About Me

Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Co-directors: Prof Gareth Williams, Dr Bob Smith, Prof Kevin Morgan, Dr Gabrielle Ivinson and Dr Gill Bristow - Research centre managers: Dr Dean Stroud (stroudda1@cf.ac.uk) and Dr Rebecca Edwards (edwardsrs1@cf.ac.uk) - 029 2087 6412 - Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3WA

Monday 9 February 2009

fragmentpolis

www.fragmentpolis.blogspot.com

The 'Right to Stay Put': Contesting Displacement in Urban Regeneration / Development Schemes

Call for Contributions / Participation: Contesting Displacement in Urban Regeneration

Please forward widely - apologies for cross-posting

2009 Conference of the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British
Geographers (RGS-IBG), 26-28 August 2009, Manchester



First Call for Contributions to following session:



The 'Right to Stay Put': Contesting Displacement in Urban Regeneration /
Development Schemes



Sponsored by the Participatory Geographies Research Group



Session Organisers:



Chris Allen (Manchester Metropolitan University); Lee Crookes
(University of Sheffield); Stuart Hodkinson (University of Leeds); Tom
Slater (University of Edinburgh)



It is now 25 years since Chester Hartman first advanced the notion of
the 'right to stay put' for lower income group struggles against
gentrification. Since then, gentrification and related processes of
privatisation and marketisation have become integral to neoliberal urban
strategies across the world. In Britain, 'state-led gentrification'
(Davidson 2007) now impels urban regeneration schemes such as Housing
Market Renewal (Allen 2008) and even the government's council housing
modernisation programme 'Decent Homes'. Despite this proliferation,
academics have generally responded poorly to Hartman's call to arms.
Rather, as Slater observes (2006, 2008), gentrification research has
generally lost its critical edge, and from some quarters gentrification
has even been celebrated as beneficial to incumbent low-income groups
(Freeman, 2006; Vigdor, 2002). This is not our experience and with this
session we seek to restore Hartman's principle to the heart of
gentrification research by inviting contributions from activist
geographers in the widest sense of the term (academics, teachers,
housing professionals, campaigners, trade unionists and ordinary
residents) to share and exchange their experiences, insights and methods
to better defend people's 'right to stay put'. In the spirit of making
geography 'relevant' beyond the policy-academy complex, the session will
have a practical orientation and welcomes submissions in a wide range of
formats that offer reflections, stories, tactics, lessons and strategies
for developing successful urban resistances. The aims are to: (1)
share experiences and develop practical knowledges about what works in
urban resistance; (2) create an educational space for encounter and
dialogue between those involved in similar critical work and activism;
and (3) start to develop an action research network and a
knowledge/resource base for wider dissemination.



We seek ideas for participation which address some or more of the
following themes:



Grassroots knowledges about gentrification and resistance

Examples of (un)successful individual or collective resistance

Developing strategies and tactics of urban resistance

Power, counter-power, resources, methodological innovations

The planning system, public inquiries, community planning

Legal challenges to evictions and Compulsory Purchase Orders

Human rights issues with respect to land and home

Using the Freedom of Information Act and other research methods

Alternatives to gentrification / displacement / privatisation

Implications of the new Homes and Communities Agency

Roles, responsibilities and experiences of academics and other educators
in resistance

Alliance building and creating a UK Right to the City movement



We want to hear from people who are interested in participating in the
session in whatever way they can. Please send a proposal with title and
short summary (250 words) for participation which should outline the
following:



1. Who you are and why you are interested in participating in the
session



2. What kind of involvement/experience you have with opposing
gentrification



3. Details of the contribution you would like to make to the session
(example might include: show a film, give a short talk, tell a story,
bring some visitors to participate or anything else you think would make
a useful contribution to the debate)



4. Details of the kinds of equipment (audio-visual, for example) or
support you might need for your contribution



Please send your proposals by the 15 February 2009 at the latest to
L.Crookes@sheffield.ac.uk

New book

http://www.nyupress.org/product_info.php?products_id=7931&reviews=1

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Between policy and the POLIS - and other seminars

Dear All

Sorry for cross-pointing.

Here is a list of Health and Society Research Groups until June. All will take place at 53 Park
Place with drink and nibbles to follow. The first one in 2009 is next Wednesday on the 11th Feb and
looks to be extremely interesting.

Everyone is welcome.

Eva Elliott

11th February 2009 – 4pm
‘Between policy and the POLIS: How electronic participation exercises can facilitate democratic
decisions for public health problems’

Simon Williams
CISHE, School of Social Sciences

11th March 2009 – 4pm
‘Accident and Incident Data: The Perceptions of the Risk of Certain Incidents Versus the Reality
of Reported Data’

Neil Ellis
Seafarers International Research Centre (SIRC)

22nd April 2009 – 4pm (note not the 2nd Wednesday this month)
'Understanding and responding to place-based disadvantage: insights from a Neighbourhood Renewal
strategy in Victoria, Australia'.

