Urban Research across the Theory-Practice Divide: Modes of Dialogue and/or Disengagement

International workshop held at HCU – 21-22 September 2017

The workshop examined the interrelated dynamics and discourses that shape urban theory and urban professional practice today. Presentations explored whether and how the challenges of urbanization provide for new (and renewed) modes of dialogue between theory and practice. Thus, the workshop aimed to intensify conversations between more theory-based and more practice-oriented research without assuming strict boundaries between these two fields. At the same time, it sought to critically reflect on the limits of contemporary public debates on urban issues. More specifically, it reflected on the theory-practice nexus in the light of three challenges of today’s urbanization processes: (i) dealing with globally circulating knowledges and learning from experiences elsewhere, (ii) ethical commitments to respond to problems of urban dwellers in everyday life, and (iii) to enact social change in the face of structural inequalities. Contributions addressed the questions above in terms of reflections on research projects, thoughts in progress and commentaries.

Speakers: Tim Bunnell (Singapore), Priscilla Connolly (Mexico City), Kate D Derickson (Minneapolis), Isabelle Doucet (Manchester), Alan Gilbert (London), Markus Hesse (Luxembourg), Daniel Inkoom (Kumasi), Joanna Kusiak, (Vienna), Sophie Oldfield (Capetown/Basel), Alex Schafran (Leeds), Benjamin Solomon (Bangalore), Alex Vasudevan (Oxford), Nina Gribat (Darmstadt), Christine Hentschel (Hamburg), Marcus Menzl (Lübeck), Christopher Dell (Hamburg), Joachim Thiel (Hamburg), Renée Tribble (Hamburg), Kathrin Wildner (Hamburg).

The workshop was organized by Monika Grubbauer (Chair in History and Theory of the City, HCU) in cooperation with Kate Shaw (Melbourne University).

The workshop was funded jointly by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the ZEIT-Stiftung.