THEMATIC GROUPS

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures

Published: 19 June 2023

Conference of the AESOP Thematic Group Public Spaces and Urban Cultures

“Urban Conflicts and Peace: Everyday Politics of Commons”

5 - 6 October 2023, Naples, Italy

Hosted by the National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development, Naples, Italy

The conference is part of the series of events to the working theme 2022-2024 of the AESOP Thematic Group Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (TG PSUC; https://aesop-planning.eu/resources/news-archive/thematic-groups/public-spaces-and-urban-cultures) titled PUBLIC SPACES, URBAN CULTURES AND CONSTRUCTING PEACE (https://aesop-planning.eu/resources/news-archive/thematic-groups/public-spaces-and-urban-cultures/aesop-tg-psuc-representatives-of-forthcoming-events-2021-2023).

*Call for Abstracts*

Introduction

Urban space and everyday life are permeated with conflicts across multiple scales: from struggles with political oppression, health, ecological and economic crises that are often dictated by the competition for geopolitical influence, over struggles to the right to social and cultural difference, to often invisible struggles and violence that permeate spaces of homes. Against these fragmentation tendencies, the commons glue social fabric together, urging societies to aim for peace. While the construction of peace has transformative power in shaping shared urban futures, it also carries possible negative dimensions in the form of preservation or reproduction of disparities in power relations, be it at the level of global peacemaking or at the level of the home. It is through the engagement with the politics of commons and their production in everyday life that the construction of peace can be understood as an everyday operation of negotiation across a broad spectrum of differences that aims at instilling a sense of harmony within shared space and time. Commons display how peace is constructed, how societies arrive at peace in everyday life, and how urban space mould the understanding of what kind of peace societies aim to arrive at.

Theme

The conference aims to reflect on the politics of commons as inherently bound to the ways and means of how urban societies negotiate between urban conflicts and peace. The goal is to conceptualize the relationship between conflict and peace beyond their usual perception as a binary pair. For peace can maintain imbalances in power relations which might violently affect parts of the urban population, as much as urban conflicts might open up the opportunity for more democratic participation and the recognition of differences. In the realm of politics, conflicts may shape a transformative public sphere which contests the given unjust conditions and renegotiates meanings and actions.

The commons display how societies have contested, innovated, produced and governed differently – they are integral part of an everyday construction of urban peace in which power relations are continuously rebalanced. They allow for a profound insight into assemblages of institutional and social actors and their daily interactions unfolding in the range of practices and settings, from the micro level of informal improvised tactics to the structured institutionalized settings of urban politics. At the same time they extend the field of exploration to settlements, services and organizations that do not fully fit into the institutionally demarcated framework of city-making and which can build the city in a different way. To grasp these transformative moments of agency and to understand contentious acts of publics as political, this conference aims to interpret commons through various epistemologies, theories and practices, including but not limited to those from the Global South or from the feminist perspective on the city.

Abstract Submission

Deadline for abstract submission is Friday, 21 July  2023 Wednesday, 26 July 2023

Decision on abstracts by Monday, 31 July  2023

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words outlining its relation to the event’s theme, conceptual framework, methodology, (expected) results, three references and three keywords, as well as a short biography of up to 100 words by Friday, 21 July 2023 to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We are currently in the early stages of approaching an international peer-reviewed journal to publish selected contributions as a special issue.

Preliminary program

A 2-day conference will include a keynote lecture, paper presentations, a fieldtrip-workshop in Bagnoli, a contested urban brownfield, with the Community of Lido Pola recognized by the City Council of Naples and working under the Declaration for collective and civic use (2016).

Fees

Participation in the conference is free of charge, however, travel and accommodation arrangements need to be covered by participants.

Organization Team

Local organizers: Stefania Ragozino, Gabriella Esposito (CNR-IRISS, Italy)

TG PSUC Representatives: Tihomir Viderman (BTU, Germany), Chiara Belingardi (LAPEI, Italy)

Contacts

Stefania Ragozino – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Gabriella Esposito De Vita – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tihomir Viderman – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Chiara Belingardi – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Related links

AESOP TG PSUC: https://aesop-planning.eu/thematic-groups/public-spaces-and-urban-cultures

AESOP TG PSUC 2022-2024 working theme: https://aesop-planning.eu/resources/news-archive/thematic-groups/public-spaces-and-urban-cultures/call-for-expressions-of-interest-to-host-the-thematic-group-s-meetings-2022-2024

CNR: https://www.cnr.it/en

CNR-IRISS: https://www.iriss.cnr.it/en/

Lido Pola – Bene Comune: https://commonsnapoli.org/gli-spazi/lido-pola/

Main References

Arendt, H. and Kohn, J. (2006) Between past and future. Penguin.

Borch, C. and Kornberger, M. (eds.) (2015) Urban commons: Rethinking the city. Routledge.

Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J. and Rottenberg, C. (2020) The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence. Verso Books.

Knierbein, S. and Viderman, T. (eds.). (2018) Public space unbound: Urban emancipation and the post-political condition. Routledge.

Hooks, B. (2000) Feminist theory: From margin to center. Pluto Press.

Mouffe, C. (2013) Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. Verso.

Viderman, T., Knierbein, S., Kränzle, E., Frank, S., Roskamm, N. and Wall, E. (eds.) (2022) Unsettled Urban Space: Routines, Temporalities and Contestations. Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429290237

Vittoria, M. P., Ragozino, S. and Esposito De Vita, G. (2023) Urban Commons between Ostrom’s and Neo-Materialist Approaches: The Case of Lido Pola in Naples, Southern Italy. Land 12(3):524, https://doi.org/10.3390/land12030524

Weck, S., Madanipour, A. and Schmitt, P. (2022) Place-based development and spatial justice. In European Planning Studies 30(5):791-806, https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1928038

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Planning/Conflict

Published: 07 June 2023

Planning Theory Lecture Series 2023

BEYOND ‘INVITED’ PARTICIPATION: practices of agonistic citizenship in urban transformation

14 June - 19 July 2023, Wednesdays 5:00–6:30 pm s.t. CEST 

The ideal and practice of citizens participation has long played a central role in the democratic understanding of urban planning processes. As such, however, participatory planning practices have always been contested in terms of the actual fulfilment of their promise of democracy. More recently, radical critique of 'invited spaces' for citizens involvement in the shaping of urban spaces has been backed by a reappraisal of agonism as defining dimension of democratic politics. As it views contention and conflict as necessary dimensions of democratic politics, this critical perspective reminds us not only of the fallibility and undecidability of participatory practices, but also of the emancipatory and transformative potential of agonistic engagement. Moving beyond protest and contestation, this critique is ever more often translated into forms of civic activism that 'invent' and reframe participation as agonistic engagement with creating alternatives.

This lecture series explores recent experiences sharing this generative and experimental attitude towards turning critique of 'invited' participation into new democratic alternatives. We analyse concepts adopted and pathways taken by these civic initiatives in addressing sustainable change and discuss their experience in establishing a productive if not unproblematic agonistic relationship with the institutional field of urban policy and planning. 

14.06 Place, power and participation: protracted conflicts and insurgent citizenship in planning processes, Donagh Horgan (Inholland University Rotterdam)

21.06 The right to public space in Madrid: sharing the space while learning how to do it, Cristina Braschi (Université Catholique de Louvain)

05.07 The Common as a mode of radical democratisation: public-common institutions in the European context, Iolanda Bianchi (University of Antwerp)

12.07 Beni comuni in Naples: processes of commoning in the interaction between self-governed spaces and the municipality, Gaia Pilia (VUB / ULB, Brussels)

19.07 Urban development via public-civic partnerships: forms of cooperation, controversies and modelling attempts, Felix Marlow and Rebecca Wall (HU Berlin)

Concept and organisation: Enrico Gualini and Nils Grube with Liliane Gottschalk and Emil Jung, Chair of Planning Theory and Urban-Regional Policy Analysis

All lectures online (via Zoom):

Meeting ID: 667 6812 3079 https://tu-berlin.zoom.us/j/66768123079?pwd=Z0RXV3ArSzhGT2VWRysyaHQ5UUw4dz09

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures

Published: 18 May 2023

The first event of the two-year period 2023-2024 on the working theme 'Public Spaces, Urban Cultures, and Constructing Peace' was successfully concluded.

This AESOP TG PSUC Workshop Helsinki was attended by participants from Finland, Norway, Germany, Italy, and Palestine, in addition to master’s students from the Urban Studies and Planning (USP) programme at Aalto University. The event included visits to two public libraries in Helsinki with presentations from designers and library staff, presentations by participants, and a workshop, which ended in a public discussion at the Oodi Library. Discussions that started with public libraries as generators of peace expanded to address topics related to the location of libraries within planning processes, funding of libraries, participatory approaches, their changing programmes and relation to public spaces were discussed.

Thanks to  Christine Mady, Hossam Hewidy, Ebba Högström, and Matej Nikšič for organizing and bringing this event to life! 

You will find the complete report here.

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Global South & East

Published: 02 May 2023

Dear all,

Please join us for an online lecture on "Publication from the South" by Dr. Olivier Sykes from University of Liverpool on 18th May at 3pm London time. Please find Dr. Sykes' profile here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/environmental-sciences/staff/olivier-sykes/. Please find the Zoom invite below:

Topic: AESOP global south group seminar series - Guest Speaker Dr Olivier Sykes
Time: May 18, 2023 03:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/98029969675?pwd=RG1YN21XbVZYSVRJS1gxaDRBSG4wdz09

Meeting ID: 980 2996 9675
Passcode: n&9XdYnT