Conversation with Johanna Hoerning and Hillary Angelo
Urbanization has become central in recent political discourses, as well as a contested concept in experts' spheres. This podcast of the Urban Political delves into the phenomenon of urbanization and traces back how the idea of "expanding cities" is causing disagreement in urban studies and leading researchers to raise questions that have haunted the discipline since the times of Georg Simmel. In this episode, Nicolas Goez, one of our new members of the editorial board at Urban Political, talks with Johanna Hoerning and Hillary Angelo about current discussions around urbanization, against the background of the so-called urban age. Join us in this discussion and tune in! #Urbanization #UrbanTheory #Anthroposcene #UrbanStudies #PlanetaryUrbanization
Erschienen: 05.10.2022
Dauer: 00:56:46
Weitere Informationen zur Episode "Urbanization: A Contested Concept (Urban Concepts Series)"
The RC21 Conference 2022, “Ordinary cities in exceptional times,” was held in Athens from August, 24 to 26. A large group of participants from all over the world gathered for was the first in-person conference of the RC21 network since the start of the pandemic. However, the pandemic continued to dominate the conference with a number of participants being unable to travel to Athens due to the uncertain visa regimes. On the opening day of the conference, the participants gathered in the historical building of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in the Exarchia neighbourhood in downtown Athens. At the reception in the grand courtyard of NTUA, the participants came face-to-face with a group of protestors that raised banners against the state-projects promoting the gentrification and pacification of the anarchist neighbourhood of Exarchia. The remaining two days of the conference were organised on the premises of the Harokopio University in the Kallithea neighbourhood of Athens. The University hosted over forty parallel presentation panel sessions along with a number of keynote panels and book launches. The next RC21 meeting will take place at the ISA 2023 conference in Melbourne, Australia. In the episode you will hear fragments of interviews from the following people: Julie Ren, Giulia Torino, AbdouMaliq Simone, Eduardo Marques, Talja Blokland, David dit Dato Gogishvili, Simone Tulumello, Nidhi Subramanyam, Eleni Triant, and Stavros Stavrides
Erschienen: 12.09.2022
Dauer: 00:54:19
Small State Big Transitions
The 30th annual INURA Conference entitled "Small State Big Transitions” was held in Luxembourg from June 25 to 28. Over 60 participants gathered at the conference to learn about the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and to celebrate the 30 years INURA. This year’s conference was organised by the Urban Studies Group at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Luxembourg. With a population of just over 600,000, Luxembourg is a small, multilingual, sovereign state. But these diminutive attributes belie a cosmopolitan space where daily life frequently involves using three languages, and encountering perhaps four, five or six. Exhilarating and bewildering, it speaks to the ’small-but-global’ urbanisation the country has experienced in recent decades. The conference opened with city tours that explored the range of challenges and contradictions that constitute this complex urban space which elides various categories: a small state, city-state, multilingual sovereign nation, European capital, financial capital, international business hub, and cross-border (sub)urban region. In addition to being the 30th year anniversary celebration of INURA, the Luxembourg conference was the first in-person meeting of the network since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spread over three days of lively discussion, the conference played host to a variety of topics from climate crisis and social justice, to movements and Marxism, and the role of financial markets in housing and urban development. The conference also played host to the screening of the films ‘How Poles Became White’ by Tino Bucholz and ‘The Truth lies in Rostock’ by Mark Saunders. The podcast features fragments of interviews and reflections from INURA Luxembourg attendees. The podcast begins with the recital of Adrian Mitchell’s poem Ancestors and ends with Leon Rosselson’s song, The World Turned Upside Down, both recited by Chris Tranchell, and featuring a violin improvisation by Philipp Klaus. The INURA 2023 conference will take place in Zurich.
Erschienen: 27.07.2022
Dauer: 00:52:55
Weitere Informationen zur Episode "Dispatch from INURA Conference 2022 in Luxemburg"
A comparative conversation on the urban impasse of state interventions and everyday logics under COVID19
This episode looks at urban landscapes of care and control that emerged during the pandemic in Santiago de Chile (Chile), Bogotá (Colombia) and Berlin (Germany). It is a comparative conversation on the urban impasse of state interventions and everyday logics under COVID19 in each of these cities and discusses the following questions: 1. How, if at all, has the pandemic affected state interventions in health in these cities? What new discourses and routines have been announced? 2. How, if at all, has the pandemic worked as a set of interventions in the social infrastructure of these cities? What, now almost 2 years down the road, has changed in the social realities of institutional agents and ordinary citizens that we observe? 3. What lessons can be learnt from the care and control contradictions in cities of today?
