Differentiated Mobilities in Contested Cities: Towards Comparative Approaches

In this Urban Salon workshop, we aim to explore urban contestation in various cities through the lens of mobility, and to work towards creating comparative frameworks to study mobilities in contested cities.

Contemporary cities are well understood as places of difference, diversity, and encounter. Whether this difference is a creative force or a potentially destabilizing force is a topic for further discussion. Here, we are concerned with understanding how urban mobilities are structured and experienced in contested cities.

In particular, we are interested in inviting discussion on the ways in which urban difference is made apparent and potentially transformed through patterns of mobility and urban circulations. We would like to explore how governmental policies or planning outcomes that affect patterns of mobility cause further fractures and perpetuate difference in the city but also to reflect on what new kinds of social interactions might emerge. And finally, we will consider how we can compare differentiated mobilities across contested cities, and what lessons we can draw from such comparisons.

Speakers include Jennifer Robinson (UCL), Jonathan Rokem (UCL), Sobia Ahmad Kaker (LSE), Suzanne Hall (LSE), and Jorge Blanco (University of Buenos Aires). Laura Vaughan (UCL), Camillo Boano (UCL), and Stephan Graham (Newcastle) will act as respondents.

Thanks to the UCL Institute for Advanced Studies for hosting this event.

Please register on Eventbrite.