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Dear all,
Please find below details of a public lecture by Prof Oren Yiftachel this Thursday 30 January, 6.30-8pm at University College London.
CITY Journal/UCL Urban Laboratory Lecture
GRAY SPACE AND THE NEW URBAN REGIME: BETWEEN LIBERALISM AND CREEPING APARTHEID
Professor Oren Yiftachel
Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Date: 30 January 2014
Time: 18.30-20.00pm
Venue: UCL Conference Suite 05, 188 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 7PH
This lecture will analyse the impact of structural economic, identity and governance tensions on urban regimes and societies in the twenty-first century.
It draws attention to the pervasive emergence of 'gray spaces', that is, informal, temporary or illegal developments, transactions and populations. 'Gray-spacing' has become a central feature of urbanism in most parts of the world, as well as a strategy
to manage the unwanted/irremovable, as well as the wanted/uncontrollable. Urban planning is central to this process, given its ability to approve, deny, legitimate and criminalise urban development. Gray spacing enables the mobility of marginalised groups
into privileged regions, often under the guise of liberalising economies. At the same time, this puts in train a process of 'creeping urban apartheid' under which the region is governed through the principle of 'separation and inequality'. These tensions and
trends will be illustrated by highlighting research findings on the planning of cities around Europe, Africa and Asia, with special focus on the 'ethnocratic' cities of Israel/Palestine, such as Beersheba, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem.
Prof. Yiftachel teaches urban studies as well as political and legal geography at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. His research has focused on critical
understandings of the relations between space, power and conflict, with particular attention to ethnic, social and urban aspects of these relations. Yiftachel has taught as guest professor at a range of universities including RMIT Melbourne, Curtin, Columbia,
Penn, Berkeley, Venezia, Kolkata and Cape Town. He has published over 100 articles and ten authored and edited books, including "Indigenous (In)Justice: the Bedouins in Comparative Perspective" (co-ed, Harvard University Press, 2013); "Ethnocracy: the Politics
of Land and Identity in Israel/Palestine" (Pennpress, 2006); and "The Power of Planning" (ed, Kluwer, 2001).
Dr. Pushpa Arabindoo
Lecturer in Geography & Urban Design
Department of Geography
Co-director, UCL Urban Laboratory
University College London
26 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AP
Tel.: 020 7679 5512
Fax.: 020 7679 7565
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanstudies
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academics/academic-staff/pushpa-arabindoo/
Editor, CITY Journal