of levelling rational arguments fails on many fronts. However, professionals dealing with public space and urban cultures have for a long time been working with/in such situations, recognizing trust, affect, spontaneity, and intuition as key emergent features of urban development. The first focus of UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS revolves around/raises the question: What can traditional planning practices learn by approaching public space and urban cultures in a relational way of thinking through planning and society, regions and cities?
2. Fragmented social fabric – individualised patterns of consumption
Urban lives have increasingly been characterized by fragmentation along different identity lines: biographies of urban dwellers are increasingly shaped by fragmented family biographies, fragmented labour histories, fragmented religious and political beliefs, and fragmented dwelling experiences due to the demands of spatial flexibility that many urban dwellers have to accept in order to make a living. On the one hand, urban mobility is not equally relevant for all social groups in the city and good mobility prospects might be very important for the inclusion of already marginalized groups. On the other hand, individual fragmented biographies and new urban mobility patterns are very much intertwined with the reinforcement of the institutional promotion of capitalist lifestyles of choice and consumption. This reinforcement is flanked by the rise of “quasi public space,” which offers an exclusive sphere for collective consumption, rather than an inclusive realm of collective memory, action, and discourse. In times of increasing fragmentation of collective social patterns, public space serves as a place of nostalgia for the missed and missing collective habits and beliefs, but also a place for promoting alternative means of socialisation against and beyond capitalist means of individualized consumption in the context of the increasing privatisation and commodification of public space. The second focus of UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS concerns a critique of (changing) patterns of everyday life, particularly of everyday life fragmentations, mobilities, and individualizations. In this section we are particularly interested in forms of sociability and socialisation that follow a critical and post-growth agenda, and put the urban collective back on track, or work with notions of emerging and porous collectives which articulate new forms of cooperation beyond efficiency and competition modes.
3. The decline of national politics – Resurgence of the urban political
UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS concerns aspects of urban democracy against the backdrop of rising urban inequalities in cities in Europe. During the last two decades, cities in the Global North and the Global South have witnessed an increase in urban inequalities due to structural changes in light of the global transition towards neoliberal politics (particularly at the nation-state level, partly as well at the urban level). During this period, issues of social justice, the politics of care, and a critique of unfair urban development patterns have come under the spotlight of academic discussions and entrenched in debates over changing power relations in times of risk, uncertainty, and crisis. At the same time, urban dwellers, especially the non-affluent who are either excluded from the labour markets or included under precarious labour conditions, face the downgrading of their spatial and social standards. National states and meta-institutions like the European Union are slow to offer concrete paths out of the multiple urban crises, leaving it to city inhabitants (and city mayors) to utilize their capacity to deliver hope, solidarity, and help to those in need in the times and spaces of instability. At the same time, however, neo-conservative, extreme right-wing and xenophobic parts of the national population oppose such involved practices and use urban public spaces for acts of discrimination and exclusion. Public space and urban cultures are at the heart of these tensions that reflect a plethora of desires, visions, and power relations with regard to gaining and protecting access to the benefits of the urban production circuits. Nonetheless, public space can be understood as a display of power relations not just in the sense of domination (power over), but also regarding the ability to resist implying that the most vulnerable possess agency to negotiate the ways that existentially help to make their living (power to). The third focus of INSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS is on the multiple roles of planners, designers, and researchers in urban social conflict, with a particular focus on how to facilitate encounters with the unknown in a peaceful and de-escalating manner.
4. Change of perspective – worlding urban studies
Unstable space and time confront urban theory and practice with new challenges and critiques. Contributions from the Global South call for a rethinking of hegemonic perspectives based in Western social theory towards development of a different way of thinking about global processes of urbanization. We employ a relational approach to move the epistemological and methodological frame of urban studies forward as a transcultural approach in order to depict the interconnections between cities, and between cities and other places. The fourth focus of UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS includes post-colonial approaches with the aim of ‘worlding’ traditional ways of urban thinking with new perspectives from hitherto neglected ways of thinking. Approaches that cross the boundaries of typical academic discourse in urban research and practice, bring in alternative locally-embedded perspectives, and integrate new and unusual interventions into debates on urbanization are warmly invited and encouraged.
The AESOP TG PS-UC values a critical and constructive dialogue on the processes relating to UNSTABLE GEOGRAPHIES – DISLOCATED PUBLICS that equally involves researchers and practitioners, locals and guests. The proposed umbrella topic aims to explore and rethink relations among different concepts and meanings related to, on the one hand, cities facing austerity, crisis, and a variety of migrational patterns, and, on the other hand, a civic response in the form of emerging practices of self-organization, social innovation, and planners’ investments in building solidarity, hope, and trust. The topic has been approached in a dialectical manner, and conceived as a dynamic framework that allows for the exploration of various (relational) aspects of public spaces and urban cultures, as well as socio-theoretical approaches to critically investigate and shape these spaces and cultures.