Dr. Deborah Warr
Research Fellow
Melbourne School of Population Health,
University of Melbourne,

6th May 2006 – 4pm
‘Developing “just” and healthy public policy: the role of health impact assessment’

Debbie Fox
Liverpool University

10th June 2009 – 4pm
‘Dynamics of friendship networks and smoking behaviour during adolescence: A longitudinal social
network approach’
Liesbeth Mercken




Eva Elliott

RCUK Academic Fellow
Cardiff Institute of Society, Health and Ethics
School of Social Sciences,
Cardiff University
53 Park Place
Cardiff
UK
CF10 3AT

Tel: 029 2087 9138

E-mail: elliotte@cf.ac.uk

CISHE website: www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/cishe
WHIASU website: www.whiasu.wales.nhs.uk

BNIM narrative interviewing

There are currently still two places vacant on the March London Intensive in BNIM narrative interviewing. See below for details. Do contact me if you have any questions, or would like a copy of the free BNIM SHORT GUIDE AND DETAILED MANUAL. If you do, DO NOT PRESS ‘REPLY’ BUT WRITE TO p.m.chamberlayne@dsl.pipex.com. OFF-LIST.
Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-First
2009
5-Day Intensive BNIM Research Interview Trainings
Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive Method (BNIM)
5 days for 6 people:
2009 – March 12th and 13th, 16th – 18th.
2009 – June 18th and 19th; 22nd to 24th
2009 - October 8th and 9th; 12th to 14th

The value of open-narrative interviewing and insightful interpretation is widely recognised, but rather than having to invent the wheel for themselves, many people welcome a systematic immersion into principles and procedures that have been shown over two decades and many countries to generate high-quality work. An excerpt from an email we received from one university may be suggestive:

“… a number of the trainees who graduated this year got top awards in their doctorate projects... BNIM and narrative projects were considered to be of a particularly high standard by both internal and external examiners, and were very well received. The course director was very impressed and has told me that the standard of the research of those undertaking these projects (using BNIM) has improved the standard of the whole cohort.”

For over nine years in the UK, and more recently in New York (USA), in Auckland (NZ), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Sydney (Australia), we have been running BNIM intensive trainings designed for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in various pure and applied fields. Comments include:

Elvin – A richness beyond what I could imagine.

Sasha - thank you, for a wonderful training course. I learnt so much - and it was a great experience for us all as a team, and in terms of all of our intellectual and skills development.

Mark – I could go away and practice now. I liked the balance of how and why. I really got my head round that and could explain it to someone else.

Completed PhDs, clinical doctorates, and MAs by researchers using BNIM now number about 22. They range over topics such as: reintegration of returning Guatemalan refugees; identity in informal care; men coping with sexual abuse; psychosomatic study of breast cancer; love and intimacy; motivation in occupational therapy; South African migrants to NZ; nurses’ and health visitors’ learning and their professional practices; relationship experiences in psychosis (such as those of, and with, hearing voices people) and hospitalisation; head teachers; We know of 18 more PhDs, clinical doctorates and post-doctoral research projects in process. Anglophone universities involved include Birkbeck College, Birmingham, Central Lancashire, Dublin, de Montfort, East Anglia, East London, Essex, Exeter, NUI-Galway, Idaho, Kings College London, Leeds, Leicester, Massey, Oxford, Oxford Brookes, Plymouth, Queens University (Belfast).

BNIM assumes that “narrative” expresses both conscious concerns and unconscious cultural, societal and individual presuppositions and processes. Integrally psycho-societal, it supports research into the lived experience and reflexivity of individuals and collectives, facilitating understanding both the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ worlds of ‘historically-evolving persons-in-historically-evolving situations’, and particularly the expectedly surprising interactivity of inner and outer world dynamics. It especially serves researchers who need a tool that supports understanding spanning sociological and psychological dynamics and structures, and these treated not statically but as situated, affected and active historically and biographically.

For an example of BNIM case studies we recommend the European Union seven-country SOSTRIS project (edited) Biography and social exclusion in Europe: experiences and life-journeys (2002: Bristol, Policy Press). Other books, articles and reports are listed in the full bibliographies of the free Short Guide to BNIM.

BNIM research provides an innovative base for policy review and for better policy, and for professional or activist practice.

When you do the course, you automatically become a member of the email list where news, questions and discussion circulate. Methodology can be lonely without a secure base and like-minded people working in the same way as you. The course, the textbook, the free Short Guide and Detailed Manual and the email list offer you support in using part or all of the BNIM tool-kit in your own work and for liaising with others.
Summary
Designed for PhD students and professional researchers, the course provides a thorough training in doing BNIM biographic narrative interviews, together with ‘hands-on experience’ of following BNIM interpretation procedures. Students develop a sense of how their own research projects might use such aspects and components.

Taught by Tom Wengraf and Caroline Barratt in Muswell Hill, North London, the course’s small number of students ensures close coaching and support for the intensive work that is needed for you to fully acquire both the understanding of principles and also the practical capacity for proceeding with the systematic procedures involved in BNIM – usable both for BNIM but also for other types of narrative interviewing and interpretation.

You will be expected to have looked at (not read!) chapters 6 and 12 of Tom’s textbook, Qualitative research interviewing: biographic narrative and semi-structured method (2001: Sage Publications). Before the course starts, you are expected to have studied some bits and scanned others of the most recent version of the Short Guide to BNIM which will be sent to your email address. This preparing-by-reading means that most of your time during the 5 days can be spent on clarification and practical exercises, learning-by-doing.


Programme (subject to revision) for 5-day intensives
Thursday and Friday
We start with a short introduction to the Biographic-narrative-interpretive method, the history of its development, and to the principles behind its practice. The point and timing of using open-ended biographic narrative interviews rather than (only) the more conventional semi-structured and attitude-and-argument focused ones is clarified. You get to see the value of the 3 quite different subsessions. The bulk of the first two days is then almost entirely devoted to learning the craft of BNIM interviewing practice. This involves learning to ask narrative-pointed questions (both open and also focused) and not inadvertently interrupting or deflecting the interviewee. Apparently simple, it rapidly becomes clear that such a craft requires repeated and carefully-monitored practice to be successfully achieved. Pencil-and-paper and repeated interview practice exercises ensure such success is achieved by the end of the 2nd day.

