Urban Political Podcast

In this episode, we are discussing Theodore Greene’s latest book, Not in my Gayborhood! Gay neighborhoods and the rise of the vicarious citizen, published by Columbia University Press in July 2024. This book is a lively and generous study of gay neighborhoods in Washington DC, highlighting the evolving dynamics of LGBTQ spaces in urban settings. Drawing on empirical fieldwork as well as Ghaziani’s concept of “cultural archipelagos”, Not in My Gayborhood! reveals the plurality and fluidity of LGBTQ spaces, illustrating a complex network of attachments and loyalties that link gay Washingtonians to both iconic gayborhoods and their residential communities.

Our Guests:

Colin McFarlane is Professor of Urban Geography at Durham University. His work focusses on the experience and politics of urban life. This includes an interest in urban knowledge, learning, densities, fragments, and infrastructure, especially sanitation. He is author of Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife (Verso, 2023), Fragments of the City: Making and Remaking Urban Worlds (University of California Press, 2021), and Learning the City: Knowledge and Translocal Assemblage (Wiley, 2011), and Principal Investigator on the DenCity project.

Julia Wesely is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Urban Studies Working Group, Institute of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna. She holds a PhD in development planning from The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London and been a Research Fellow at the DPU in programmes including Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality and OVERDUE-Tackling the sanitation taboo across urban Africa. Her research, teaching and public engagement broadly focuses on the intersections of urban (in)equalities, environmental (in)justices and critical pedagogies. Julia has worked in collaboration with universities, civil society organisations, NGOs and social movements from several Latin American, African and European cities and she is part of the ECR collective “Overlooked Cities” as well as a nimbly organized network discussing the “Public Role of Universities in International Engagement”.

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In this episode we talk about garages, trams and trolleybuses! Our guests for this episode, Tauri Tuvikene and Wladimir Sgibnev, help us think about post-socialist mobility in terms of continuities and ruptures. Using examples from Estonia, East Germany, and the former Soviet Union, they question the future of mobility, highlight the importance of studying mundane infrastructural issues as social subjects, and explain how we could also make policies and knowledge travel westward.

Tauri Tuvikene (PhD in Geography, UCL, 2015) is a professor of urban studies at the School of Humanities, Tallinn University. His research covers comparative urbanism in relation to post-socialist cities and comparative methods, as well as the study of practices and regulations of urban mobility (including walking, automobility and public transport) on which he has published in leading journals such as IJURR, Geoforum, Eurasian Geography and Economics, the Journal of Transport Geography etc as we as co-edited two books, including one on post-socialist urban infrastructures (2019, Routledge, co-edited with Wladimir Sgibnev and Carola Neugebauer) and one one on post-socialist streets (2023, Berghahn, with Ger Duijzings). Prof. Tuvikene was the Project Lead (PL) of the HERA-funded research project PUTSPACE (2019-2022) that studied public transport as public space in European cities through narratives, experiences and contestations. Currently, he is the PL of the ERA-NET funded research project CARIN-PT that explores the relation between social inequalities and public transport (2022-2025). He also curates MA curriculum in urban governance at Tallinn University.

Wladimir Sgibnev is a Senior Researcher coordinating the Mobilities and Migration Research group at IfL, with a profile combining mobility studies and urban studies. He has a track record of publications in leading journals (e.g. Journal of Transport Geography, Antipode, Journal of Transport History), international project funding acquisition and dissemination activities, and teaching. His main fields of interest include mobilities turn theories (in particular informal mobility), mobility justice and a critical reading of transportation projects and policies, qualitative and comparative research methods, and innovative approaches such as mental mapping and mobile methods. He is PI of the “Contentious Mobilities through a decolonial lens” project (“CoMoDe”, Leibniz Competition, 2020-2025) and of the international HERA-funded research project “Public Transport as Public Space” (“PUTSPACE”, 2019–2022).

Leah Bonvin holds an MA in Critical Urbanisms from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her research focuses on vernacular landscapes and questions of heritage in post-socialist contexts. Her article “Reimagining Garage Complexes’ Futures in the Former GDR » will be published in Volkskunde in Sachsen. Jahrbuch für Kulturanthropologie later this year.

