ESA 2021 Conference – RN 37 Call for Papers

Sociological Knowledges for Alternative Urban Futures

Our urbanizing world faces challenges rooted in contemporary visions of unlimited growth and unlimited use of natural resources. People living in metropolitan areas, cities and towns in all continents are going through difficult times. The increasing concerns for social, economic, and political futures of societies, together with worsening climate change, and the current unprecedented pandemic have put urban areas into a particularly vulnerable situation. We take the theme of this ESA Conference as an opportunity to discuss the role of research in urban sociology at addressing these issues. In view of sustainable prospects for cities, how can urban research contribute to rethinking multifaceted and emerging inequalities, shifts in economies, cultures and policies affecting the sociospatial change, urban practices and well-being of people? The ESA Research Network 37 Urban Sociology aims to continue the work developed at the previous ESA Conferences and Midterm Conferences, by stimulating the cross-disciplinary debate on urban life, urban spaces and urban dynamics. At the 2021 ESA Conference in Barcelona, we are interested in receiving proposals focusing on empirical data, but also specifically on the theoretical and methodological aspects of research, with a special focus on papers proposing innovative approaches. Reaffirming the words of the general theme of the conference, we intend to think and practice together new ways of overcoming the complex social, and particularly urban, challenges of our time.

Joint Sessions

JS_RN01_RN37: “Urban Ageing: Towards an enhanced spatial perspective” (Joint session with RN01 Ageing in Europe)

JS_RN15_RN37: “Transforming cities in a global transforming world” (Joint session with RN15 Global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology)

JS_RN27_RN37: “Urban homelessness in Southern Europe: new problems and new challenges in times of Covid-19” (Joint session with RN27 Regional Network Southern European Societies)

JS_RN35_RN37: “Patterns and paradoxes of forced mobility and confinement in urban space” (Joint session with RN35 Sociology of Migration)

IV Midterm Conference (Bologna, 2021)

Urban Theory and Urban Praxis: Past, Present and Possible Futures

27-29 January 2021, Online-Conference

European Sociological Association (ESA) – Research Network 37: Urban Sociology

Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell’Economia

We are delighted to announce that our IV midterm conference entitled “Urban Theory and Urban Praxis: Past, Present and Possible Futures” will be held ONLINE, hosted by Department of Sociology and Business Law, University of Bologna. The leader of the local organizing group is our colleague from the board:  Gabriele Manella.

Conference information

Follow this link to register for the conference
IMPORTANT NOTE
You have to be a member of ESA to participate at the conference via zoom.


IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the uncertainty and risks surrounding the current (and likely future) global health situation, the organizing committee has made the (hard) decision to postpone the conference from its initial date (September 2-4, 2020) to a new date (JANUARY 27-29, 2021) AND move the conference entirely to an ONLINE FORMAT.

We are working on the details and logistics of this new format, but the latest information available points to the conference being hosted by the University of Bologna (Italy) and held online using a web-conferencing platform (e.g. Zoom or Microsoft Teams). We will provide updates timely to all the (prospective) participants, as soon as we have further news.

Keynote Speakers

Ayse Caglar: Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna and Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna. Profile: https://ksa.univie.ac.at/institut/mitarbeiterinnen/professorinnen/caglar-ayse/

Giampaolo Nuvolati: Professor of Sociology of Environment and Territory, Vice-Rector for Public Engagement and Director of the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milan-Bicocca. Also, Scientific Coordinator of the Territory Section of Italian Association of Sociology (AIS). Profile: https://www.unimib.it/giampaolo-nuvolati

Terry N. Clark: Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. President of ISA RC03 Community, International Coordinator of the Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation Project. Profile: https://sociology.uchicago.edu/directory/terry-n-clark

New RN 37 book: Inequality and uncertainty: current challenges for cities

The book “Inequality and uncertainty: current challenges for cities” published by Palgrave Macmillan is available online. This is the second volume presented by the Research Network 37— Urban Sociology of the European Sociological Association. This monograph originated at the conference “Inequalities and Uncertainty: Current Challenges for Cities” which took place in Madrid in June 2018.

Over 150 urban researchers had the opportunity to hear and discuss inspiring key lectures and presentations based on both theoretical reflection and empirical research. We considered one more time that the findings should be presented to the public and in this way take part of a broader discussion on cities. Congratulations to the authors of the chapters: Martina Löw, M. Victoria Gómez, Susanne Frank, Begoña Aramayona, Kaan Kubilay Aşar, Marta Klekotko, Rosa Branco, Sónia Alves, Talja Blokland, Vojin Šerbedžija, Rui F. Carvalho, Inês Vieira, João Pedro Silva Nunes, Iraide Fernadez, Cristina Lavia, Noel Manzano, María Castrillo, Ángel Ramón Zapata-Moya, Cristina Mateos-Mora, Clemente J. Navarro-Yáñez, Fronika de Wit and Renata Putkowska-Smoter. Many thanks to the editors for their huge effort: Maria Victoria Gómez, Laura Guarino, Sebastian Kurtenbach, Patricia Pereira, Marta Smagacz-Poziemska and Juan Jose Villalón.

