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From: Sean Purdy [[log in to unmask]]
European Association for Urban History 11th Internat CALL FOR PAPERS
European Association for Urban History
11th International Conference on Urban History "Cities and Societies in
Comparative Perspective"
29 August -1 September 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers for Main Session (M32):
(http://www.eauh2012.com/sessions/)
SESSION THEME: "What's in a Name? How we label peripheral places."
Deadline: 1 October 2011
Organizers:
Richard Harris (McMaster University, Canada) Sonia Hirt (Virginia Tech.,
USA) Sean Purdy (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil) Charlotte Vorms
(University of Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France)
Worldwide, over the past century urbanization has entailed massive growth at
the urban edge. Fringe growth has taken varied forms, attracting widespread
interest and concern. Appropriately, scholars and planners in different
countries have used various labels to refer to such developments.
Everywhere, these have acquired negative connotations. This is especially
the case for areas settled by rural migrants, ethnic minorities, or the
poor. Such areas are peripheral in both social and geographical terms.
Examples include the banlieues of France, favelas of Brazil, gecekondus of
Turkey, or hutment slums of India.
There are indications that such labels have been resisted by local residents
but, especially among anglophones, researchers have paid little attention to
the fact. This session asks the question: does it matter how we label the
socio-geographical periphery?
This question raises a number of issues
pertaining to the nature, origins, extent, and significance of local
resistance to the nomenclature used by experts, planners, and the like.
Particular interest attaches to the historical process by which such areas
acquire generic labels; by which media and experts give those labels wider
currency; and by which they are contested and perhaps changed. The proposed
session will bring together historians and those social scientists who are
alert to the dynamics of such processes.
Collectively, the papers will speak to three urban-historical themes.
. the extent to which generic versus specific names have been used to make
sense of the urban environment
. the processes by which names are bestowed and contested, including the
varied role of media and experts in the developed and the developing world
. the relationship between the urban past and the categories with which we
attempt to make sense of it.
The session addresses a neglected issue and is exploratory. As such, it is
intended to bring together, and foster comparisons between, cities that
differ widely in their urban fringe experiences and also in the
languages/labels that have been used to describe those experiences. For that
reason, an attempt will be made to include papers that present national or
regional surveys as well as urban case studies. If the response is strong,
the best papers may be collected as a book.
Those interested should submit abstracts online at the conference website
(above).
Richard Harris / [log in to unmask]
Sean Purdy
www.seanpurdy.org
Updated March 2011/Atualizado março de 2011
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