With apologies for crossposting- the Urban Geography Research Group (RGS-IBG) invites papers and proposals for the upcoming conference in November 2014. Professor Erik Swyngedouwe (Manchester) is confirmed as a keynote, UCL/ Bartlett (London) is the venue, and the deadline for submissions is tomorrow 19 September. See below for further details:

CRITICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE

A two-day conference and open discussion organised by the Urban Geography Research Group (UGRG) of the RGS-IBG.

6-7 November 2014 The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

Call for Contributions

This year’s UGRG Conference will explore the relationship between critical urban theory and infrastructure. Critical urbanism may be defined by Brenner et al (2009: 179) as concerned:

(a) to analyze the systemic, yet historically specific, intersections between capitalism and urbanization processes;

(b) to examine the changing balance of social forces, power relations, sociospatial inequalities and political-institutional arrangements;

(d) to decipher the contradictions, crisis tendencies and lines of potential or actual conflict within contemporary cities, and on this basis;

(e) to demarcate and to politicize possibilities for more progressive, socially just, emancipatory and sustainable formations of urban life.

Since the publication of Splintering Urbanism (Graham and Marvin, 2001), there has been a heightened focus on employing critical urbanist perspectives to study the fundamental issues of urban infrastructure, of who gets what infrastructure and where? This includes work on the assemblage and effects of different types of infrastructure including water, waste and other metabolic systems (Gandy 2002; Marvin and Medd 2006; Nikolas et al 2006), traffic and city streets (Hamilton-Baillie 2008; Buiter 2008) motorways and flyovers (Harris 2013; Merriman 2007; Norton 2008), various forms of public transportation (Butcher 2011), cycling (Aldred 2012) and airports (Guller and Guller 2003; McNeill 2010). Emerging research has highlighted the particular materialities of different infrastructure systems as they sustain and disrupt the circulations that constitute urban life (Amin and Thrift 2002; Gandy 2004; Latham and McCormack 2004; Hommels 2005). It has also examined practices of dwelling and experiences of inhabiting infrastructural systems as particular kinds of public spaces (Bissell 2010, 2014; Koch and Latham 2014; McIlvenny 2010; Sheller and Urry 2003; Wilson 2012).

Such work has demonstrated the exercise of social and political power through infrastructural provisioning, and the challenges of governance which might bring about more inclusive and democratic forms of urban infrastructure (Boudreau et al 2009; McFarlane and Rutherford 2008; Spinney 2010; Swyngedouw 2005).

Much work remains, however, in exploring the key dynamics through which infrastructure structures and restructures urban spaces. In particular, the UGRG is keen to hear from scholars working on topics and theoretical perspectives which include (but are not limited to) the following:

state versus private provision, management and maintenance of infrastructure
dynamics of access and exclusion
privatization of key urban infrastructure
Global North and Global South standards and models of infrastructure provision
comparative studies of infrastructural provision and innovation
policy mobility and the circulation of ‘best practice’
dwelling and inhabitation within infrastructural spaces
new imperatives of sustainability, austerity and resilience agendas
innovations ranging from micro-scale to regional master-planning

Papers are welcom from researchers at any stage of their careers (including doctoral students). We will also be holding a ‘pecha-kucha’ session as we did in 2012.

Abstracts of approx 200 words should be emailed to [log in to unmask] by Friday 19 September 2014 (tomorrow).

Please contact Luke Binns ([log in to unmask]) and Gabriel Silvestre ([log in to unmask]) if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!