Monday to Wednesday
We outline the principles and you engage in the key practices of BNIM interpretive work . We explain the importance of the twin interpretive tracks of ‘living of the lived life’ and ‘telling of the told story’ analysis, and micro-analysis, and how you convert the raw transcript into two series of processed data for each track. You learn the significance of the future-blind chunk-by-chunk approach peculiar to BNIM by practice – by doing parts of a narrative text analysis, a micro-analysis and biographical data analysis. You see the value of bringing the separated tracks together in an integrated ‘case account’. Finally, on the basis of case-presentations, you practice systematic case-comparison and the generalising and particularising modelling towards which BNIM work is typically oriented. The course ends with our looking again at how you might best use all or part of the BNIM approach within your individual research projects, and, given the existence of sceptical research and applied policy audiences, how to defend your choice to use such an in-depth biographical research method with a necessarily low-N sample.

After you start your work, to help you avoid un-necessary errors, we advise on your eventual design of a SQUIN for your first pilot BNIM pilot interview, and then – if you wish -- comment on your transcript and then on your data-processing of that transcript for subsequent interpretation. The cost for such consultancy is included in the course fee.

To reserve a place on one of the courses. To reserve a place, you need to send us a deposit of £225 (or the full amount).
Places are reserved in strict order of deposits (or full payment) received. Half-Deposits . are returnable if you cancel before the first day of the previous month, ie. 1st February and 1st May 2009 respectively.

2009. In 2009 the first course will run on March 12th-13th and 16th-18th. The cost will be £725 if paid in full before 1st February 2009; otherwise the cost rises to £825.

The second course will run on June 18-19 and 22nd to 24th. The cost will be £725 if paid in full before 1st May 2009; otherwise the cost rises to £825

The third course will run on October 8-9 and 12th to 14th. The cost will be £725 if paid in full before 1st Sptember 2009; otherwise the cost rises to £825

You secure your place by paying a deposit (£225) or the full payment.

All inquiries and bookings, and requests for the most recently updated version of the Guide to BNIM , please contact p.m.chamberlayne@dsl.pipex.com.

CFP: The Foreclosure Crisis and the Financial Crisis: Local Configurations and Global Consequences

Call for papers
2009 ISA-RC21 Sao Paulo Conference
Session 2.
The Foreclosure Crisis and the Financial Crisis:
Local Configurations and Global Consequences - Manuel B. Aalbers, University of Amsterdam, The Nederlands.


The housing foreclosure crisis that is spreading throughout the US is not just affecting local real estate, but also financial markets around the globe. Increasingly, we are seeing the social and economic consequences of both crises, not just in communities with high default rates, but almost anywhere in the world. We welcome papers on a variety of topics, including but not limited to: foreclosure studies, homeownership, social and financial exclusion, political economy of the crisis, financial centres/global cities, and how the crisis affects places around the globe. We especially encourage papers that make the connection between the global crisis and a particular city or number of cities.

For more details on the conference, please see http://www.centrodametropole.org.br/ISA2009/.

For specific questions about this particular session, please contact me directly at m.b.aalbers@gmail.com.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Wales unveils strategy on suicide

Wales unveils strategy on suicide, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7707437.stm

Tuesday 21 October 2008

'The health debate', by David J. Hunter

The Policy Press is about to publish a new book, 'The health debate', by
David J. Hunter. I am sure that this title will be of interest to members
of this list.

Focusing on the British NHS, this book reviews some of the key contemporary
debates concerning health systems and how they have shaped the way that
health care has, and is, evolving.

For more information please see:
https://www.policypress.org.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=10054&products_id=1282

It is is currently available on our website with a 20% discount.

Policy Press books can be ordered from our website
(https://www.policypress.org.uk/) or from our distributor:

Marston Book Services
PO Box 269
Abingdon
Oxon
OX14 4YN
Te: +44 (0)1235 465500
Email: direct.orders@marston.co.uk

P&P charges: Delivery within the UK £2.75 for the first copy and 50p
thereafter.

Artists Making Places Conference

Artists Making Places Conference

(Please contact Vivienne Reiss vivienne.reiss@googlemail.com if you would
like more info)

The setting for the conference is the Greenwich Peninsula, one of London's
most important regeneration projects. The Art on Greenwich Peninsula
programme explores the opportunities around commissioning art and working
with artists in relation to this twenty year regeneration scheme.

The conference takes 'place making' and the role of the artist as its theme.
It will address the social issues around place making, moving beyond the
notion of physical or geographic place; looking at building communities and
developing community cohesion. It will explore the ways in which artists can
be agents in this process and the related practical, ethical and aesthetic
considerations and responsibilities.

The event is intended to be thought-proving and inspirational, creating new
insights informed by high profile national and international contributors. A
commissioned text by Declan McGonagle, who will chair the event, will be
circulated in advance providing provocation for both the speakers and the
audience.

The conference will include presentations, panel discussions, artist-led
tours, film screenings and performances and is aimed at artists, public art
commissioners and producers, local authority arts/community and regeneration
officers, lecturers and researchers in HE/FE and students on related courses.

Confirmed speakers and contributors include: Alfredo Jaar (artist), Declan
McGonagle (National College of Art and Design Dublin), Laurie Peake
(Liverpool Biennial), Bob and Roberta Smith (artist), Anna Hart (Archway
Investigations and Responses, Byam Shaw), Faisal Abdu'Allah (artist), Nick
Ewbank (The Creative Foundation), Vivienne Reiss and Bridget Sawyers (Art on
Greenwich Peninsula). There will also be contributions from a number of
artists involved in the Art on Greenwich Peninsula programme including
Howard Matthew, Julian Walker, Aoife Mannix, and Sarah Butler.
Conference bookings are being managed by the Barbican Box Office see
www.barbican.org.uk (go to book tickets at top right hand corner then select
10. Nov. 08 in event calender and select veune: Greenwich Yacht Club)

See www.artongreenwichpeninsula.com for further information on the
programme, speakers, venue and location.

