Call for participation: British Council-Newton Fund workshop in Mexico City
Producing and contesting urban marginality: Speculation, public space and social movements in the neoliberal city
Universidad La Salle, Mexico City
From Tuesday 12 to Friday 15 July 2016 (inclusive)
The workshop is coordinated by Julie Cupples (University of Edinburgh) and Mario López González Garza (Universidad La Salle) with contributions from mentors Tom Slater (University of Edinburgh) and Antonio Gallardo (Universidad La Salle)
We are now inviting Early Career Researchers from the UK and Mexico to apply to attend this workshop. Travel (up to a maximum of £1000 for UK-based and £150 for Mexican-based researchers) and accommodation expenses (up to a maximum of £320) will be covered by the Newton Researcher Links programme. The application form, available here, must be submitted to julie.cupples@ed.ac.uk before the deadline of 11 April 2016.
Workshop details
In Mexico City, as in many other large cities worldwide, contemporary modes of urban governance have overwhelmingly benefited affluent populations and widened social inequalities. Disinvestment from social housing and rent-seeking developments by real estate companies and land speculators have resulted in the displacement of low-income populations to the urban periphery. Public social spaces have been eliminated to make way for luxury apartments and business interests. Low-income neighbourhoods are often stigmatized by dominant social forces to justify their demolition. The urban poor have however negotiated and resisted these developments in a range of ways. Our workshop seeks to explore these urban dynamics in Mexico City and beyond, looking at the material and symbolic mechanisms through which urban marginality is produced and contested. It seeks to understand how things might be otherwise, how the city might be geared towards more inclusive forms of belonging and citizenship.
We seek to chart the ways in which processes of urban transformation are enacted both materially and symbolically and the impacts these processes have on the urban poor. We will also explore the urban struggles that result from these impacts. We are
especially interested in discussions that are focused on linking the macrodeterminants of urban political economy to the life options and strategies of the poor at ground level. This would provide propitious terrain for reformulating from ‘below’, in empirical terms, the labels, discourses and categories imposed from ‘above’ that
have been shown in scholarship to have corrosive consequences. Drawing on these insights, we hope to produce a series of recommendations for stakeholders with a view to producing a more inclusive city where the social, economic and cultural needs of marginalised people become a central principle according to which the restructuring of urban space occurs.
The workshops will provide a unique opportunity for sharing research expertise and networking. During the workshops early career researchers will have the opportunity to present their research in the form of a short oral presentation and discuss this with established researchers from the UK and Mexico. The workshop will also include a field trip to a number of marginal and irregular settlements in Mexico City to interact with artists and community leaders. There will be a focus on building up links for future collaborations and participants selected on the basis of their research potential and ability to build longer term links. We will for example partner UK and Mexican researchers to co-author a book chapter for a published anthology after the workshop is completed.
We are seeking researchers who are working on questions of urban marginality in cities in Mexico or elsewhere in the world. We are particularly interested in scholars who have built close relationships with urban social movements or with communities in irregular settlements or those facing eviction of displacement.
Eligibility Criteria:
Researchers must be conducting research on urban marginality in Mexico or other cities in the world and are interested in sharing insights from diverse geographical locations.
Applications must be submitted using the Researcher Links application form, available here
Application must be submitted before the above deadline.
Participants must be early career researchers: Early Career Researchers are defined as holding a PhD (or having equivalent research experience) and having up to 10 years post-PhD (or equivalent) research experience.
Participants must have a research or academic position (either a permanent post, research contract, or teaching/research fellowship etc) at a recognised research institution either in the UK or in Mexico.
Applicants must be willing to contribute a co-authored book chapter to the anthology that will result from the workshop. Support will be provided by the workshop coordinators and mentors. The language of the workshop will be in English, so all participants must be able to work in English, but allowances will be made for non-native English speakers. UK participants with some Spanish fluency will be particularly welcome.
Quality Assessment
Experience and relevance of the applicant’s research area to the workshop
Motivation and contribution to the aims of the workshop
Description of the long term impact expected through the participation in the workshop
Ability to disseminate workshop’s outcomes
Notification of results:
Applicants will be notified by email no more than two months prior to the workshop and hopefully no later than 25 April.
More details and access to the application form can be found here.
Path to the Possible 