Mon. 08.09.14 Opening Lecture Master Programme Human Geography 201415:45-17:30
15:
Gymnasion
Room: GN3
‘Just the City’
Heyendaalseweg
141,
Abstract: Across many cities of the so-called Global South, the primary
6525AJ
responsibility for constructing spaces of inhabitation fell largely to residents
Nijmegen
themselves. Although these cities have been largely remade through the intensive
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segregations precipitated by property markets, many substantial traces of the
continuous incremental renovations and readjustment of everyday life remain
vital. It was not just a matter of households building their own homes.
Affordability meant density. Densification was not just of bodies of techniques
necessary to provide an array of affordances. This meant- the intermixing of
measures, angles, calculations, impulses, screens, surfaces, soundscapes,
exposures, folds, circuitries, and layers, as instruments for associating things,
bringing things into association, where things get their “bearings” by having a
“bearing” on each other. But these association required their own rhythm and
time. Focusing on different heterogeneous districts in inner city Jakarta, the article
explores these mixtures of temporality and how they are materialised in local built
and economic environments.
After the lecture we have the opportunity to have an informal gathering together
with drinks together with Prof. Abdoumaliq Simone.
Add to your agenda
Wed.
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture:
08.10.14
18:00-19:30
‘Justice in the Neo-liberal City’
Senate Hall
Comeniuslaan 2
Abstract: From the middle 1970s the restructuring of
NL-6525HP Nijmegen the global economy has undermined comprehensive planning. A sharp
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increase in the mobility of capital and labour has made public planning
and control difficult. The final collapse of the Soviet empire buried its
counter model to capitalism; so too did the Chinese conversion to a form
of state capitalism. Accompanying these transformation has been the
increasing dominance of a neo-liberal ideology ideology of market
rationality, economic growth, and competitiveness—of necessary and
inevitable competition among people, cities, regions or whole nations. The
result has been a concerted attack on public-sector urban programs aimed
at providing a reasonable standard of living for all residents. In particular,
programs for social housing were severely cut back throughout Western
Europe.
An examination of recent policy in New York, Amsterdam and Singapore
indicates the character of government programs in these wealthy but
increasingly unequal cities. Their evolution will be evaluated in relation to
principles of justice, as developed in the book The Just City. Finally some
proposals for moving toward more just outcomes will be presented.
Add to your agenda
Thur.
Science Café with Prof. Susan Fainstein
09.10.14
18:00-20:00
Special guest: Prof. Marcel Wissenburg (Radboud University)
Sport Café
Moderator: dr. Bart van Leeuwen (Radboud University)
Heyendaalseweg 141,
6525AJ Nijmegen
free entry
Fri.
Seminar with Prof. Susan Fainstein
10.10.14
with contributions by:
10:45-13:30
• Karel Martens (Radboud University), On fairness in the domain of
transportation
Erasmus Building
Room E 2.54
• Henk van Houtum (Radboud University)
Erasmusplein 1,
• ...
6525HT Nijmegen
free entry
Mo.
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture:
10.11.14
18:00-19:30
‘Divided cities: inequality and urban injustice’
Senate Hall
Comeniuslaan 2
Abstract: If the future of the planet is urban, is the future
NL-6525HP Nijmegen of the city one of worsening inequality? Recent urban
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analysis has highlighted the growing share of the global
population that now lives in cities; this lecture puts that
growth in the context of another major urban trend:
deepening patterns of inequality in many cities across the world. In this
context ‘older’ bases of urban inequality - access to land and property, gender
inequity, ethnic and racial discrimination, legal exclusion and informality –
intersect with emerging patterns of disparity which include extreme
concentrations of wealth at the top, middle-class stagnation, privatisation
and secession, and acute insecurity. Urban inequality today is not only a
question of why so many people remain poor in the city, but also of the
numbers stuck in an increasingly precarious ‘middle’, and why a significant
minority are getting very, very rich. Accelerated wealth at the top, stagnation
at the middle, and entrenched deprivation at the bottom all play their part in
creating unequal urban futures, and in shaping patterns of spatial division in
contemporary cities in both very brutal and less visible ways.
At a fundamental level, inequality is crucial to thinking about the possibilities
of a ‘just’ city, and the issue of whose city that is imagined to be. Common
rights to the city, and competing claims to territory and to urban privilege,
fracture around fissures of class, culture, race and belonging. Urban
inequality is not only about blunt measures of disparity but about complex
relations of injustice, domination and exclusion. To engage with
contemporary urban inequalities, then, is to engage with the politics of cities
and citizenship in an extended way; one which includes formal structures of
government and legal arrangements, but which also bears on urban conflict
and segregation, exploitation and expropriation, and the everyday politics of
living in divided and disparate cities.
Add to your agenda
Tue.
Science Café with Prof. Fran Tonkiss
11.11.14
18:00-20:00
Special guest: dr. Lothar Smith (Radboud University)
Cultuur Café
Moderator: Prof. Arnoud Lagendijk
Mercatorpad 1,
6525HS Nijmegen
free entry
Wed.
Seminar with Prof. Fran Tonkiss
12.11.14
with contributions by:
10:45-13:30
• Angela Wigger (Radboud Universiteit), On the UE 'Competitiveness
Pact', uneven development and authoritarian statism
Lineaus building
Room: Lin 8
• Taco Brandsen (Radboud University) (to be confirmed)
Heyendaalseweg 137, • Freek de Haan (Radboud University)
6525 AJ Nijmegen
free entry
Mo.