Authors: Sabine Knierbein (TU Wien, Austria), Nikolai Roskamm (University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Germany and TU Wien, Austria), Tihomir Viderman (TU Wien, Austria)
Commented by: Fernando Alvez (Oporto, Portugal), Nadia Charalambous (Nikosia, Cyprus), Christine Mady (Beirut, Lebanon), Matej Niksic (UIRS, Ljubljana, Slovenia), Sara Santos Cruz (Oporto, Portugal), Ceren Sezer (Amsterdam/Delft, The Netherlands), Burcu Yigit Turan (Istanbul, Turkey).
About the AESOP TG ‘Public Spaces and Urban Cultures’
The AESOP Thematic Group on Public Spaces and Urban Cultures has been initiated in 2009 after the Annual Meeting of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) in Liverpool (UK) in 2009. In April 2010 the initiative has been recognized as a new thematic group Public Space and Urban Cultures by AESOP. In 2015, the group has decided on self-organized management structure (see table below):
|
AESOP Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures – Self-Organized Management Network |
||
|
A. Group Coordination |
2015/6: Sabine Knierbein (Vienna,
2016/7: Gabriella Esposito de Vita (Naples,
2017/8: Ceren Sezer (Amsterdam,
from 2018 onwards: Elections |
Gabriella Esposito de Vita (Naples,
Ceren Sezer (Amsterdam,
N.N.
|
|
B. Research Affairs |
Sara Santos Cruz (Oporto, |
Nadia Charalambous (Nikosia, |
|
C. Public Relations |
Burcu Yigit Turan (Istanbul, |
Stefania Ragozino (Naples, |
|
D. Public Liaison |
Tihomir Viderman (Vienna, |
Elina Kränzle (Vienna, |
|
E. Social Media |
Weronika Dettlaff (Gdansk, |
Jacub Figel (Gdansk, |
|
The Aesop Thematic Group for Public Spaces and Urban Cultures has been founded upon an initiative of Sabine Knierbein, Ceren Sezer and Chiara Tornaghi in 2010. It has been supported especially by Ali Madanipour (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) and Sophie Watson (Open University, UK). |
||
The aim of the group is to settle the research and design focus on Public Spaces and Urban Cultures in planning-related disciplines. For more information about the thematic group, please visit the group’s official blog. For questions please send an e-mail to:
About AESOP TG UC-PS’s Meetings:
The group’s meetings take place every few months. These meetings are organized by different types of institutions that submit their declaration of interest to host an event based on the call’s theme. The host institution prepares a meeting in a close cooperation with the two group representatives, who assist the hosting institutional partners in developing the meeting’s theme and agenda. The hosting institution invites the two representatives as members of the meeting’s scientific committee. If local funding is not available, the hosting institution assists them in obtaining funding elsewhere. The format of the event is open. The events are mostly held in the format of two-days workshops/seminars/conferences that often include a fieldtrip. During these events, participants are encouraged to give presentations about their research and design projects on the relevant topic. Participation at the AESOP TG meetings is free of charge for group members and at least keynote lectures should be accessible for the public without any costs (in place, and/or virtually through livestream). Participants usually cover their own travel and accommodation expenses.
Thanks to generous support of AESOP, there is a limited budget allocated for the organization of the meetings. We would like to thank the current and former AESOP Secretary General, Paulo Pinho and Izabela Mironowicz and further colleagues for the material support offered in the course of the Oporto Meeting 2015.
We acknowledge as well the institutions and colleagues that have hosted our events so far: Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space, Department for Spatial Planning, Faculty for Architecture and Planning, TU Wien (Austria); Istituto di Richerche sulle Attivià Terciarie, National Research Council (Italy); Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (Slovenia); Human Cities Symposium Organizers, Faculté d’Architecture La Cambre Horta and ProMateria, Brussels (Belgium); Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal), Faculty of Architecture and Design, Ozyegin University, Istanbul (Turkey); United Nations, UN Habitat Section, World Urban Forum, Medellín (Colombia); Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urban Planning, Bucharest (Romania), Laboratoire Architecture Anthropologie of La Villette School of Architecture, Paris (France); Organizers of the Biennale Spazio Pubblico Rome 2015 (Italy); Scottish Cities Knowledge Center, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School (Scotland); Centro de Investigação do Território, Transportes e Ambiente, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, (Portugal).
For questions regarding the organization of the meetings please send an e-mail to:
