CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
A 5-day Residential Workshop
June 13-17, 2016
Institute of Advanced Studies
University College London
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION – DEADLINE MARCH 1ST, 2016
Urbanisation, a multidimensional process of urban transformation, is one of the features of our times. This transformation has important consequences for the provision of infrastructure in urban areas, increasing or changing current demands for services. Changing demands add to a context in which near 900 million people lack reliable access to basic services. Simultaneously, demands for transforming existing production and consumption services to reduce global carbon emissions pose further challenges for the provision infrastructure. The development of urban infrastructures today will shape the possibilities to achieve sustainable cities in the next century.
This is not a technical but a cultural challenge that requires deep transformations in the ways we currently think about infrastructure. On the one hand, there may be a need to rethink the models whereby infrastructures are imagined, designed, constructed and maintained; on the other hand, there is an imperative to reassess the demands of existing users, from those who take services for granted to those who lack access to the most basic needs.
Critical perspectives on urban infrastructure have much to contribute to this debate. For example, since the publication of Splintering Urbanism, a wide range of studies has mapped the reciprocal relationship between the delivery of urban infrastructure and the spatial constitution of urban inequality. Urban political ecology studies of infrastructure have increasingly emphasised the co-constructed nature of socio-natures in urban settings, and the way particular configurations of resources and uses serve dominant interests and are shaped by hegemonic discourses. Actor Network Theory studies have developed relational understandings of the city which emphasise the institutional enrolment of urban artefacts. An increasing interest in the material politics of urban infrastructure has followed. Graham Harman’s contributions to a metaphysics of materiality -one which engages with artefacts’ ‘hidden surprises’ and material atmospheres, promise further routes of inquiry that establish the relevance of social sciences to current material challenges in the provision of urban infrastructure.
This five-day workshop is open to early career researchers in urban infrastructure, who would like to explore: 1) the theoretical and methodological possibilities open by different, interconnected, critical perspectives on urban infrastructure; and 2) the relevance of different critical perspectives on urban infrastructure in the contemporary context of urban development and urbanization. The workshop will also offer the opportunity to discuss written work in both a formal and informal environment, as well as meet key critical scholars and policymakers engaged in this topic.
The workshop takes place at the IAS (Institute of Advanced Studies) of UCL (University College London) in central London and is organised by Vanesa Castan Broto (UCL, Bartlett Development and Planning Unit) and Laurent Dissard (UCL, Institute of Advanced Studies). Thanks to generous funding from the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), we offer bursaries to all participants according to their needs. Lunches will also be offered and accommodation provided to those living outside of London.
To apply please send a 2-page CV and writing sample that demonstrates how your research engages with some of the themes developed by “Critical Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure” to Caner Sayan ([log in to unmask]) before March 1st, 2016.
Vanesa Castan Broto (UCL, Bartlett Development and Planning Unit)
Laurent Dissard (UCL, Institute of Advanced Studies)