INFORMAL POLITICS IN THE CITY: MIGRATION, INFORMALITY AND URBAN CITIZENSHIP

INFORMAL POLITICS IN THE CITY: MIGRATION, INFORMALITY AND URBAN CITIZENSHIP

Sponsored by cities@manchester

Wednesday 12^th June 2013

10am – 4pm

University of Manchester

University Place 6.205

Oxford Road, Manchester.

A one day workshop on informal politics in the city, migration and informality.  The workshop will bring together those working on urban informality and migration, with the aim of teasing out the relevance of migration for understanding urban informality and highlighting the importance of the informal context for those working on migration.  We will do this by focusing on the different ways in which migrants do politics, here understood in a very broad sense as everyday politics – and in all their diversity: based on migrants’ own identity as migrants, religion, work, or neighbourhood based around issues of housing.  We will explore what kinds of visions of cities these different types of strategies promote and also how they contribute to the making of cities.  Papers will be based on research carried out in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Nouakchott, Dakar, and Harare.

Papers by: Debby Potts (Kings), Diana Mitlin (Manchester), Hannah Cross (Manchester), Jerónimo Montero Bressán (Manchester), Marina Wertheimer Becich (Sheffield), Tanja Bastia (Manchester), Uma Kothari (Manchester)

CFP–new Journal of Urban Cultural Studies launched

Visit the new Journal of Urban Cultural Studies site here.

Call for Papers

The Journal of Urban Cultural Studies is a new peer-reviewed publication cutting across both the humanities and the social sciences in order to better understand the culture(s) of cities. The journal is open to studies that deal with culture, urban spaces and forms of urbanized consciousness the world over.

Although we embrace a broad definition of urban cultural studies, we are particularly interested in submissions that give equal weight to: a) one or more aspects of urban studies (everyday life, built environment, architecture, city planning, identity formation, transportation…) and b) analysis of one or more specific forms of cultural/textual production (literature, film, graphic novels, music, art, graffiti, videogames, online or virtual space…) in relation to a given urban space or spaces.

Essays of 7,000-10,000 words (including works cited and notes) should be sent by attachment to the Editor at urbanculturalstudies@gmail.com. JUCS is also open to proposals of special issues by guest editors working individually or in teams of two. All citations in other languages should be translated into English for the journal’s international reading public, in addition to including the original text.

While the journal does not publish book reviews, we do publish review essays—which should discuss 3-5 recent books on a shared topic or theme (or place) and run from 2,500 to 4,000 words. Review essays of urban-themed installations or other works of art are also welcome. These essays will be reviewed in house. Given our visual focus, we are interested in original, unpublished artwork on the topic of cities and in publishing articles accompanied by images where appropriate.

We encourage a variety of approaches to the urban phenomenon—the strengths of the editorial board run from urban geography to literature and film, photography and videogames, gender and sexuality, creative economy, popular music, Marxist approaches, fashion, urban planning, anthropology, sociology, Deaf culture, built environment, philosophy, architecture, detective fiction and noir, and more…