Urban Institute – New Research Themes

19 December 4.30pm-5.30pm ICOSS conference room

In the past year, the Urban Institute has seen significant growth, both in membership and in research activity. Before heading home for Christmas, please join us to celebrate our successful year and to look forward with us to the launch of our exciting new research agenda for 2019, which is shaped strongly by our three new research themes

“Urban Humans” - Abdoumaliq Simone

“Life at the Margins” - Michele Lancione

“Climate Urbanism” - Vanesa Castan Broto

Improvised Lives, – AbdouMaliq Simone, Book Launch

19 December 5.30pm ICOSS Foyer and reception

The poor and working people in cities of the South find themselves in urban spaces that are conventionally construed as places to reside or inhabit. But what if we thought of popular districts in more expansive ways that capture what really goes on within them? In such cities, popular districts are the settings of more uncertain operations that take place under the cover of darkness, generating uncanny alliances among disparate bodies, materials and things and expanding the urban sensorium and its capacities for liveliness. In this important new book AbdouMaliq Simone explores the nature of these alliances, portraying urban districts as sites of enduring transformations through rhythms that mediate between the needs of residents not to draw too much attention to themselves and their aspirations to become a small niche of exception. Here we discover an urban South that exists as dense rhythms of endurance that turn out to be vital for survival, connectivity, and becoming.