A conference on urban research and activism in the US
From September 12 to 14 a conference on urban activism in Harvard will debate on the links between urban struggles and research activities.
events
Camping in September
Three interesting events this September: European Housing Action Camp in Lisbon from 21st to 25th, Right to the City Camp in Prague from 27th to 29th, Yimby festival in Boston from 20th to 23rd!
Auto-construction: for an autonomy of housing
John F. C. Turner (*1927) is an English architect known for its engagement with the study and practice of self-construction. He was influenced by Patrick Geddes and anarchism, he studied in London's Architectural Association, and very soon developed an interpretation of planning and architecture that does not overlook the relationship with its users
Knowledge is in the neighborhoods
Neighborhoods are the collective ability of people to acknowledge the existence of the other. No surprise they are constantly under attack. With them, also the knowledge they represent are attacked, and the words and concepts that in neighborhoods are born and grow.
International Conference in Madrid, July 4-7, 2016
The international conference of the Contested Cities network, under the title From Contested Cities to Global Urban Justice, takes place in a time of growing global resistance and counter-strategies to these injustices, varying in form, scale and approach, and aims to develop counter-dialogues and perspectives, fighting against these injustices, in an attempt to think beyond neoliberalism. …
The discreet urbanism of the bourgeoisie
As José Mansilla writes, in focusing on the rising, the growth and evolution of the middle class we understand how the so-called "progressive" urbanism in Barcelona took this turn to real estate speculation and privatizations. Will this process continue, or will we have the chance to see some change?
Conference in Bolonia: the subjective dimensions of vulnerability
On october 5th, in Bolonia (Italy) the Network for the Evaluation of the Subjective Dimensions of Vulnerability (REDISUV) Chile-Europe will meet for the second time, after the foundational Conference in Paris. The repeated natural catastrophes in Chile made evident the need for a more systematic study about the subjectivities of the communities affected, which are always the product of particular social, economical and political conditions. The program of the conference includes papers concerning natural desasters, but also approaches to the “urban” vulnerability, caused by neoliberal policies as the one our group has been studying in Barcelona.
- Bolonia, Thursday september 5th, 10am-6pm: “Vite invisibili: dimensioni soggettive della vulnerabilità sociale“, program in PDF.
- Davide Olori (2013) “Taking over the center to oppose evictions: the case of the Inmuebles Recuperados Autogestionados en Santiago de Chile” [PDF, italian]. “The urgency for housing after the earthquake forced towards the aggregation of both informal organizations (as neighbours, relatives, co-workers) and formal ones (political, parties…), so causing dynamics of rupture and recomposition among interests, hierarchies, relationships…”
- Fabio Carnelli studied ethnographically the consequences of the earthquake in L’Aquila (central Italy) some years after: the “militarized” solution brought again to life the traumas, and increased the vulnerability of the population. See Sismografie on Il lavoro culturale webpage. And also Rita Ciccaglione’s article, one year after the earthquake in Emilia Romagna.
- Caterina Borelli jsut published on academia.edu her PhD thesis about Sarajevo: “La ciudad post-traumática” (see also this older post)
- Stefano Portelli (2013) “Spatial reordering and social pathology in the periphery of Barcelona: the social impact of urban transformation”, intervención al XXI congreso del International Social Theory Consortium, Copenhagen, June 26-27th [Coming soon!]
World Assembly of Inhabitants at Tunis WSF
From March 26th to 30th, in the frame of the Tunisian meeting of the World Social Forum, a World Assembly of Inhabitants (WAI) is taking place, organized by the International Alliance of Inhabitants, Habitat International Coalition and No-Vox networks. Here is the program of the WAI meeting; to prepare the WAI, the International Alliance of Inhabitants promoted the visual project Memories of inhabitants, compiling hundreds of interviews to activists for the right of housing in 4 continents. We add some reflections about the Forum itself, which was planned in time of generalized euphoria, but is now facing a much more complex reality: Altermundialism seeks new breath in Tunis, from the blog Tunisie Libre; WSF to blast austerity, Yasmine Ryan in Aljazeera; What I learned about feminism from a Moroccan men’s chorus, Maria Poblet in In these times; and One year after the revolution from Nawaat.…
Concrete geographies: displacements and trails on the territory, “Cicle Nòmades” with Xavier Ribas
This sunday 16th at 6:30pm the anthropologist Maite Marín and the photographer Jordi R. Renom invite us to the last nomadic trip organized in "El Centre", Ateneu democràtic i progressista de Caldes de Montbui, doubtlessly so interesting as the previous sessions of Nòmades cycle, that are taking place since one year ago. In this session they will show us the photographic project of Xavier Ribas, and starting from it we will hold a debate among photography, urbanism, architecture, anthropology. To the conversation are also invited the urbanist-photographer-arquitect Kathrin Golda-Pongratz, the architect Emanuela Bove from Repensar Bonpastor, and the anthropologist Núria Sánchez Armengol, a member of our research group. The work of Xavier Ribas Nòmades deals with issues such as limits, frontiers, expulsions from territory, everyday life, simbolic violence and historical memory, starting from photos taken in peripheral territories. Xavier Ribes has been working since 1994 on different projects in urban peripheries. "...Peripheries are not all the same. In Barcelona is not the same thing if you visit Besós or Llobregat, or if you go to Nou Barris, Pedralbes, or Sarrià… I'm interested in periphery, among other issues, because it is a counterpoint, or countervision, to the city thought from the center. If contemporary city differ in something, these are their peripheries more than in their urban centers. So, we could say that the true character of the cities is in there, and that peripheries, more than equalize, generate identities". [link on blog "a sangre" by Francisco Navammuel]
Conference on anthropology and urban conflict (Barcelona)
All conferences will be transmitted in streaming from the congress webpage!