Sources

Tuvikene, T., Sgibnev, W., & Neugebauer, C.S. (Eds.). (2019). Post-Socialist Urban Infrastructures (OPEN ACCESS) (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351190350

Tuvikene, T., Sgibnev, W., Kȩbłowski, W., & Finch, J. (2023). Public transport as public space: Introduction. Urban Studies, 60(15), 2963 2978. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231203106

In this inaugural Spanish-language episode of the Urban Political Podcast, Clara Salazar delves into the history and concept of the ejidos—collective forms of land ownership introduced by the Mexican Revolution in 1917. Following this, the state began redistributing land to impoverished farmers under the condition that they organize themselves into collectives. Ejidal land, which was typically rural land, could not be sold. The significance of the ejidos persists to this day, although this form of collective ownwerhips has been the subject of numerous struggles and controversies. In 1992, the rights to ejidal lands were liberalized to permit their sale. Concurrently, the rights associated with private property were strengthened, providing powerful private owners with nearly unmatched opportunities to manage and profit from their lands, leveraging surplus value through public infrastructure provision while offering minimal compensation in return. Meanwhile, self-managed settlements by poor urbanites dwelling informally on the outskirts of metropolises have increasingly encroached upon ejidal land, leading to a parceling of the land and a profound transformation of Mexican cities. Against this backdrop, Clara Salazar makes a compelling case for enhancing public capacities to regulate urban land and to capture surplus value—a challenge that many Latin American countries face, alongside the ongoing evolution of property forms that separate land and housing ownership.

En este episodio inaugural en español del Urban Political Podcast, Clara Salazar profundiza en la historia y el concepto de los ejidos, formas colectivas de propiedad de la tierra introducidas por la Revolución Mexicana en 1917. Después de ésta, el estado comenzó a redistribuir tierras a los agricultores empobrecidos bajo la condición de que se organizaran en colectivos. Las tierras ejidales, típicamente rurales, no podían venderse. La importancia de los ejidos persiste hasta el día de hoy, aunque han sido objeto de numerosas luchas y controversias. En 1992, los derechos sobre las tierras ejidales se liberalizaron para permitir su venta. Al mismo tiempo, se fortalecieron los derechos asociados con la propiedad privada, brindando a poderosos empresarios oportunidades casi inigualables para administrar y sacar provecho de sus tierras, aprovechando la plusvalía de la provisión de infraestructura pública y ofreciendo una compensación mínima a cambio. Los asentamientos autogestionados por residentes pobres e "informales" en las afueras de las metrópolis han invadido cada vez más las tierras ejidales, lo que ha llevado a una parcelación de la tierra y una profunda transformación de las ciudades mexicanas. En este contexto, Clara presenta argumentos convincentes para el mejoramiento de la capacidad pública en la regulación del suelo urbano y la captura de plusvalía; un desafío que enfrentan muchos países latinoamericanos, junto con la continua evolución de las formas de propiedad que separan la titularidad de la tierra y la vivienda.

Con:

Dr. Clara E. Salazar Cruz, doctor in Social Sciences with a specialty in population studies from El Colegio de México, is professor-researcher at the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies since 1997. Throughout her academic career she has written more than fifty publications, including book chapters and articles in specialized journals, and authored, co-authored and coordinated four books. In addition to her teaching and research role, Dr. Salazar is a member of the National System of Researchers, level III. At the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies, she serves additional roles as Publications Coordinator and director of the journal Demographic and Urban Studies. Her most recent research focuses on urban development in Mexico, addressing issues such as changes in the land tenure system and its impact on the land market, the regularization of informal settlements, and the effect of public policies on land and housing in urban expansion and territorial inequality. Likewise, her work delves into the study of popular housing as a crucial space for family ties and the generation of income for survival, exploring the intersection between the housing and the social. Dr. Salazar is recognized for her contribution to the demographic and urban field, establishing herself as a specialist in her area of study. Her participation in the National System of Researchers and her leadership roles in CEDUA underscore her commitment and significant contribution to demographic and urban knowledge in Mexico.

https://cedua.colmex.mx/personal-academico/salazar-cruz-clara/semblanza

La Dra. Clara E. Salazar Cruz, Doctora en Ciencias Sociales con especialidad en Estudios de Población por El Colegio de México, ha ocupado el cargo de Profesora-Investigadora en el Centro de Estudios Demográficos, Urbanos y Ambientales desde 1997. A lo largo de su destacada trayectoria académica, ha acumulado más de cincuenta publicaciones, que incluyen capítulos de libro y artículos en revistas especializadas, así como la autoría, coautoría y coordinación de cuatro libros.

https://cedua.colmex.mx/personal-academico/salazar-cruz-clara/semblanza

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Lively Cities departs from conventions of urban studies to argue that cities are lived achievements forged by a multitude of entities—human and nonhuman—that make up the material politics of city making. Generating fresh conversations between posthumanism, postcolonialism, and political economy, Barua reveals how these actors shape, integrate, subsume, and relate to urban space in fascinating ways.