Centre for Urban Theory (CUT) Seminars, February-March 2009

Centre for Urban Theory (CUT) Seminars, February-March 2009

Organizer: Dr Richard G. Smith

Tuesdays 4pm, Location: MUSEUM (Ground floor, Wallace Building), Swansea University


* * *
February 3rd

Christina Volkmann (Swansea University) [with Christian De Cock and James Fitchett] "Myths of the Near Past: Envisioning 'Financial Times' anno 2007/08"

* * *
February 10th

Christian De Cock (Swansea University) “Cities in Fiction: Perambulations with John Berger”

* * *
February 17th

Alan Finlayson (Swansea University) “'The Subject of Financialisation”

* * *
March 3rd

David B. Clarke (Swansea University) “Utopologies”

* * *
March 10th

Richard G. Smith (Swansea University) “Cities from Space”

* * *
March 17th

Nikki Cooper (Swansea University) “Colonial Zoning and French Urban Planning”

ALL WELCOME.

Young people and territoriality in British cities: JRF Findings

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/housing/2298.asp

GEOGRAPHIES OF EDUCATION

GEOGRAPHIES OF EDUCATION

Loughborough University

8-9th September 2009

Responding to the growing interest in spaces of education within geography and cognate disciplines, this conference will provide a unique opportunity for debating key themes and concepts concerning the production, consumption and governance of education at different scales and in different cultural contexts. Recognising the diversity of sites of education and learning which are accessed at different stages of the life-course, it is intended that the conference will address issues relating to primary, secondary and tertiary education, as well as the wider production and circulation of knowledge within these spaces. Papers are hence welcomed which address any of the following themes:

· School catchments, parental choices and access to education

· Inclusions and exclusions in spaces of education

· Extended schools, families and communities

· The university in its social and cultural context

· Studentification and student cities

· Academic mobilities and migrations

· The globalization of education

C The conference is supported by the Centre for Research in Identity, Community, Society (CRICS), based in the Department of Geography, Loughborough University, the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) and the Children, Youth and Family Working Group (CYFWG) of the Royal Geographical Society. There will be a number of bursaries to support the attendance of new career, postgraduate and unwaged delegates.

Please send abstracts (no more then 250 words please) to Prof. Phil Hubbard (P.J.Hubbard@lboro.ac.uk) or Dr Sarah Holloway ( S.L.Holloway@lboro.ac.uk) by 1st December 2008.

Consultation Event on "Planning for A Better London"

Consultation Event on "Planning for A Better London"

Monday 3rd November
The Resource Centre
356 Holloway Road
N7 6PA

2pm - 5pm



Views on the Mayor's proposals for revisions to London's spatial strategy,
which sets planning policies across London, must be submitted by 10th
November. This event is an opportunity to hear presentations on the
proposals and their importance for Londoners and to discuss related
issues.

Speakers include: Andrew Barry-Purssell, Head of London Plan, Greater
London Authority Barbra Wallace, Women's Design Service Peter Eversden,
London Forum of Civic and Amenity Societies.

Workshops on: Equalities, Housing policies, Environment and Climate and
Case studies.


To book a place, please send booking form (attached) to
chloe@londoncivicforum.org.uk Inquiries: 020 8709 9787


Just Space Network is grateful to the London Plan team at the Greater London
Authority for its support.

Rescue Geography: research exhibition

Event in Birmingham exploring how to make regeneration more sensitive
to the nuances of place - all welcome...

Rescue Geography: research exhibition

Featuring photographic
installation by Dan Burwood

Private preview:
5 pm - 7.30pm
Friday, 24 October 2008

Public opening:
Daily 12 noon - 2 pm
27 to 31 October 2008

The art space at MADE*
122 Fazeley Street, Digbeth,
Birmingham B5 5RS
(5 minute walk from the Bullring)

Rescue Geography is a collaboration with the University of
Birmingham and the University of Manchester.
MADE* (Midlands Architecture and the Designed Environment)
is a Registered Charity

Visual Methods

On Thurs 23rd Oct SOCSI and JOMEC, jointly, are hosting a session by one of the world's leading digital storytellers - Dr Daniel Meadow. For a sample of his work see:-

www.photobus.co.uk
and also
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/yourvideo/pages/lawson_jones_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/yourvideo/pages/stephanie_roberts_01.shtml

This is the beginning of a year long programme of collaboration to train SOCSI and JOMEC ugs, pgs, researchers and staff who might be interested in using visual methods of various kinds in their work.

The meeting is in the Birt Acres Lecture Theatre, Bute Building 4-5pm.

Do join us

Ian Jones
Innovation & Engagement Officer SOCSI

New atlas of mortality published today

As you may have seen in today's news, the Policy Press has just published
'The Grim Reaper's road map: An atlas of mortality in Britain' by Mary
Shaw, Bethan Thomas, Danny Dorling and George Davey Smith. This new study
is the first in over two decades to explore causes of death across the UK
and provides a fascinating account of how and why we die.

It analyses almost 15 million death records for the period 1981 to 2004. It
looks at deaths by cause, gender and geographical area and is displayed in
a series of area maps with accompanying commentary. The atlas maps
Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMRs) for all deaths, for nine groupings of
categories and for 99 single categories of death. 14,833,696 death records
were used to draw up the maps.

For more information please see:
https://www.policypress.org.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1195

To celebrate its publication, it is currently available on our website for
just GBP25.59, saving you almost GBP15.00.

Policy Press books can be ordered from our website
(https://www.policypress.org.uk/) or from our distributor:

Marston Book Services
PO Box 269
Abingdon
Oxon
OX14 4YN
Te: +44 (0)1235 465500
Email: direct.orders@marston.co.uk

P&P charges: Delivery within the UK £2.75 for the first copy and 50p
thereafter.