IV Midterm Conference RN37 in Bologna: Call for Session Proposals (1st Stage)

We are delighted to announce that our IV midterm conference entitled “Urban Theory and Urban Praxis: Past, Present and Possible Futures” will take place at the University of Bologna. The conference will be held on September 2nd  to 4th, 2020.  

Our partner, the local organizer, is the Department of Sociology and Business Law of the University of Bologna. The leader of the local organizing group is our colleague from the board:  Gabriele Manella.

For this midterm conference, we will first open a call for session proposals. After the list of sessions has been finalized, a second call for individual abstracts to be integrated into the accepted sessions will be opened.

We look forward to your session proposals until January 10th, 2020.

On February 20th, 2020 we will open a call for individual abstracts.

Call for session proposals (pdf)

Theme & Calls

Urban Theory and Urban Praxis: Past, Present and Possible Futures

Exactly one hundred years ago, in the year 1920, the world was finally resurfacing from a devastating global health crisis. Misleadingly, albeit too commonly, known as the ‘1918 Spanish Flu’, this deadly influenza pandemic – arguably the most severe pandemic in modern history – lasted over two years, infected an estimated 500 million people, approximately one-third of the world’s population at the time, and caused an estimated death toll of over 50 million people. Roughly one century later, in 2020, we find ourselves amidst another pandemic threat, one whose social consequences we are still to fully comprehend, and whose obvious discrepancies and all too alarming similarities to the global virulent outbreak of one century ago invites sociological questions about modernity, globalization, urbanization, and social change and persistence. Has the course of social change in the last one hundred years been such that all and any similarities between the two pandemic outbreaks are little more than flukes? Or are these similarities a manifestation of Karl Marx’s contention in the Eighteenth Brumaire (1852) that history is set to repeat itself “first as tragedy, then as farce”?

The current year of 2020 also commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of Max Weber. Unquestionably recognized as one of the forefathers of Western Sociology, Weber has inspired the imagination and scholarship of generations of sociologists and social scientists alike, regardless of epistemological traditions, methodological boundaries, regions of study, or fields of interest. Urban sociology and sociologists are not an exception. In fact, 2021 – the year in which this conference will be held – marks the centennial anniversary of yet another landmark: the posthumous publication of Max Weber’s edited volume on The City(1921), a pivotal work for the (at the time) expanding field of Urban Sociology, where Weber tries to outline the foundations of his systematic theory of urbanism and urban development.

We take the occasion of these centennial landmarks – the time elapsed between these two pandemics, Max Weber’s death, and the publication of Weber’s The City – to reflect about the past, present, and future of cities and urban societies, urban theories and urban practices, through and beyond the works of Weber. The last century has provided us with a wealth of theoretical perspectives on the city and its development, from the ecological theories of the Chicago School, through neo-Marxist and political economic approaches, to the more recent rise of post-structural, postmodern, and postcolonial urban studies. Cities have changed greatly in the past one hundred years, and so have our ways of conceptualizing theoretically, approaching methodologically, and pragmatically acting upon, cities. And, as the present pandemic situation shows all too well, cities keep changing every day, and will continue to do so in the future, creating a continuous demand for the reconsideration and redefinition of urban theories and urban practices.

We thus encourage contributions looking at past, present and prospective processes of urban transformation, at how those shifts have affected urban social structures and livelihoods, and at how urban theories (and theorists) and urban practices (and practitioners) have (or could have) addressed such changes and acted towards the promotion of more just cities and societies. Analyses of the characteristics and effects of the current global health crisis for urban areas worldwide are especially welcome. Please see information on how to submit your abstract and/or participate in the midterm conference below. We look forward to receiving your contributions!

Conference information and list of call for papers (pdf)

