Inhabiting the Surrounds: Urbanity, Critique and Speculative Practice
Urban Studies School organised by the Beyond Inhabitation Lab and Urban Transitions Hub
23-26 September 2024, Turin – 2-6 June 2025, Lisbon
Concept
Our joint Urban School comprises 15 post-doctoral scholars selected from an open-call application process (see here for the original call) who are coming together to discuss matters of habitation, urbanity and related unjust formations. The School is made of two events – in Turin, 23-26th Sept 2024 and in Lisbon, 2-6th June 2025 – where the same fellows join in conversation with Lab and Hub’s organisers, led by exceptional keynote instructors. In Turin, we will be joined by Ruth Wilson Gilmore (CUNY), Alana Osbourne (Radboud University) and Tatiana Thieme (UCL). In Lisbon, by AbdouMaliq Simone (University of Sheffield) and Filip De Boeck (KU Leuven).
On this page, you can find details about the Turin’s iteration of the School, as well as details about the keynotes, which are free and open to attend (online and in-person) to anyone (registration links can be found in the posters below).
Rationale
What does it mean to think around habitation and its struggles, in a world where every inch of the possible seems to have been colonised by the extractive and expulsive makings of racial, financial capitalism? How to assemble, and engage with, radical modalities of use-value concerning the staples of habitation – addressing housing (in)justice, the expansion of computation, the emergent multiplicity of entities forming ever-complex ecologies, to reimagine a sense of the future in the midst of a planetary crisis? How to re-approach a critique to dwelling praxis grounding it within the generative force of what AbdouMaliq Simone has named the surrounds, “a shape-shifing matrix of spaces, times, and practices that exist right now within the turbulent processes of contemporary urbanization”?
We are interested in establishing a conversation with engaged scholars tackling these questions in a number of transdisciplinary ways, and, in particular, we are keen to hear from those who transcend the remit of conventional ‘comparative’ urban approaches, and those who go beyond the rubric of liberal, Western literatures and approaches to understand geographies of struggles in a situated and politically relevant way. Grounded in the ‘collective study’ methodology of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab, and fostered by the long-standing critical tradition of urban thinking adopted by the Urban Transitions Hub, we have joined forces to provide a platform for thinking and exchange around these themes, in the form of a double-event School located in two Southern European cities (Turin and Lisbon).
School’s selected post-doctoral researchers
The selected participants of the School have committed to the production of one individual high-quality academic paper each, which will be considered for inclusion in one or more special issues arising from the School. They will be supported to achieve this goal by the organising Teams and the keynote instructors through workshops, lectures and collective study.
The 2024/2025 cohort is composed by:
- Theo Barry Born, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield
- Nitin Bathla, Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich
- Kamile Batur, Institute of Art and Design, TU Wien
- Rebecca Choi, School of Architecture, Tulane University
- Dalia Gebrial, Department of Geography, King’s College
- Katharina Grueneisl, School of Geography, University of Nottingham
- Ingy Higazy, Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) and the Middle East Studies Center, The American University in Cairo
- Irmelin Joelsson, Department Of Social Anthropology, Norwegian University Of Science And Technology
- Mariz Kelada, Europe in the Middle East (EUME), Forum Transregionale Studien
- Megnaa Mehtta, Institute of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London
- Killian O’Dochartaigh, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh University Architectural Field Office
- Victoria Ogoegbunam Okoye, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh
- Anne-Marie Veillette, Africana Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania
- Julia Wagner, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University
- Darien Alexander Williams, Macro Practice Department, Boston University
Keynotes’ lectures in Turin
The keynotes are free and open to attend for anyone, both online and in person. Registration is required and links are available in the posters and below.
Tatiana Thieme, 23th Sept 2024
Ruth Gilmore, 24th Sept 2024
Alana Osbourne, 25th Sept 2024
Tatiana Thieme (23th September)
- Zoom, online: https://polito-it.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkdOuvqj8iEtJZambMmTdqQrN5p7FNESt5#/registration
- Eventbrite, in-person: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1007552906867?aff=oddtdtcreator
Ruth Wilson Gilmore (24th September)
- Zoom, online: https://polito-it.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElfumgrzIpGNSSirqz5xnrCwxBWNMJLI9G#/registration
- Eventbrite, in-person: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1007544792597?aff=oddtdtcreator
Alana Osbourne (25th September)
- Zoom, online: https://polito-it.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuc-igqD4iEtxQVyWdK_KZBjOZOlucIzb1#/registration
- Eventbrite, in-person: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1007560028167?aff=oddtdtcreator
The final program for the Turin’s events is attached below.
Organising Committee
Convenors
Michele Lancione, Andrea Pavoni, Irene Peano, AbdouMaliq Simone
Writing coordinators
Marco Allegra, Mara Ferreri, Francesca Governa, Lavinia Pereira
Local organising committee
Turin: Silvia Aru, Chiara Cacciotti, Chiara Iacovone, Mara Ferreri, Michele Lancione, Daniela Morpurgo, Devra Waldman.
Lisbon: Marco Allegra, Salomé Honório, Andrea Pavoni, Irene Peano, Lavinia Pereira, Luisa Rossini
Supported by
The event is funded by the European Research Council Inhabiting Radical Housing project (n. 851940, PI: Lancione).
It is also supported by DIST (Polytechnic and University of Turin), DINAMIA’CET-ISCTE (Lisbon University Institute), the ICS (University of Lisbon) and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).