Cities and Inequalities in a Transnational World

Series: Joint Area Centers Symposium
Research Clusters: Global Studies as a Field of Study

Began: Thursday, 1 March 2012
Ended: Saturday, 3 March 2012

For the first time in human history most people live in cities and virtually all of the world’s population growth is occurring in urban areas. Growing urbanization, inequalities of access to improved water, sanitation, health, education and housing, and migration are interconnected, and in complex ways both cause and reflect the global restructuring of production and social reproduction. Because humankind has become and might continue to be a species of city dwellers, the questions we ask about urbanization and urban inequality in a transnational world are questions about the human condition.

Cities and Inequalities in a Transnational World symposium seeks to better understand aspects of these unfolding processes of urbanization and transnationalism that might prove similar or different from the past and across regions. Through this symposium we seek a global perspective grounded in the regional experiences of regions of Africa, South and South East Asia, Latin America, Middle East, European Union; Russia and Eastern Europe.

Symposium is free and open to the public. 

Register at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/9499126

Speakers: Keynotes by: Erik Swyngedouw (University of Manchester, UK), Martin Murray (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Teresa Caldeira (University of California Berkeley), Asef Bayat (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Presenters:  Mi Shih (China Research Center), Virág Molnár (New School for Social Research), Neema Kudva (Cornell University), Faranak Miraftab (University of Illinois), David Wilson (University of Illinois), Ken Salo (University of Illinois).

Program

The 21st century is declared as a century of cities;[i] a century when for the first time in human history most people live in cities and virtually all of the world’s population growth is occurring in urban areas.[ii]  This century embodies yet another milestone:  the number of people moving across national borders is higher than ever before.  The 2010 World Migration Report states that “there are far more international migrants in the world today than ever previously recorded” (p.3).[iii]  Meanwhile, even as there might be dispute on whether poverty has increased, studies concur that inequalities have grown worldwide within and across cities and regions.  The micro-data collected across world cities in terms of access to improved water, sanitation, health, education and housing mirrors the grim picture of unprecedented urban inequalities that Mike Davis presents in his Planet of Slums. 

These unprecedented trends in human settlements and movements are not coincidental.  Growing urbanization, inequalities and migration are interconnected, and in complex ways both cause and reflect the global restructuring of production and social reproduction.  Because humankind has become and might continue to be a species of city dwellers, and because humankind has become more than ever unequal in their conditions of life and mobility across national borders, the questions we ask about urbanization and urban inequality in a transnational world are questions about the human condition.  What are the spatialities of these interconnected trends and what are those emerging spaces?  What are the new and persistent forms of inequality they produce?  What are the ways in which inhabitants, vastly unequal in their conditions of life, negotiate their livelihoods, security, and dignity in these emerging urban spaces? How is transnationalism implicated in the production of these ascendant inequalities?

Many aspects of these global mobilities and urban inequalities are linked to natural environmental changes happening across the globe; or deterritorialized practices of governance, citizenship, accumulation of capital and social reproduction.  The symposium participants interrogate the dimensions of such deep and overwhelming change in the human condition.  While they seek to help us understand the unfolding phenomena before us, they also move beyond that to excavate modes of understanding and interventions, policies and actions that help us build capacity for change.  Key questions around which the sessions will be organized are the following:

  1. What are the new spatialities of cities in a world more than ever before transnational and unequal?  What are these emerging spaces? How do they vary across urban areas and regions? 
  2. What are the new or persistent forms of inequality that these processes (re)produce, particularly with regard to gender, race, income, residential settings, security, violence (prison industrial complex), legal status etc.?
  3. How is transnationalism as a powerful contemporary force implicated in the production of these inequalities?
  4. What are the modes of intervention through formal policies, or informal practices by officials, activists and inhabitants to address the emergent or persistent urban inequalities? 
  5. How do inhabitants of these emerging or growing cities claim and assert their right to their livelihood and dignity?  How do these inhabitants practice their right to the cities and citizenship? 

Organizers: Faranak Miraftab and Ken Salo, Department of Urban and Regional Planning; David Wilson, Dept. of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For further information please contact Faranak Miraftab faranak@illinois.edu

The symposium begins Thursday March 1st at 4pm with a CAS/Millercomm Lecture by Erik Swengedouw at the Spurlock Museum. Events on Friday, March 2 take place at Levis Faculty Center from 8:30am - 5:30pm, and on Saturday March 3, 2012 at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, 8:30-12:00, with a workshop from 1:00-3:00.

Cities and Inequalities in a Transnational World: 2012 Joint Area Studies symposium sponsored by:
Center for Global Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies, European Union Center, Russian, East European and Eurasian Center, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Center for African Studies, Center for South Asian and the Middle Eastern Studies, Center for International Business Education and Research, CAS/Millercomm Lecture Series, Department of Geography, and Department of Urban and Regional Planning

 

[i]The Rockefeller Foundation2008.  Century of the City: No Time to Lose. New York: the Rockefeller Foundation.

[ii]State of the World Cities  2010/2011:  Bridging the Urban Divide, pp. IX, UN HABITATWMR 2010.

[iii]This is a rapidly increasing figure that has reached 214 million and if continued at the same rate will rise to 405 million by 2050 WMR 2010.