Our Guests:

Ghazala Shahabuddin is an ecologist (PhD, Duke University) with an abiding interest in issues at the intersection of human society and biodiversity, such as land use change impacts, habitat fragmentation, forest ecology and community-based conservation. Since 2010, she has been working on biodiversity patterns and their drivers in multiple-use landscapes of the middle Himalayas in India, including aspects of long-term vegetational change, forest institutions and bird diversity. Ghazala has also published extensively on the policies and politics of wildlife conservation in India. She is currently a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University (Sonepat, Haryana) and a Senior Adjunct Fellow at ATREE, Bengaluru, India.

Thomas Crowley is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. His current research focuses on political ecologies and geologies of caste, as well as processes of urbanization and industrialization in India. He is the author of Fractured Forest, Quartzite City: A History of Delhi and its Ridge (Yoda Press/SAGE Select, 2020).

Ravi Sundaram is a Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. In 2000 he founded the well-known Sarai programme at the CSDS along with Ravi Vasudevan and the Raqs Media Collective. Since then, Sarai grew to become one of India’s best-known experimental and critical research sites on media, spanning local and global sites. Sundaram is the author of Pirate Modernity: Media Urbanism in Delhi (2010) and edited No Limits: Media Studies from India (Delhi, 2015). He is the co-author of the recently published Techno-Pharmacology, University of Minnesota Press, 2022.

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This episode of the Urban Lives of Property Series expands discussions geographically and conceptually: Our guest in this episode, Jean-David Gerber, helps us think property from Switzerland and other places. Starting off with the observation that there is no single understanding of property, Jean-David argues that it is important for any consideration to be context-specific and to realize that property is not the same as propriété or Eigentum. Jean-David elaborates on his approach to property on the basis of the Institutional Resource Regime framework that he has been working on with colleagues for many years. Based on his fieldwork in Ghana, Senegal and Switzerland, he discusses the application of the framework aimed to consider the combined effects of public policies and property rights on the use of resources and the users themselves. Focusing on the case of Switzerland, he talks us through the legacy and ongoing relevance of old forms of collective property in forests and shared pastures in the mountains. Moving to the debate around new (urban) commons, the episode also covers current struggles and conflicts around the land policy paradigm in Switzerland, as well as new ideas in planning to exercise greater influence in urban development in the public interest.

Guest:

Cover Image: The Swiss civil code states that “the owner of an object is free to dispose of it as he or she sees fit within the limits of the law.” This definition of property illustrates the subtle balance to be negotiated between the owner’s individual freedom to (over)use an “object” and the collective interest in restricting this freedom for the benefit of other (non-owning) individuals.

Tune in for our new episode on the far-right and the city! In this discussion, members of the Terra-R (Territorialisations of the Radical Right) network examine the developments of the radical right in Germany beyond simplistic urban-rural and East-West attributions, and outline the current and future challenges for academia and civil society alike.

With :

Daniel Mullis is a human geographer and Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) in Frankfurt am Main. There he heads the DFG-funded project "Everyday Political Subjectivisation and the Rise of Regressive Politics". He researches far right tendencies in the centre of society. He examines processes of neoliberalisation and the crisis of democracy and analyses urban and social movements. In March, his new book "Aufstieg der Rechten in Krisenzeiten. Die Regression der Mitte“ will be published.

Gala Nettelbladt is an interdisciplinary urban scholar with a dual background in Social Sciences and Urban Planning. Her current work on the urban politics of far-right contestations in planning and governance processes has recently been published in Territory, Politics, Governance (see here: [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2023.2209126] ). She is part of the editorial collective sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung.