The absence of society

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2284.asp

Marselles EU Meeting / Fwd: [reclaiming-spaces] French EU presidency / solidarity , sustainabilty and housing rights..

Knut Unger, Mv Witten schrieb:
> Crisis & EU & housing
>
> As part of the French EU presidency European ministers responsible for
> urban development and housing will meet in Marseille, 24th – 25th
> November 2008. According to the programme of the French presidency they
> will speak about two complexes:
>
> (1) an operational continuation of the approaches of the so called
> "Leipzig Charter for sustainable European cities", which was one of the
> results of the EU urban ministers meeting during the German presidency
> 2007 (accomaponied by demostartion in Leipzig). The French programme
> promises to discuss links between a "social city" and a "sustainable
> city" which could be combined on an approach towards "sustainable and
> solidarian cities" AND to focus on the contexts with climate change.
> (2) the problems of access to shelter by disfavoured persons, the report
> of the EU commission about Services of General Social Interest and
> social housing policies within the internal market.
>
> At the first view this sounds great. Is the French presindency going to
> put the EU on a path to cities of solidarity , sustainabilty and housing
> rights?
>
> SOME BACKGROUND
>
> During the German presidency we (German AG Habitat) cared about some
> interventions on the proposed charter. Besides other things we called
> for an inclusion of housing which was totally absent in the first drafts
> (similar interventions can from CECODHAS and tenants unions and HIC).
> But we even strongly criticized the subordination of urban development
> under the Lisbon strategy (which orientates on an Europe as the
> worldwide most competitive knowledge based economy) and the obvious
> deficits in addressing major challenges like climate change,
> unsustainable transport and democracy. The final text of the Leipzig
> Charter with some minor changes reacted to the critics. I.e. housing was
> mentioned as part of a possible strategy in disfavoured neighbourhoods.
>
> The "Leipzig Charter" by some observers today is seen as a strengthening
> of social and sustainable view on cities and a correction of radical
> neo-liberalism territorial approaches which dominated the EU policies
> since the 90ies. However, according to our view the "Leipzig Charter"
> isn't much more than a pamphlet calling for some improvement of
> "integrated urban management" in order to "strengthen strengths" of
> already strong cities in the global competition AND to combine that with
> a specific attention towards disfavoured neighbourhoods, which should be
> upgraded in order to reduce social costs and support competitiveness.
> Only within the problems of disfavoured neighbourhoods the charter
> promotes concrete measures towards sustainability and social
> developments and in this context even mentions housing as a possible tool

Thursday 31 July 2008

New book: Transitions Through Homelessness

Transitions Through Homelessness
Lives on the Edge

Carol McNaughton



‘Transitions Through Homelessness successfully weaves longitudinal data on the experiences of
homeless people, with a robust theoretical interpretation applying concepts of edgework in
late modernity and the risk society. Both stimulating and highly readable, this book will surely
become a core reference for scholars for some time.' - Dr Isobel Anderson, University of
Stirling
Who are 'the homeless'? How is homelessness really experienced in contemporary society? And
how do these people then attempt to make a transition back- to find a 'home' once more?

These are some of the questions considered in this study, which follows a group of people making
a transition out of homelessness for a year in their lives. The experiences of each individual are set
within autobiographical accounts of their lives before, during, and in some cases, after being a
'homeless person'. This opens the door to what may be to many readers a hidden world of trauma,
poverty, and marginality in the UK.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
In the Absence of Home: Understanding Homelessness
Emotional and Material Landscapes of Life
Becoming a Homeless Person
Homelessness, Social Welfare and 'Targeted Populations'
Homelessness, Identity and Social Networks
Conclusion: Lives on the Edge?

CAROL MCNAUGHTON is currently an ESRC Research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy,
University of York, UK. She has extensive experience of researching transgression, transitions and
the institutional role of social policy.

New Crime Stats

Members of the list may well be interested to view the annual crime statistics for England and Wales that were published last Thursday. These cover latest results from the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime. The spreadsheets and separate sections of the report can be downloaded at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0708.html

including a summary of the main findings at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0708summ.pdf

We have also made available 'beta' test versions of new mapping and tabulation software to analyse data by offence type and financial year for individual local authority areas (excel spreadsheet continue to be downloadable). We intend to further widen the offence coverage of these systems once full application of disclosure control has been applied. These new facilties can be found at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/soti.html


We would welcome feedback on the operation of these systems to crimestats.rds@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and also any more general comments on this material.

NESTA

We are looking for an evaluator for Universities United - a project to develop
an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional approach to innovations for social
good.

The selected evaluator should have experience in project evaluation, using
filming as an analysis tool; work closely with a film crew to provide a final
evaluation analysis in a written and video format.

An ethnographic or psychological analysis may suit the nature of the project,
but we are open to other suggestions for suitable methodologies.

If you are interested in submitting a tender, please email it to Rachel Brazil
rachel.brazil@nesta.org.uk no later than 10am on Friday, 8 August 2008.

Click here for further details:
http://www.nesta.org.uk/working-with-us-connect/

The story starts today...

