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Vadstena Klosterhotell, Vadstena, Sweden

11-15 October 2008
Chair: Bernard Jouve, University of Lyon, France
Vice-Chair: Mark Purcell, University of Washington, US

Full details are available here:  http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/details/confdetail264.html?conf=264

Preliminary Programme
As it has been largely documented, modern states are facing political rescaling processes in which
the roles and functions of the different levels of government are evolving. Thus city-regions are
becoming central economic and political territories in which a new division of labour is occurring
between the states and the local authorities. This tendency has been particularly analysed by the
economic literature but also by geography, sociology and political science. At the same time, there
is a large literature on the general tendency towards the pluralization of urban decision systems in
different institutional, cultural, political and economic contexts. To say it briefly, these processes
(i.e. political rescaling and participative democracy at local level) generate a new "right to the city":
the capacity to influence the agendas of urban public institutions by using "appropriate" demands
based on the formulation of rights recognized as legitimate by urban institutions. The on-going
process of the constitution of an "urban citizenship" involves a set of social demands which are, by
definition, contradictory in that sense that the "right to the city" must be linked to the social groups
and classes using it in order to organize themselves, to generate collective identity and collective
action. The work program of the Conference addresses a number of empirical subjects, all vectors
of a "right to the city". Its objective is to compare the effects of these dynamics on the content of
urban policies and on the transformation of citizenship regimes.

ESF Research Conferences provide the opportunity for the world's leading scientists and other
participants, including young researchers, to meet informally for discussions at the highest level on
the most recent developments in their fields of research. They act as a catalyst for creating new
synergistic contacts throughout Europe and the rest of the world. This conference will be of interest
to academic and policy researchers in the field of higher education and to researchers in other
relevant social science fields, e.g. science policy, regional development, governance, social equity.
The conference will take place at Vadstena Klosterhotel, located in a lovely natural setting on the
shores of beautiful lake Vättern, offering comfortable accommodation in a historic environment.
During the Middle Ages, Vadstena was the location of a catholic monastery for monks and nuns of
the Birgittine order and nowadays the conference center and hotel is largely located in the same

medieval buildings that were once the monastery.

University of Rome, IT
The right to the city and the role of national

policies

Simon Fraser University, CA
Down here: situatedness, empowerement, and drug policy in

Vancouver, British Columbia

University of the West of England, UK
The renaissance of urban areas: democracy,

community and everyday-life

Rights to the city on the hill

University of Barcelona, ES
The impact of global flows on the meanings of
urban places and the right to the (imagined)

city

Hamburg University, DE
The right to an adequate urban time organisation - a
necessary component of urban citizenship in a postfordist

society

University of Tunis, TN
The right to the city in the urban policies in

Tunisia

Charles University, CZ

Competition, cohesion and access to urban services

Simon Fraser University, CA
Public Space, civil engineering and the

deactivation of the right to the city

University of Manchester, UK
The Antinomies of the Post-Political City: Questioning the

Political Right to the City

Ohio State University, US

Class, stratum and struggle for the city

Université du Québec à Montréal, CA
Collective action in cities: protest events and conflicts as

agents of human development?

University of Glasgow, UK
Defining and Implementing Community Ownership

Empowerment: Policy Failure or Policy Evolution?