Erschienen: 13.07.2022
Dauer: 01:13:09
Weitere Informationen zur Episode "Landscapes of Care and Control"
Author Colin McFarlane and his Critics
In this episode moderated by Nitin Bathla, the author Colin McFarlane discusses his recent book Fragments of the City with the critics Theresa Enright, Tatiana Thieme, and Kevin Ward. In analyzing the main arguments of the book, Theresa discusses the role of aesthetics in imagining, sensing, and learning the urban fragments, and the ambivalence of density in how it enables and disables certain kinds of politics. She questions Colin about the distinctiveness of art as a means to engage and politicize fragments, and how can we think about the relationships between fragment urbanism, density and the urban political across varied contexts. Tatiana analyses how the book journeys across a range of temporal scales of knowing fragments from its etymology to autobiographical experiences of underserved neighborhoods and of toilet and sanitation politics. She questions Colin about methodological dilemmas of walking across different fragments and his relationality to different field sites, the worlds of work, and divergent politics of the city. Lastly, Kevin discusses about provocative ways in which the book renders cities comparable that are ontological, epistemological and profoundly political, and the uncertainty of knowing the urban. He questions Colin of about the work that needs to be done in connecting wholes and fragments and about the need for widening the repertoire of people who are involved in those conversations. In closing the episode, Colin talks about the value of pushing conventional forms of writing and embracing the experimental forms of writing in fragments in both form and content to make sense of the broken urban worlds.
Erschienen: 01.06.2022
Dauer: 01:26:12
Roundtable with Javier Ruiz-Tagle, Julie Chamberlain, Martine August, and Moritz Rinn
Social mix has become a central planning discourse worldwide to address urban inequalities and segregation as key urban problems of the 21st century. Far from being benevolent, the discourse of social mix and its related implementations are subjected to a fundamental critique highlighting racist underpinnings and consequences in targeted neighborhoods. The conversation draws on insights from Canada, Chile, Germany, and the US. Kudos for this important discussion to guest editor Julie Chamberlain!
Erschienen: 08.05.2022
Dauer: 01:14:48
Louis Volont and Thijs Lijster discuss with Talja Blokland
In this first episode of the Urban Concept series, Louis Volont (MIT, Boston) and Thijs Lijster (University of Groningen) discuss with Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin) the concepts of community and commons and consider implications for urban research and action. The series introduces key urban concepts and reflects on their relevance in the fields of theory, research and politics.
Erschienen: 31.03.2022
Dauer: 01:10:36
Weitere Informationen zur Episode "Community and Commons (Urban Concepts)"
with Michael Gentile, Tatiana Zhurzhenko and Vlad Mykhnenko
Listen to urban researchers sharing their insights on the situation in Ukrainian cities at war, from Kyiv, Kharkiv to Mariupol. Our guests discuss Putin's identity politics and the way his propaganda hits a wall in the context of the shelling of Ukrainian cities. Countering the images of an opposition of "Ukrainian vs Russian" inhabitants as a backdrop to the war, the discussants offer a different perspective on how ethnicity and language have played out prior to the war. At the same time, they take on predominant Western European understandings of politics and economics of Ukraine and draw a picture of a complex society that becomes more united in the context of a common enemy.
Erschienen: 02.03.2022
Dauer: 01:16:30
A conversation with Emma Arnold, Jeff Ross, and John Lennon
What do graffiti and street art do? This is the key question of the intriguing podcast conversation among Emma Arnold, Jeff Ross, and John Lennon. While we learn about the unruly and disruptive features of graffiti in urban space, our guests also trouble its effects by asking questions about its relation to gentrification, racialized capitalism and right-wing media strategy. Highlighting geographical variation, the conversation covers the political regulation of graffiti and street art in the US, Scandinavia, Cairo, and Beirut.
Erschienen: 24.01.2022
Dauer: 01:14:04
Weitere Informationen zur Episode "Troubling Graffiti and Street Art"
Updates from Andrej Holm and Joanna Kusiak
On the 26th of September over million Berliners voted to expropriate and return to public ownership over 200,000 homes in the city. Deutsche Wohnen und Co Enteignen targeted a number of large real estate companies in Berlin that had control of what had previously been social housing stock. The referendum is not legally binding, requiring the support of the governing parties in the Berlin parliament, who are now tasked with legislating on the issue. The composition of the governing coalition has yet to be determined, although it is clear that the Social Democrats will lead, having emerged as the largest party in the elections on the same as the referendum. This podcast examines the background to this historic victory and considers the implications for housing politics in Berlin and beyond. We remind ourselves what the campaign was about, we look at what happened, what might happen next and the likely challenges in store. We also consider the wider implications of the Berlin case. We are very happy to welcome back two guests from previous podcasts on the subject, Joanna Kusiak and Andrej Holm.
Erschienen: 01.10.2021
Dauer: 00:40:52
