• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Rethinking Global Urban Justice September 11-13 2017 | Leeds Conference Programme Campus Map To Devonshire Hall, Headingley Moorland Road 5 Clarendon Road D F Clarendon Place 4 E C P 2 B 3 Willow Terrace 1 To City A Centre 6 P Claredon Way To City Centre Online Interactive Campus Map: www.leeds.ac.uk/campusmap Key Venues 1 Exhibition Hall / Edge Sports Centre P Parking 2 Roger Stevens (RSLT) Bus Stop Level 7: LT 02, 03 / Level 8: LT 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 18, 20, 23 Level 10: LT 14, 15 / Level 12: 16, 25 Taxi Rank 3 Garstang (G) Coffee & Tea 4 Social Sciences Building (SSB) A. Exhibition Hall B. Waterside (Roger Stevens) 5 Leeds Humanities Research Institute (LHRI) C. The Edit Room (Boyle) D. Balcony (Refectory) 6 Conference Auditorium E. Café Maia (Ziff) F. Café Nero (Laidlaw) Conference Guide At-A-Glance Welcome to RC21 at Leeds 4 Conference Schedule At-A-Glance 6 Plenary Information 8 Exhibition Hall & Research Hub 13 Open Sessions & Events 13 Publishers’ Exhibition 14 Registration & Information Desk 15 Luggage Store 15 Coffee, Tea and Lunches 15 Wifi Access 15 The Edge Sports Centre 15 Highlighted Sessions 16 Parallel Sessions 19 Session Guide 25 Delegate List 50 4 Welcome to RC21 at Leeds The local organising committee of the 2017 annual conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 21 on Urban and Regional Development is delighted to extend to all our participants a very warm welcome to the University of Leeds and the City of Leeds in West Yorkshire. We are especially grateful to those who have travelled long distances to join us in the North of England, perhaps to sample the UK at a particularly turbulent, uncertain but interesting time. We cannot guarantee good weather, but we can be sure of a packed and intense three days of conference, an outstanding programme, and – just a short walk away – a lively, big city with a huge post-industrial heritage. Needless to say, if you have time, the countryside near Leeds also offers some of the most beautiful landscapes in the British Isles, and is well connected and accessible by rail. We are also proud to present to those visiting for the first time, the renowned University of Leeds campus, a combination of classic red-brick and spectacular brutalist architecture, that is well worth a wander. The conference itself is mainly centred in a part of the campus closest to town, around the huge Roger Stevens building where many of the sessions take place, and The Edge Sports Centre, where you can find the Exhibition Hall and Main Conference Auditorium. Several sessions also take place in the School of Geography, and in the Social Sciences Building, the home of the School of Sociology and Social Policy. When we proposed to bring this year’s RC21 to Leeds, we knew that we would be holding debates and reflections on the state of international urban studies at a crucial time, with turbulence and transformation centred in cities and conurbations all around the world. We have been overwhelmed however by the response to our call for papers, which generated no less than 75 calls for sessions, and which has translated into a programme presented here with well over 600 delegates from 49 countries. Our discussions necessarily will be intense and abundant across 30 parallel sessions, as well as the scheduled plenaries, additional sessions (such as a film and a walk), and a range of open discussion events that are taking place in the main Exhibition Hall along with the Publishers Exhibition. All of the events are focused on exploring the research agenda: Rethinking Global Urban Justice, our focal point. Global | Urban | Justice We live in an increasingly urban, globalised and unequal world facing multiple crises: from financial and political to infrastructural and ecological. In this context, cities have become both the locus of economic growth and development, and the principle site of social conflict and political contestation over spatial inequalities, belonging, environment and sustainability. Yet many of the forms these dynamics and contestations take are captured only partially or inadequately in both conventional mainstream and radical urban theory. Drawing on past RC21 conference themes, our conference calls attention to the notion of ‘global urban justice’ as a term to focus our scholarship and research impact on society. We have selected sessions which challenge and advance our knowledge and practice around these three mutually connected concepts. GLOBAL: Our world is at the same time global and also rooted in particular places. Migration and refugee flows, global terrorism, climate change, financial capital, social media are all stretched out and expanding as well locked-in particular spatial arrangements mediated through uneven