Follow it here:



http://urbanadventure.wordpress.com/

Research Fellow/Associate Posts at CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University

The Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) is recognised
as one of the leading academic research centres in the United Kingdom in the
fields of regeneration, housing, labour market analysis and third sector
studies. It currently employs 26 research staff. Members of CRESR were
central to the Sheffield Hallam University's 2001 RAE submission in the Town
Planning area, which received a '4' rating. Considerable resources have been
devoted to supporting staff in recent years to build up a strong record of
academic publication to strengthen the submission for the RAE in 2008

The Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) is looking to
appoint up to three Research Fellows/Research Associates:

1. Research Fellow/Research Associate in CRESR's Data and Policy Team
(Salary: £23,002 to £32,795). A Research Fellow/Research Associate to help
develop CRESR quantitative data analysis work in the areas of regeneration
policy, economic geography and/or voluntary and community sector studies
(job ref: DS 357/07). Further details are available at:
http://ntmizar.adc.shu.ac.uk/HR/Vacancies/Research/Research%
20Adverts/DS%20357%2007.asp

2. Research Associate in CRESR's Labour Markets and Social and Economic
Regeneration Teams (£23,002 to £28,290). A Research Associate to
contribute to CRESR's growing portfolio of multi-disciplinary work generated
through research projects crossing the labour markets and regeneration policy
agendas (job ref: DS 359/07). Further details are available at:
http://ntmizar.adc.shu.ac.uk/HR/Vacancies/Research/Research%
20Adverts/DS%20359%2007.asp

3. Research Fellow/Research Associate in CRESR's Data and Policy Team (18
months fixed term, Salary: £23,002 to £32,795). A Research Associate to
provide quantitative data support to the national evaluation of Futurebuilders.
Futurebuilders is the government's major programme to build the capacity of
the voluntary and community sector to deliver public services (job ref: DS
358/07). Further details are available at:
http://ntmizar.adc.shu.ac.uk/HR/Vacancies/Research/Research%
20Adverts/DS%20358%2007.asp

Candidates at Research Associate level are expected to have experience and
knowledge of relevant policy and research and demonstrate an ability to work
effectively in multi-disciplinary teams. In addition, candidates at Research
Fellow level will have experience of income generation, project management,
and policy and academic publication. They need to demonstrate practical
research skills including strong analytical and organisational skills and be able
to manage research teams. For all candidates, it is essential to be able to
communicate complex findings to a variety of audiences in a straight forward
manner.

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Immigration and inclusion in South Wales

Just published by the JRF:

Immigration and inclusion in South Wales
This research explores the impact of new migration on established communities in south-east Wales, in particular on the issues of community, integration and cohesion.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2250.asp

Friday 13 June 2008

RTPI Cymru Annual Conference

Dear colleagues,

Many of you will already be aware that RTPI Cymru is initiating an annual planning conference for
Wales.

A brochure can be accessed at the following link:

http://www.rtpi.org.uk/download/3854/Planning-Conference-English.pdf

RTPI Cymru is inviting academic staff within the University to register for and attend the
conference.

Neil.
_______________


Neil Harris
Lecturer in Statutory Planning
Cardiff School of City and Regional Planning

(T) 029 2087 6222
(F) 029 2087 4845
(E) HarrisNR@cardiff.ac.uk
Further details and personal page via www.cardiff.ac.uk/cplan/

Newton International Fellowships

Advance Announcement

Newton International Fellowships

The Newton International Fellowships will be the pre-eminent award for
postdoctoral researchers wishing to undertake research in the UK. The
Fellowships will be launched on 4 June 2008 and will be run by the British
Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society to cover the
broad range of natural and social sciences, engineering and the humanities.

Newton International Fellowships aim to attract the world*s best post-doctoral
researchers to Britain for a period of one to two years. Funding for follow-on
activities will continue for up to ten years after the Newton International
Fellows have returned overseas, with the aim of maintaining links with the UK.
In addition, Newton Fellows will have the opportunity to join a national alumni
scheme for international fellows run by RCUK.

More details will be available from the Newton International Fellowships
website, which will go live on 4th June: www.newtonfellowships.org

Newton International Fellowships
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
tel: +44 (0)20 7451 2598
fax: +44 (0)20 7451 2543
info@newtonfellowships.org


The British Academy
10 Carlton House
London SW1Y 5AH
Tel: 020 7969 5200
Fax: 020 7969 5300
Web: www.britac.ac.uk

Population Projections: Launch Events

Population Projections: Launch Events

On 30 June the Statistical Directorate of the Welsh Assembly Government will publish population projections for the 22 unitary authorities in Wales. This is the first time that population projections have been available for these areas.

Population projections provide a picture of future populations based on assumptions about births, deaths and migration. These assumptions are based on recent trends.
When / where?

Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea on Tuesday 8 July 2008 (10:00 until 3:00)

Conwy Business Centre on Wednesday 9 July 2008 (10:00 until 3:00)

Who should attend?

Those who plan for the future, to deliver services and to help frame sustainable policies, need to consider the population by age and gender. If you need to know about how many people of what ages are likely to be in a local authority area over the next 25 years or if you just need a general overview of projections and how they are used, then these workshops are suitable for you.
Outline of day

The day will provide some broad overview of the methodology used for the bottom-up projections for Welsh local authorities:

Explain what population projections are,
Explain the collaborative approach taken to produce the projections,
Discuss the main findings,
Explore the potential uses for the projections,
Question and answers with the production team, and
Discussion groups to develop your knowledge and understanding of the use of projections for your work.
(There will be more technical seminars, on the methodology and for those wishing to produce their own projections, later in the year.)

To reserve your place:

Please complete a registration form at:

www.wales.gov.uk/statistics








Amcanestyniadau Poblogaeth: Lawnsio

Ar 30 Mehefin, bydd Cyfarwyddiaeth Ystadegol Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru yn cyhoeddi amcanestyniadau poblogaeth ar gyfer 22 awdurdod unedol Cymru. Dyma'r tro cyntaf y bydd amcanestyniadau poblogaeth ar gael ar gyfer yr ardaloedd yma.

Mae amcanestyniadau poblogaeth yn rhoi darlun o boblogaeth y dyfodol ac maent wedi'u seilio ar dybiaethau yngl*n â genedigaethau, marwolaethau ac ymfudiad. Mae'r tybiaethau yma yn seiliedig ar dueddiadau diweddar.

Ble / pryd?

