Revenge and Renewal:
Revanchist Urbanism and City Transformation
Newcastle University, UK
-
10th
and
11th
August
2006
Final Call for Papers
The aim of this conference is to provide a space for focused discussion
and critical reflection on key emerging transitions in urban society
across the globe. The idea of a revanchist urbanism has begun to filter
into analyses of urban policies and the terms under which social,
political and economic renewal are now being secured.
A politics of revenge, in which urban elites and an everyday urban
society labelled as decent, ordinary and hard-working has sought the use
of increasingly punitive measures to enable security, reduce disorder and
sow the seeds for preconditions seen as essential for local economic
development. It has been argued that a growing intolerance of progressive
politics, the homeless, street poor, minor disorder and unconventional
lifestyles has burgeoned globally. These vengeful actions can be located
in the actions of local states, private households, corporate entities
and their agents, as well as in the architecture and public spaces of the
city in which hostility to difference and engineered conformity now
appear as the essential ingredients of enforced ordinariness. The
conference will draw together researchers and academic commentators to
entertain a broad range of perspectives on the revanchist city.
The organisers welcome abstracts or expressions of interest from
participants across the globe on topics that may include: urban
governance and politics, property markets, private security, segregation,
socio-legal sanctions, policing, vigilantism, gentrification, processes
of clearance and other areas of contention and sites of conflict.
Confirmed key speakers:
Prof. Neil Smith, City University of New York
Dr Rowland Atkinson, University of Tasmania
Please send abstracts and expressions of interest to attend to: Stuart
Cameron
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