The Research Seminars in Urbanisation, Planning & Development are a series of expert-led discussions. Unless otherwise noted, the seminars take place at LSE on Tuesdays, 4:30pm-6pm in Clement House, room CLM 3.04. The seminars are open to all.
Confirmed topics and speakers for the series can be seen below. If you have any queries please contact Dr Ryan Centner (r.o.centner@lse.ac.uk).
NOTE: If you do not have an LSE ID card, you can still attend these seminars. Please email r.o.centner@lse.ac.uk to be added to a guest list.
2016 – Michaelmas Term
4 Oct – Ayona Datta (Geography, King's College London)
Winners and Losers: ‘Good Governance’ and Hashtag Citizenships in the making of India’s 100 Smart Cities Challenge
11 Oct – Reece Jones (Geography, University of Hawaii; United States)
Violent borders: Refugees and the right to move
This talk is part of a book launch tour. The book will be available to purchase from 11 October. See the publisher's website.
25 Oct – Tuna Kuyucu (Sociology, Boğaziçi University, Turkey)
Two Crises, Two Trajectories: The Impact of the 2001 and 2008 Economic Crises on Turkey
1 Nov – READING WEEK
8 Nov – Mercedes González de la Rocha (CIESAS, Mexico)
Survival and Social Exchange: The Relevance of Giving, Receiving and Reciprocating
*Please note that this seminar will take place in NAB 2.04 and will be recorded.
15 Nov – Julie Ren (Geography, LSE)
Urban comparisons across time & space: Beijing, Berlin, Chicago and beyond
"Following a brief discussion of the origins and limitations of comparative urbanism, I will present how I’ve operationalized the critique in my research. From research on mobility investigated through art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to a book project revisiting Robert Park’s 1915 paper on the city for urban China today, I explore questions of commensurability and the translation of urban concepts across time and space."
22 Nov – Geoffrey de Verteuil (Planning & Geography, Cardiff University)
Between the cosmopolitan and the parochial: The immigrant gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles
"This presentation questions the currently lopsided relationship between the cosmopolitan and the parochial, in which the former is favoured both conceptually and empirically. In response, I propose a relational framework for bringing them into conversation, simultaneously recasting and re-invigorating longstanding debates via three more recent framing devices - the process of relationality/territoriality, disposition and spaces of encounter - embedded in and through the subject of the immigrant-gentrifier in Koreatown, Los Angeles. I present the results of 25 interviews of Korean immigrant-gentrifiers and 10 key informant interviews. The results constitute a parochial critique that emerges as a series of conflicted paradoxes but also productive tensions: between an ostensibly transnational process compromised by a profoundly homegrown, parochial set of investors and outlooks; between a set of dispositions that seek inner-city diversity and density, yet simultaneously sheltered from its spillover costs; and spaces of encounter marked by a gap between the promise of truly open spaces and the reality of guarded and self-segregated ones. Ultimately, this presentation does double duty – rebalancing the cosmopolitan-parochial, but also that gentrifiers and immigrants are not mutually exclusive and that their relationship requires more research."