List of Sessions & Call for Papers

List of Sessions 

  1. ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS IN URBAN SPACE
  2. WE, CO-WALKERS IN THE URBAN SPACE
  3. ALTERITY IN THE DEVELOPING URBAN SUBJECT
  4. FROM NEIGHBOURHOOD TO COMMUNITY, OR FROM COMMUNITY TO NEIGHBOURHOOD?
  5.  IN/EXCLUSION IN THE FESTIVAL CITY
  6. SQUATTING MOVEMENT IN EUROPE
  7. HOUSING IN A POST-COVID SOCIETY: TRENDS, POLICIES AND CHALLENGES
  8. NEW PATHWAYS OF ECOLOGICAL GENTRIFICATION IN EUROPE?
  9. THE TOURIST CITY: OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES, AND CONFLICTS
  10. CARE THEORY MEETS THE CITY: EXPLORING IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF URBAN INEQUALITY
  11. INNOVATIVE STREETS IN EUROPE. EXPLORING PRACTICES AND GOVERNANCE OF ALTERNATIVE URBANITIES
  12. URBAN REGENERATION: POLICIES AND EFFECTS
  13. HOUSING INFORMALITY IN THE GLOBAL NORTH: A SOCIO-HISTORICAL APPROACH
  14. URBAN IMAGINATION AND TECHNOLOGY OF DATA VISUALISATION IN URBAN STUDIES
  15. REWRITING BELONGING AND IDENTITY THROUGH URBAN SPACES: EVERYDAY CITY-MAKING IN TURBULENT TIMES
  16. CONFRONTING URBAN REGENERATION POLICIES IN EUROPE BETWEEN NEW FORMS OF TOURISM, CREATIVITY AND EXPULSIONS
  17. RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND THE STUDY OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF TOWNS AND METROPOLISES. EMPIRICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN URBAN SOCIOLOGY
  18. WELCOMING SPACES? OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR NEWCOMERS
  19. URBAN PRACTICES AND URBAN INSTITUTIONS: THOUGHTS ON SEGREGATION AND THE SPATIALITY OF EVERYDAY RESOURCE ORGANIZATION, SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL
  20. UNLOCKING ACTION/RESEARCH ON URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS
  21. SOCIAL INNOVATION IN THE CITIES: POLITICS, POLICIES AND ACTORS
  22. RESPONSIBLE CITIES: IMAGINARIES, PRACTICES AND POLICIES IN A CHALLENGING ERA
  23. DEBATING URBAN ETHNOGRAPHY: LIMITS AND POTENTIALITIES
  24. MIGRATIONS, URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS AND ICT SOLUTIONS

We look forward to receiving your submission until September 6th, 2020.

Follow this link to submit your abstract: Abstract submission

Important note: Many authors already submitted an abstract a few months ago, but they are kindly requested to submit it again. The peculiar situation we are living has forced us to re-consider most of our choices, and we think that resubmission is the best solution for the management of the review process. We thank you and apologize for the inconveniences (as you have already seen, however, submission is simple and fast).

Registration & Fees

Please use this link to register for the conference.

The organizing committee has decided to not charge any fees for this conference. Nonetheless, please note that all participants (presenters and not) are required to register for the conference timely. Be sure to watch out for and add the following dates to your calendar. Please note that these dates are final.

  • JUNE 19, 2020: Call for individual abstracts opens.
  • SEPTEMBER 6, 2020: Abstract submission deadline.
  • OCTOBER 12, 2020: Notification of decision regarding the abstracts. Registration for the conference opens.
  • NOVEMBER 6, 2020: Deadline for individual presenters and session chairs to register for the conference.
  • DECEMBER 4, 2020: Final conference program is published.
  • JANUARY 15, 2021: Deadline for non-presenters to register for the conference (this option only for ESA members).
  • JANUARY 27-29, 2021: IV Midterm Conference of the ESA-RN37 – Urban Sociology (ONLINE).

Organizers

The IV Midterm Conference is organized by the Research Network 37: Urban Sociology of the European Sociological Association and Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell’Economia at Università di Bologna.

MARTA SMAGACZ-POZIEMSKA, Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland)

GABRIELE MANELLA University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy)

M. VICTORIA GÓMEZ, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Madrid, Spain)

PATRÍCIA PEREIRA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal)

RUI F. CARVALHO, Brown University (Providence, United States)

KATRIN PAADAM, Tallinn University of Technology (Tallinn, Estonia)

JAN ÜBLACKER, EBZ Business School University of Applied Sciences (Bochum, Germany)

 

ESA Research Network 37 – Urban Sociology: new coordination and board for 2019-2021

At the 2019 ESA Conference in Manchester, the new board of the Research Network Urban Sociology (RN 37) for 2019-2021 was elected:

Coordinators: 

  • Marta Smagacz-Poziemska, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
  • M. Victoria Gómez, Departamento de Análisis Social, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
  • Patrícia Pereira, CICS-NOVA, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Board Members: 
  • Rui Carvalho, Brown University, United States
  • Gabriele Manella, Università di Bologna – Dipartimento di Sociologia e Diritto dell’Economia, Italy
  • Katrin Paadam, School of Business and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
  • Jan Üblacker, ILS Research Institute for Urban and Regional Development, Germany

 

ESA Conference 2019. Today (27 May) is the deadline for Registration for Paper Presenters!

Accepted authors who want to present their paper at the ESA 2019 conference must register as participants until the end of the day. After today, all contributions by not-registered submitting authors will be withdrawn, so we can start building the conference sessions. More about the registration process here: https://www.europeansociology.org/conftool/conference-registration

Reminder – abstract submission deadline February 1st 2019

ESA Conference, Manchester, August 20-23, 2019

“EUROPE AND BEYOND: BOUNDARIES, BARRIERS AND BELONGING”

Submitt your abstract to RN37’s (Urban Sociology) call “Boundaries and belonging in urban realities” 

Or to one of our joint sessions: 

“Urban Ageing: Towards an enhanced spatial perspective”, with RN01 (Ageing in Europe);

“Transforming cities in a global transforming world”, with RN15 (Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology)

“Migration and the city: Urban spaces and the reordering of borders, boundaries, and belongings in contemporary Europe” with RN35 (Sociology of Migration).