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture:
17.11.14
18:00-19:30
‘Informal Settlement Upgrading in Global Mega-cities:
Senate Hall
The Human Rights – Property Rights Dilemma’
Comeniuslaan 2
NL-6525HP Nijmegen Abstract: Since 2008 we have, for the first time in
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human history, become an urban planet. And the
continuing rate of urbanization is staggering. It is
estimated that globally over 1 million people per week
are migrating from the countryside to the city, primarily in Africa and Asia.
Many of these migrants settle in the informal settlements (slums) of the
planet’s mega-cities – e.g. Jakarta, Indonesia, Johannesburg, South Africa,
Mexico City, Mumbai, India, Nairobi, Kenya. The U.N. estimates that over 1
billion people live in informal settlements now and that this number will
double by 2030.
These lives of these settlers are “informal” because they have no legal title
to the land and housing where they reside. Should they? Prominent
advocates (e.g. Hernando de Soto) argue that doing so improves
infrastructure and social services within the settlements, jump starts
private sector economic development activities, and improves the public
fiscal conditions of cities. Skeptics wonder if informal settlers either need
or want private property rights, and are also concerned about the
unintended consequences of informal settlement upgrading.
This talk explores spatial justice for informal settlers and settlements
through the lens of human rights. Does a global discourse about furthering
human rights imply that these settlers are entitled to property rights? And
if they are, exactly what might this mean – what would property look like,
how would they get it, what could they do with it?
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Tue.
Science Café with Prof. Harvey Jacobs
18.11.14
18:00-20:00
Special Guest: Prof. Thomas Mertens (Radboud University)
Cultuur Café
Moderator: Prof. Henk van Houtum (Radboud University)
Mercatorpad 1,
6525HS Nijmegen
free entry
Wed.
Seminar with Prof. Harvey Jacobs
19.11.14
with contributions by:
10:45-13:30
• Eric Boot (Radboud University), On human rights and
corresponding obligations
Lineaus building
Room: Lin 8
• Jeroen Smits (Radboud University)
Heyendaalseweg 137, • Lothar Smith (Radboud University)
6525 AJ Nijmegen
free entry
Mo.
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture:
01.12.14
18:00-19:30
‘Disadvantage, choice and spatial justice’
Senate Hall
Comeniuslaan 2
Abstract: Most of us live as though our lives are guided by
NL-6525HP Nijmegen choice. For example, we choose where to live, where we
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prefer to work or send our child to school, and how we
would like to spend our free time. Much of the time, too,
our choices overlap with others whose proximity or shared backgrounds and
interests converge with our own. Out of these arise the fruits of voluntary
association, the normative good of expressing our interests and spending our
time with others as we see fit. But involuntary mechanisms also shape – often
in profound ways – the choices that we all make. After all, no one chooses
their parents, their skin colour, their first language, their income, and
countless other factors that shape our choices. The involuntary appears to
constrain the voluntary. How, then, do we speak about choice in a meaningful
way? How indeed for those who are more disadvantaged and stigmatised in
the societies they live in? In this talk Merry will take up this challenge and
attempt to reconcile – to the extent possible – the voluntary and the
involuntary and explore some pragmatic strategies for dealing with spatial
injustice.
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Tue. 02.12.14
Science Café with Prof. Michael Merry
18:00-20:00
Cultuur Café
Special Guest: n.n. (to be confirmed)
Mercatorpad 1,
Moderator: dr. Karel Martens
6525HS Nijmegen
free entry
Wed.
Seminar with Prof. Michael Merry
03.12.14
with contributions by:
10:45-13:30
• Simone Pekelsma (Radboud University), On gated communities and
Lineaus building
‘fair’ segregation
Room: Lin 8
• Bas Hendrikx (Radboud University)
Heyendaalseweg 137, • ...
6525 AJ Nijmegen
free entry
Mo.
Alexander von Humboldt Lecture:
12.01.15
18:00-19:30
‘Space, justice and politics’
Senate Hall
Comeniuslaan 2
Abstract: This lecture is organised around the
NL-6525HP Nijmegen relationship between space, justice and politics. My
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starting point and empirical examples derive from
contemporary urban uprisings in the liberal
democracies of the west. The argument is that contemporary urban
processes produce injustices and forms of dissent that elude the
established institutions of liberal democracies. How can these forms of
dissent be addressed without recourse to coercive ways? How, in this
context, can we reconsider the relationship between the production of
urban space, politics and justice?
Add to your agenda
Tue.
Science Café with Prof. Mustafa Dikec
13.01.15
18:00-20:00
Special Guest: dr. Olivier Kramsch (Radboud University)
Cultuur Café
Moderator: Henk-Jan Kooij
Mercatorpad 1,
6525HS Nijmegen
free entry
Wed.
Seminar with Prof. Mustafa Dikec
14.01.15
with contributions by:
10:45-13:30
• Joris Schapendonk (Radboud University)
Lineaus building
• Kolar Aparna (Radboud University)
Room: Lin 8
• ...
Heyendaalseweg 137,
6525 AJ Nijmegen
free entry