Southern African City Studies Conference 2009
From 24 to 25 June 2009, the inaugural Southern African City Studies Conference took place at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The Southern African City Studies Conference represents a partnership between CUBES and the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). This joint initiative is based on the common understanding that a regular forum for academic exchange between South(ern) African scholars of cities is long overdue. Furthermore, a cross-disciplinary platform is highly needed where research can be presented and discussed across traditional disciplinary boundaries and also be opened to urban practitioners. The idea is that such a forum will not only enrich current work but also generate new and better research agendas that will allow us to get an enhanced purchase on the contemporary urban condition. This initiative is intended to develop also as a platform for younger scholars to come to the fore and contribute to the wide field of city studies.
The inaugural 2009 conference was opened with a plenary discussion on “The Present and Future of South African City Studies“ and was closed with a plenary session on “Promising New Directions in Cities Research“. In total 46 papers were presented in a number of thematic sessions focusing on the following issues:
- Rights, Exclusion, and Struggle
- Difference, Planning and Knowledge Production
- Bodies in Space: Desire, Discipline and Personhood
- Moving beyond participation?
- Reading the Dark Sides: Alternatives, Identities, and City Space
- The Production of Urban Space: Difference and the Politics of Innovation
- Informality, ‘Peripheries’ and City Space
- Conflicting Rationalities in Planning in Post-Apartheid Cities
- Contested Public Spaces: Finding Agency, Building Place
- History and Memory in the Contemporary City
- Regional urban futures? Cities, City-regions and Regional Perspectives
- Negotiating the City: Power and Politics