Dr. Antonie Schmiz is Professor of Human Geography at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses on migration in urban contexts of arrival and is inspired by critical and feminist perspectives.[https://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/geog/fachrichtungen/anthrogeog/g-t-g/team/aschmiz/index.html]

Anke Schwarz is an interim associate professor of Human Geography at Heidelberg University, and a founding member of the Terra-R network. Her research focuses on political geography, urban futures, and geographies of speculative and science fiction. Her work has been published in several edited volumes as well as in Geographica Helvetica, ephemera, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Progress in Human Geography. [https://ankeschwarz.net/]

Felicitas Kübler is a PhD candidate at the University of Klagenfurt. Her work focusses on the public memorialization of National Socialism, the Frankfurt School, and antifascist counter geographies.

For more on Terra-R :[https://terra-r.net/english/] [https://terra-r.net/]

To live in the age of precarity is a tolling, everyday struggle. It erodes one's strength to carry on, live another day, and keep the hope for a modicum of prosperity due to come in some vague future. And when things get unbearably harsh, when the hegemony of neoliberalism has individualised the problems and told those who sustain life by the skin of their teeth to keep their head above the surface without having an eye for care from the retreating state that sees no obligation towards the lesser-able citizens, and when the politics of fear buffets on the anxiety evoked by the physical proximity of the Other, refugees —the most vulnerable of all living in the city— are scapegoated for all the problems befallen on daily life. Refugees are easy targets. They, on principle, lack most forms of capital to claim status; they look different and sound different with sometimes an uncanny unbeknownst culture that attracts all forms of shaming and stigma; they are 'foreigners', somebody else's 'problem' who happened to be dropped at 'our' doorstep; and they are easy to blame for everything that goes amiss, be it housing shortage, street violence, economic stagnation or what have you.

However, we all have witnessed the compassion, solidarity, and affection given to refugees and all those who found little option but to flee from prosecution, war, climate disasters, and countless other unfortunate conditions that make one's life in her own home unbearable. We all can remember people congregating in Frankfurt, Munich and Humburg's Hauptbahnhof to welcome the war-stricken. We do remember protests, mass gatherings, the signs hung behind the windows to denounce the dehumanisation of the refugees, and countless families took in Ukrainians before they could find permanent residency. We remember the giving, hosting, embracing, and naturalising. We do remember the host society forcing itself to acculturate to new shapes of living. And we do remember hope.

Yes, there were, and still are, heinous facets of hate. But there are hopes for cosmopolitan solidarity, too, and in this episode, we will talk about the latter.

Guest:

Martin Bak Jørgensen is a professor at the Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University. He works within the fields of sociology, political sociology and political science and has published articles in Internal Migration Review and Critical Sociology, among others. In this episode, he discusses the book he published with his colleague, Óscar García Agustín. The book, titled "Solidarity and the 'Refugee Crisis' in Europe", is a critical read, pregnant with well-rationed ideas, and in this episode, Martin gives us a rudimentary scheme of the book.

Daniel Guigui is a PhD candidate at UCD's Department of Sociology investigating the relationship between biographical narratives and cosmopolitan solidarity development under Dr Marta Eichsteller's supervision. He holds a BBA in Global Project and Change Management with distinction Cum Laude from Windesheim University and an MSc in Comparative Social Change with first-class honours from University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. Furthermore, he is the elected postgraduate representative of the Sociological Association of Ireland and a longstanding scholar of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Since 2015, Daniel has worked on various research projects focusing on migration, solidarity, globalisation, internationalisation, and cosmopolitanism.

Host:

Hossein Hamdieh is a joint PhD candidate at Humboldt University and King's College London. A scholarship-holder of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, he is an anthropologist and geographer by education who is currently taking the last steps towards delivering his thesis.

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Unregulated restitution of property to prewar owners (or rather their legal successors) remains a major source of conflict over housing in Poland, most notably in Warsaw. This episode features Beata Siemieniako, a Warsaw lawyer and urban activist who has been supporting tenants in their struggle against ruthless developers for years. In her book „Re-privatising Poland. The History of a Great Scam“ (Reprywatyzując Polskę. Historia wielkiego przekrętu, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej 2017), she tells the story of conflicting claims to urban property and reflects on the pitfalls of restituting past property orders while neglecting present-day social rights. Florian Peters has talked to her about law, grassroots activism, and the impossibility to achieve justice by trying to turn back time.

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