FINAL PROGRAM [check the webpage]:
- Wednsday, november 7th: 3pm Inaugural lecture - 6pm Public space desertions urbanity
- Thursday, november 8th: 10am Opening lecture - 11.30am Neighborhoods conflictivity coexistences - 4pm Movements speculation urbanism - 6pm Resistance gentrification urban transformation - 7pm Closing lecture
- Friday, november 9th: 10am Opening lecture - 11am Territory forced mobility violence - 12.30am Heterotopies marginality stigmatization - 4pm Urban practices illegalism social control - 6pm Closing lecture
- Saturday, november 10th: 9am Struggles for the city, the case of Barcelona - 11.30am Thematic guided walk: conflictive Barcelona - 6pm Civil desobedience and social change in visual anthropology
Shift Happens! Critical Mass at 20
The Critical Mass is an “organised coincidence" of cyclists that periodically celebrate a collective bike ride in the streets; its purpose is to show to the society the great advantages that bicycles could provide to urban mobility. In the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first Critical Mass in San Francisco, one of its pioneers, Chris Carlsson, together with other contributors, edited the book Shift Happens. Critical Mass at 20, a collection of experiences and essays from some of the over 300 cities of the world in which the event reached an autonomous life, after that first bicycle ride. This is the meaning of the expression critical mass - the number of participants needed for phenomenon to start moving and growing by itself. The Critical Mass does'nt ask, it builds, giving form to a livable city through its own praxis. The presentation of the book in Madrid - where every last thursday of the month a Bicicrítica is held through the center of the city, while ten more happen in other neighborhoods and municipalities (like Fuenlabrada, Tres Cantos, Alcalá de Henares, Moratalaz, Ciudad Lineal) - was the occasion for a radio debate in "Carne Cruda", RN3, for the participation of the book's editors in a bicicrítica (read here Carlsson's impressions) and for the presentation of another book of his "Nowtopia, How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclist and Vacant-Lot Gardeners Are Inventing the Future Today", in Traficantes de Sueños bookshop (here the audio of the event). Shift Happens's chapter on Madrid is the summary of an ethnografic article on bicycle repair workshops inside the occupied social centers of Madrid, that can be downloaded entirely from the link below.
- Elisabeth LORENZI (2010) “Centro social en movimiento. Los talleres de auto-reparación de bicicletas en espacios autogestionados” in Mario Domínguez, Miguel Ángel Martínez, Elísabeth Lorenzi, Okupaciones en Movimiento. derivas, estrategias y políticas. Madrid: Tierradenadie [ENLACE]
- Web of Bicios@s collective in Barcelona, and of bicitaller of "edificio 15O"
- web of the Critical Mass in Madrid: Bicicrítica
- The final presentation of "Shift Happens" in a bookshop in San Francisco will be on september 26th, the day of the anniversary, and will be part of a series of activities that will attract to the city cyclists from different places.
Anthropology of the Street, University of Barcelona
UB, Raval Campus (carrer Montalegre 6, Bcn), Aula 309, 3rd floor. Organization: Institut Català d'Antropologia
April, 12th, 6,30pm-8pm: Alternative parties and the dilemas of tradition (Adrià Pujol, Andres Antebi, Observatori de la vida quotidiana) :: Encounters and inflections between agency and rhetorics in catalan health system (Ariadna Solé, Marta Alonso, Alberto López Bargados, Grup de Recerca Islam de la Diàspora) :: Ethnographic research in Vallcarca neighborhood (Marco Luca Stanchieri, Etnografía dels Espais Públics)
13 abril 2012, 18,30-20h: Urban renewal and social change in la Mina neighborhood (Emanuela Bove, Martha Pelayo, Periferies Urbanes-ICA, download PDF of the research) :: The Rabassada Casino, utopia of the bourgeois leisure time (Sergi Yanes, Turiscòpia-ICA) :: Shanty towns in Barcelona (Mercè Tatjer, Xavi Camino, Oscar Casasayas, Grup d'estudis sobre Barraquisme)
Istanbul, a city without limits. Documentary movie
"In Istanbul, we crossed the ecological limits, crossed the population limits, crossed the ecological limits. If you ask me where it is all going to lead, I will quote from Doğan Kuban: chaos" Mücella Yapıcı, chamber of architecture of Istanbul.
- Ekümenopolis: Ucu Olmayan Şehir (Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits) (2011) a movie by Imre Azem, will be in Barcelona on november 15th, 8pm at Traslaciones festival in CCCB. Director Imre Azem will participate in the debate Istanbul relatos fuera de campo on wednesday 16th at 7:30pm. [Trailer1] [Trailer2] [Web]
Permanent Workshop on Urban Spaces
Our first workshop was on september 15th in the University of Barcelona: we plan to meet on the last thursday of every month, to share projects and reflections on the city and urban space, key issues in contemporary anthropology produced in the catalan capital. Participants in the workshop include: Omar Borrás,who is working on football among Cochabamba's immigrants in Barcelona; Andres Antebi, who is involved in a visual anthropology project on a small public square in Tangiers; Ariadna Mestre who studies Barcelona's Forat de la Vergonya as a theatralized space; Caterina Borelli who, after researching urban renewal of Raval, is now researching in Sarajevo; Marco Stanchieriwho works on the transformation of Vallcarca neighborhood; Muna Makhluffwho is doing her fieldwork in Barceloneta; Alba Marina who studies the nomadic network of "Salsa brava" in Barcelona; Miguel Fernández researching on the application of "civism" in Raval's calle Robadors; Marc Dalmau who focused on the impact of urban change of the Colonia Castells over the lifestyle of its inhabitants; and, obviously, Manuel Delgado for coordination and repression.