Canolfan Dylan Thomas yn Abertawe - Dydd Mawrth 8 Gorffennaf 2008 (10:00 hyd 3:00)
Canolfan Fusnes Conwy - Dydd Mercher 9 Gorffennaf 2008 (10:00 hyd 3:00)

Pwy ddylai fynychu?

Dylai unrhyw un sy'n cynllunio ar gyfer y dyfodol, darparu gwasanaethau a llunio pholisïau cynaliadwy ystyried y boblogaeth fesul oed a rhyw. Os ydych yn dymuno gwybod faint o bobl o ba oedran sy'n debygol o fod ymhob awdurdod dros y 25 mlynedd nesaf, neu os ydych yn dymuno cael braslun o'r amcanestyniadau a sut gellid eu defnyddio, yna mae'r gweithdy hwn yn addas ar eich cyfer chi.
Amlinelliad o'r diwrnod

Byddwn yn darparu trosolwg o'r dulliau a ddefnyddiwyd ar gyfer yr amcanestyniadau awdurdodau lleol:

Esbonio bydd yw amcanestyniadau poblogaeth,
Esbonio'r dull cydweithredol ar gyfer cynhyrchu'r amcanestyniadau
Trafod y prif ddarganfyddiadau,
Ystyried defnyddiau posib yr amcanestyniadau
Sesiwn cwestiwn ac ateb gyda'r tîm cynhyrchu, a
Grwpiau trafod i ddatblygu gwybodaeth a dealltwriaeth o'r defnydd o amcanestyniadau yn eich gwaith.
(Bydd seminarau mwy technegol ar y fethodoleg, ac i'r rhai sy'n dymuno cynhyrchu amcanestyniadau eu hunain, yn cael eu cynnal yn hwyrach yn ystod y flwyddyn)
I drefnu'ch lle:

Cwblhewch y ffurflen gofrestru:

www.cymru.gov.uk/ystadegau

'The Ideal City' Conference

The Ideal City - new perspectives for the 21st century
October 11-14 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.urbanicity.org/IdealCityAlert.htm


What is the Ideal City?
Amsterdam is known as the ideal city for the 21st Century when measured by
the standard of social justice, environmentalism, planning and design. We
are sponsoring a conference in beautiful Amsterdam (October 11 to 14) and a
scholarly book that will explore what is the ideal approach to housing, drug
laws, transportation, prostitution, environmentalism,crime, brown fields,
and urban design. Indeed, Amsterdam is a laboratory of innovation that
provides a model for the rest of the world. But we also believe that other
cities can also give us innovative, smart, bold and brash ideas as well. We
welcome a range of policy ideas from around the world to help improve the
human condition.

Conference themes

Social justice
Green planning and architecture

Biking and walking
Accessibility for the disabled and elderly

Crime
Health care

Ideal city in history
Socialist city

Is Amsterdam the ideal city?
Non-petroleum forms of transportation

Housing
Sustainability

Faith, race, and gender
Utopian visions

Sexual, political and personal freedom
Tolerance

Creative City
Integrating income, races, and faiths

Which world city is the ideal?

Call for Proposals

Research Papers - Completed research papers in any of the topic areas listed
above.

Abstracts - Abstracts of completed or proposed research in any of the topic
areas listed above, or related areas. The abstract for proposed research
should include the research objectives, proposed methodology, and a
discussion of expected outcomes.

Professionals in the field - Research done by professionals in any of the
topic areas listed above, or related areas.

Case Studies - Case studies in any of the topic areas listed above, or
related areas.

Work-in-Progress Reports or Proposals for Future Research - Incomplete
research or ideas for future research in order to generate discussion and
feedback in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas.

Reports on Issues Related to Teaching - Reports related to innovative
instruction techniques or research related to teaching in any of the topic
areas listed above, or related areas.


Email your abstract and/or paper, along with a title page, to
jgilde02@sprynet.com. Decision of submissions will be acknowledged via email
within 48 hours.

Audience

Planners, architects, elected officials, policy makers, environmentalists,
along with college students and Professors concerned with what the "ideal
city" should look like.

Why Amsterdam for a conference on the ideal City?

Amsterdam is known as the "Venice of the North." Progressives have called
Amsterdam an ideal city when measured by the standard of social justice.
Holland has what many call a "radical," "progressive," "unique" and for some
a "sinful" approach to housing, drug laws, transportation, prostitution,
crime, brown fields, and urban design. The Netherlands has turned our
American urban policy and planning programs upside down and found innovative
ways to solve social problems. Many American visitors who come to Holland
come away shocked, amazed, impressed and changed forever. Holland is
controversial. Indeed, Amsterdam is a laboratory of innovation that provides
a national model for the rest of the world. It's a place where we can honor
their successes and learn from their errors in urban policy and planning.
Without a doubt, Holland is also the home of world class architecture that
is envied around the world.


The conference website and further information can be found at:
http://www.hollandnow.org/

Conference on Climate Change and Urban Design

Final Reminder. Apologies for cross postings.

http://www.cityclimate.no/index.html

Following successful Congresses in Berlin 2005 and Leeds 2006,
the Council for European Urbanism – C.E.U. - will hold its third international congress in Oslo, Norway from the
14th to 16th September 2008.

The congress will discuss the rapidly-evolving topic of "Climate Change and Urban Design", and the latest implications in science, policy, education and best practice.

While our focus is on European place-making we will explore urban design examples from around the globe that offer opportunities to address critical climate change issues.


The four C.E.U. congress themes:

Climate Change and Science:
What we know

What is the scientific evidence for or against particular links between urban form and contributions of greenhouse gases? What are the interrelationships? What are the pitfalls in research, and in its application? Papers will survey previous literature and/or present new research. We will explore the implications for further inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional research.


