VI Midterm Conference Coimbra 2025 & II Summer School for Young Urban Scholars

DECENTERED CITIES: OVERLOOKED URBAN NARRATIVES AND SHIFTING CENTRALITIES – VI MIDTERM CONFERENCE OF ESA RN37, September 3-5, Coimbra, Portugal. 

The Research Network 37 – Urban Sociology (RN37) of the European Sociological Association (ESA) is delighted to invite you to VI Midterm Conference, to be held at the in person University of Coimbra from September 3 afternoon to September 5 afternoon, 2025. 

In a world increasingly shaped by rapid urbanization, environmental challenges,
forced migration, increasing socio-economic inequalities and the rise of
extreme right-wing movements, technological transformations, and shifting
social dynamics, European urbanized and urbanizing areas stand at the
forefront of societal change. Both are shaped by complex and dynamic
relations that challenge traditional hierarchies. Rather than static categories of
centre and periphery, these concepts are fluid and relational, shaped by social,
economic, cultural, and political processes.


This conference seeks to explore how urban spaces navigate these processes,
with special attention to traditionally silenced groups simultaneously pushed to
the urban peripheries and to the margins of power and action in the public
space. However, peripheries are much more than inactivity and absence, being
deeply interconnected with broader urban systems, often acting as sites of
creative counter-narratives, resistance and transformation. Old and new
examples show how urban centres can rise, decline and re-emerge, while
peripheral areas may become central in their own right.
By focusing on these shifting and postcolonial dynamics, we also aim to clarify
how cities and urban regions reframe their past heritage and negotiate their
roles within regional, national, and global networks.