Dear list members,

- apologies for cross posting -

 

Final Call for Papers - for a RGS-IBG 2014 Political Geography Research Group (PolGRG) sponsored session:

 

Rethinking Urban Geopolitics in "Ordinary" and "Contested" Cities

Convened by:

Haim Yacobi, Ben Gurion University \ Bezalel Academy.  

Jonathan Rokem, Department of Human Geography Lund University.

 

 

One of the growing fields of research within urban studies and political geography in the last decades is the spatio-politics of ethnically contested urban space, especially in relation to the role of planning in such sites (see for example: Bollens, 2000; 2012; Brand, 2009; Gaffikin and Morrisey 2011; Pullan and Baillie, 2013). This interest should not surprise us, since several cities and post-colonial regimes are witnessing ongoing ethnic conflicts, which are often violent.

 

The sessions underling argument is that different kinds of cities both "ordinary" (Robinson 2006) and "contested" share and are developing growing similarities stemming from ethnic, racial and class conflicts revolving around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity, amongst others. Our argument is based on a jointcritical and comparative reading of the growing literature on urban geopolitics and contested cities from different urban settings with the aim of learning through differences, rather than seeking out similarities (Robinson 2011) as part of a general call to investigate difference in comparative urban research (McFarlane and Robinson 2012).

 

The session main objective is to bring together a selected group of international leading scholars engaging with urban planning and geopolitics from a set of different cities worldwide. In doing so, this session seeks to argue that it is timely to start learning from, and compare across "ordinary cities" and "extremely contested cities".  Suggesting there is a growing need to re-think 'labels' and 'concepts' attributed to cities and neighborhoods, to better conceptualize and adapt policy and practice to ethnic minorities and migrants in an ever more fractured urban reality.

 

 

We invite papers that discuss and address (although not limited to) the following broad topics:

1.    Comparing Urban Geopolitics within "Ordinary" and "Contested" neighborhoods and cities.

2.    Comparing conflicts and divisions in different political and geographicurban settings.

3.    Comparing how urban conflicts shape the identities and qualities ofurban residents.

4.    The role of urban geopolitics in urban planning and spatial policy from a comparative perspective.

The session is organized by Haim Yacobi, Ben Gurion University \ Bezalel Academy, [log in to unmask] and Jonathan Rokem, Department of Human Geography Lund University, Sweden [log in to unmask]

 

Please send short abstracts up to 250 words by 31^st January 2014. Please send your title, abstract and full contact details to both: [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]

 

Location: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and Imperial College London

Dates:  26^th - 29^th  August 2014.

Conference website:  http://www.rgs.org/AC2014

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