Workshop Urban Studies

The Urban Transitions Hub and the AESOP Young Academics Network are happy to open the call for papers for the first edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies, to be held on 18-20 November 2020 at ICS-ULisboa. Circa 30 PhD students and early-career scholars will have the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects and/or findings during a 3-day event organised as a space of exchange, debate and learning. 
The topic for the first edition is Urban Futures, Urban Transitions. 
A few decades ago, the rise of globalisation seemed to suggest that the socio-spatial entity that we call the ‘city’ was to be progressively replaced by de-territorialised networks. Yet, today we are told that we are living in an ‘urban age’. The debate around the exact meaning of this return to the ‘urban’ is an important one in the field of urban studies. While international institutions led by UNHabitat favour a conception of the urban as a place attracting an increasing share of people from rural areas, critical social sciences have instead focused on the urban as a processual and relational category: that is, on urbanisation, and on its current planetary scale. Notwithstanding the different perspectives, most agree that the processes of urbanisation deserve increased attention in terms of their risks and potentialities.

The relentless process of urbanisation is reshaping our planet, and contributing to multiple crises (including at the environmental, economic, social and political level) – crises that are themselves deeply interlocked with global processes of financial accumulation, spatial transformation and social reproduction. In mainstream discussions, the urban is conceived as the place where innovation, growth and consumption increasingly happen; where injustice, violence and alienation are more visible, but also where political organisation and solidarity flourish. 
New forward-looking perspectives are necessary if we are to muddle through these volatile times, and contribute visions, charts and plans for an urbanising planetary future. This workshop will be dedicated to critical approaches to the urban, urbanisation and their radically open futures, among four interlocked lines of inquiry: 
- Urban futures - forward-looking approaches to urban studies;
- Urban transitions - normative approaches to urbanisation and sustainable development;
- Urban imaginaries - visions, fictions and imaginations of the urban (in) transition;
- Urban flows - explorations of movements of people, goods, ideas and policies. 

More Info at https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/workshops/lisbon-early-career-workshop-urban-studies-urban-futures-urban-transitions-1st-edition