Rethinking the public sphere: space and society in an age of crisis

How do contemporary crises reshape the ways we interact and participate in public life? This lecture examines the spatial dimensions of the public sphere, exploring how challenges such as loneliness, isolation, segregation, inequality, political polarisation and environmental degradation are transforming everyday social life.

Drawing on research in sociology and urban studies, Diane E. Davis asks how we should rethink the public sphere and what role cities and public spaces can play in addressing the interconnected crises of our time.

Meet our speaker and chair

Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Development and former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). Davis currently serves as Domain Head of the 'Publics' Track in the Master of Design Studies Degree Program. Before joining Harvard in 2011 she headed the International Development Group in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where she also was Associate Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning.

Trained as a sociologist (BA in Sociology & Geography, Northwestern University; Ph.D. in Sociology, UCLA) Davis’s research focuses on relations between cities and development, particularly as mediated by spatial structure, social composition, and governance arrangements. She is author of Transforming Urban Transport (Oxford University Press, 2018) Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Conflicts in the Urban Realm (Indiana University Press, 2011); Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2004; named the ASA’s 2005 Best Book in Political Sociology); Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Temple University Press 1994; Spanish translation 1999).

In 2023, Davis was named a Fellow and Co-Director of the Humanity’s Urban Future program funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

Gareth Jones is Professor of Urban Geography and Director of the MSc Urbanisation & Development programme at LSE.

More about this event

The Department of Geography and Environment is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.

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