power geometries. How can urban studies capture the multiplicity and simultaneity of global and territorially embedded processes? Which theoretical progress may expand the learning on global urban developments and further de-colonise knowledge production? What methodological advances are best suited for this theoretical endeavour? URBAN: The urban condition is not contained in cities; it overspills into rural or cybernetic spaces, and it is increasingly mediated through physical and virtual infrastructures. Urban studies have the advantage of bringing together a multitude of disciplines, but how can different theoretical corpus and methodological traditions effectively communicate with each other, thus providing a better understanding for urban studies? Which are the key challenges of the contemporary urban condition and how do they advance paradigmatic transdisciplinary shifts? JUSTICE: A multitude of calls for justice are being orchestrated by movements and grassroots groups from cities: against displacement and eviction, racism, police violence, climate change and lack of urban democracy. At the same time people are coming up with their solutions from Rojava’s experimental democracy, grassroots solidarity for refugees and migrants, self-built and cooperative housing, reclamation and self-management of food, water, energy and land in cities. How can urban scholarship engage with these 5 struggles in a novel way and co-produce emancipator knowledge in and beyond the academy? Which new insights can we gain from the multiplicity of social struggles taking place around the globe? What is the role of the state in creating and/or solving these injustices and how can urban scholars engage in policy making? Scholars at the University of Leeds are at the forefront of rethinking these core and emerging themes in urban studies, developing counter-disciplinary thinking across a porous range of topics, which extends beyond traditional boundaries and goes well beyond the academy. These qualities are being now put together into an innovative forthcoming MSc programme on Sustainable Cities that speaks to the heart of RC21’s mission. Bringing this potential together, the conference is organised by scholars in the School of Geography and the School of Sociology and Social Policy, supported by the University of Leeds cross-faculty initiative, the Global Challenges research theme on CITIES (which also has a substantial presence in engineering and economics faculties), and by the interdisciplinary Leeds Social Sciences Institute. The quintessentially Northern post-industrial city region of Leeds provides a compelling critical space for reimagining global urban justice. Locally, we can present examples that go beyond description of urban problems, to look at innovative initiatives from social movements, grassroots activists and public/private policy institutions and organisations alike. The city of Leeds’ paradigmatic local histories of social decline, unrest, opposition and violence, need contrasting with its recent rebranding as a “powerhouse” with which a distant government seeks to redefine and reinsert the city in global flows. These and many other questions will animate our discussions through three days in sessions, plenaries, special events, tours, and evening receptions. We are grateful to the Board of RC21 for entrusting the 2017 conference with us, and would particularly like to thank the President, Eduardo Marques and the Treasurer, Alberta Andreotti, for their collaboration in making this conference possible. We would also warmly thank Claire Colomb and Laurent Fourchard for their leadership on the 5th RC21-IJURR-FURS Summer School in Comparative Urban Studies which preceded the conference, bringing together 26 of the most promising young international scholars in urban studies to London and Leeds. At the University of Leeds, we owe particular thanks for financial support and intellectual encouragement, to the Vice Chancellor, Alan Langlands, to the School of Geography, notably Head of School David Bell, to the School of Sociology and Social Policy, with outgoing Head of School Anne Kerr and Director of Research Ruth Holliday, to the Leeds Social Sciences Institute, particularly Deputy Director Paul Routledge, to the Leeds Humanities Research Institute, to Faye McAnulla, Gary Dymski and their team and colleagues at the Global Challenges reseach theme CITIES, and to MEETinLEEDS for their conference organisation. Thanks also to our many university volunteers for their involvement in the running of the conference. In the city of Leeds, thanks to the 2023 European Capital of Culture bid, The Tetley Contemporary Art Complex, and the many local activists, enthusiasts and organisations who have participated in different aspects of the conference.

Load more

  56

Copy Link