Dear colleagues (apologies for x-posting)

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for the RC21 conference* Shaping
& Sensing the city. Power, people, place*. Antwerp 6-8 July 2020.

*Call for Papers*

SESSION NUMBER: 12

*Privileged Mobilities and Urban Transformation*

*Organisers:* Eve Bantman (Lisst-Cieu Toulouse), Christine Barwick (Centre
Marc Bloch), Hila Zaban (Kinneret Academic College)

This session looks at privileged mobilities and urban transformation. We
are interested in the pathways of incorporation of mobile groups and how
they lead to urban change.

Recent studies have focused on the role played by mobile actors—intra-EU
migrants, lifestyle migrants, and tourists—in processes of neighbourhood
transformation globally (see Hayes & Zaban’s forthcoming special issue in
Urban Studies). Simultaneously, urban sociologists have refuted the claim
that mobile people are free-floating, no longer in need of a ‘home’. They
found that mobile individuals still engage in the city or neighbourhood.
Mobile people are thus not the ‘new barbarians’. At the same time, members
of the (upper) middle classes also have strategies to dis-engage or exit
from the neighbourhood or city. To illustrate, when it comes to the
education of their children, they might opt to stay in a mixed
neighbourhood but partially exit it to send their children to a private
school. At the same time, they might use public services and have a local
network.

At a theoretical level, our primary focus is on issues of class and
ethnicity, and the extent to which short- to long-term mobilities may help
redefine these key terms. To give but one example, lifestyle migrants are
often regarded, including by local authorities in destination countries, as
capital bearers. Yet, research has shown that many are working class or
lower middle class. However, their position in the global economy—the fact
that they are from developed countries and hold top passport—gives them an
advantage and positions them as privileged. Notwithstanding, they often
choose to immigrate for economic reasons. What’s more, lifestyle, as Benson
wrote, characterises many migrants, not just lifestyle migrants. From the
perspective of diverse, fast changing neighbourhoods where mobile people
settle, privilege, we argue, should be considered in more nuanced ways.

Looking at residents, migrants and tourists simultaneously invites a
different perspective on mobilities, migration, and processes of urban
transformation in the city or neighbourhood of destination. This calls for
a different approach to the notion of privilege, attached to mobile
individuals and fundamental in the study of urban transformation.
Importantly, new research should question the role of policymakers or
institutional players in favouring one mobile group over another, thereby
defining who is privileged and who is not. Recent research has produced
evidence of differentiated migration regimes that affect processes of urban
change. Do these political representations and imaginings affect
neighbourhood change? This is all the more interesting to investigate since
many supposedly privileged migrants are former economic migrants too, as
well as minority members (Hispanic and African American migrants from the
US or French Arabs to North Africa, for example).

While we focus on middle class mobile persons, their nationality and
ethnic, racial or religious background might well influence arrival and
settling in the new place. The ‘prestige’ associated to different groups
differs between countries and is oftentimes highly political.

We encourage papers that address urban transformation caused by privileged
mobile people, such as intra-EU migrants, short- and long-term lifestyle
migrants or tourists. We welcome papers that adopt an intersectional
perspective and ask, for example, how dimensions such as social class,
gender, religion, ethnicity and race influence a mobile person’s experience
of arriving and settling in a new place, and the power and possibilities to
shape a city or neighbourhood. To what extent do political definitions of
privilege shape urban change? To what extent do ideas on privilege and
ethnicity affect the sense and essence of communities? In which ways do
mobile people affect local places and transform them?

Our regional focus extends to any world region that is transformed by
privileged mobility. We welcome theoretical or empirical papers, including
papers that adopt different methodological perspectives such as visual
methods or network analysis.

***

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted via this link:
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-sensing-the-city/call-for-papers/submit-your-abstract/

When submitting your abstract, please select Session 12: Privileged
Mobilities and Urban Transformation. Abstracts that are not submitted via
the conference website cannot be selected for presentation at the
conference.



Kind regards,

Hila, Eve & Christine

-- 

Dr Hila Zaban

Senior Lecturer

Department of Tourism and Hotel Management / Behavioural Sciences, Kinneret
Academic College

Email: [log in to unmask] / Mobile: +972 (0)54 7696689 /
https://kinneret.academia.edu/HilaZaban


*Recent Publications: *

Zaban, H. (2019). The Real Estate Foothold in the Holy Land: Transnational
Gentrification in Jerusalem. *Urban Studies* (online first).
Zaban, H. (2017). Preserving 'the Enemy's' Architecture: Preservation and
Gentrification in a Formerly Palestinian Jerusalem Neighbourhood,
*International
Journal of Heritage Studies.*
Zaban, H. (2017). City of Go(l)d: Spatial and Cultural Effects of
High-Status Jewish Immigration from Western Countries on the Baka
Neighbourhood of Jerusalem, *Urban Studies*, 54(7), 1539-1558.
Zaban, H. (2016). “Once There Were Moroccans Here – Today Americans”:
Gentrification and the Real Estate Market in the Baka Neighbourhood of
Jerusalem. *City*, 20(3), 412–427.

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