Climate Change and Public Policy:
What we must do

What are the steps being taken to address the contribution of urban design on climate change through public policy, and how well are they succeeding? What steps are being taken to mitigate initial diseconomies, create new incentives, ease regulatory restrictions, and shift market behaviour? What new tools are available - codes, certifications, trading systems, incentives?

Climate Change and Education:
How we will disseminate the skills to do it

How should academic and other institutions respond to the climate change agenda? How should design schools respond to the challenge? What alternative curricula are implied or required? How can curriculum reforms tie this agenda to wider social and environmental challenges?

Climate Change and Best Practice
in Urban Design:
How we will implement it

What are the implications of climate change research for new standards of best practice? What does the evolving evidence suggest about the relative importance of such parameters as density, transit modes, mixed use, building height, social diversity, the relationship to agricultural lands and wilderness, and others? What about the relative benefits of retrofit versus new construction? How can best practice address issues of market acceptance and consumer choice? We will examine promising pilot projects from around the world, and evaluate their successes, weaknesses, and next steps in research and development.

Monday 9 June 2008

Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy

Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy

Editor-in-Chief: John C.H. Stillwell & Mark Birkin

- The journal has an applied focus: it actively promotes the
importance of geographical research in real world settings

- It is policy-relevant: it seeks both a readership and
contributions from practitioners as well as academics

- The substantive foundation is spatial analysis: the use
of quantitative techniques to identify patterns and
processes within geographic environments

- The combination of these points, which are fully reflected
in the naming of the journal, establishes a unique position
in the marketplace.


Online Version:
http://springer.r.delivery.net/r/r?2.1.Ee.2Tp.1VZp2X.BwSy2y..N.E%5fFy.2z3C.HBAEdS00


Start Reading:
--------------

Volume 1: Issue 1


- Editorial: The Case for ASAP
John Stillwell and Mark Birkin

http://springer.r.delivery.net/r/r?2.1.Ee.2Tp.1VZp2X.BwSy2y..N.E%5fF%5f.2z3C.EXcEcY00


- A Toolkit for Measuring Sprawl
Paul M. Torrens

http://springer.r.delivery.net/r/r?2.1.Ee.2Tp.1VZp2X.BwSy2y..N.E%5fG0.2z3C.WSEbK000


- Multi-Criteria Sensor Placement for Emergency Response
Frank Southworth

http://springer.r.delivery.net/r/r?2.1.Ee.2Tp.1VZp2X.BwSy2y..N.E%5fG2.2z3C.cGEbM000


- Primary Schools, Markets and Choice: Studying Polarization
and the Core Catchment Areas of Schools
Richard Harris and Ron Johnston

http://springer.r.delivery.net/r/r?2.1.Ee.2Tp.1VZp2X.BwSy2y..N.E%5fG4.2z3C.BBaEbO00



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Springer
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----- Ende der weitergeleiteten Nachricht -----

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Religion, politics and the postsecular city: conference annoucement

Conference announcement

Religion, politics and the postsecular city

Groningen, The Netherlands, 12-15 November 2008

With support from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)



Chairs:

Justin Beaumont, Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Arie L. Molendijk, Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands



Confirmed speakers include:

James A. Beckford, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK

Paul Cloke, Geography, University of Exeter, UK

Harvey G. Cox, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US

Kim Knott, Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, UK

David Martin, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, UK

Birgit Meyer, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Edward W. Soja, Urban Planning, University of California at Los Angeles, US



Theme:

Claims are increasingly made these days about the possibilities of religions in general and faith-based organizations (FBOs) in particular, for tackling social and political issues such as poverty, injustice, discrimination, and racism. The Economist recently devoted a special report to religion and public life across the globe. Combined with recent governments in the US and the UK revalorizing FBOs and “faith communities” in matters of social policy, urban regeneration and social cohesion in state-regulated urban policies, the European public sphere is dense with unresolved questions about the ways religions are imbricated in the social and political concerns of the day. Despite these developments contemporary relations between religion, politics and urban societies remain poorly understood. The conference brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to theorize the changing and mutually constitutive relations between religion, politics and urban societies in ways that transcend the urban as merely built environment and physical form. The primary focus is relations between the ascendancy of public religions, deprivatization of religions and theorizations of modernity and modernities to gain sense of the postsecular city, with the closely related and more empirically relevant role of FBOs in tackling social and political issues in across various cities today. International publications are envisaged from the event.



A number of seats are available for non-speaking participants and the closing date for registration is: 27 October 2008.



Registration fee which includes coffee/tea and conference materials: regular rate (€100), (PhD) student rate (€25)



For further information please contact Ms. M. Wubbolts (m.r.b.wubbolts@rug.nl)







----

Room 3.10, Landleven 1

Faculty of Spatial Sciences

University of Groningen

The Netherlands

Tel: 00 31 50 363 6910/ 3895

Skype: justin9712

Web: www.rug.nl/staff/j.r.beaumont/index



International Conference: Religion, Politics and the Postsecular City, Groningen, 12-15 November 2008



EU-7FP FACIT project: Faith-based organizations and exclusion in European cities



Book Reviews Editor: Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (TESG)

Postdoctoral Scholarship: Space, the city and organization

Posted on behalf of Dr. Timon Beyes, who is currently a visiting
Leverhulme Fellow in the Department of Geography at Swansea University.

Postdoctoral Scholarship: Space, the city and organization

The Haniel Foundation (Germany), the University of St. Gallen
(Switzerland) and the Leuphana University Lueneburg (Germany) invite
applications to a 12 months-Postdoctoral program dedicated to “Space, the
city and organization”. The scholarship is scheduled for the academic year
of 2008/09, to start on October 1, 2008.

The last years brought a renaissance of “space” as conceptual and
analytical category as well as renewed attention to the spatiality of
human life. Viewing space as an ongoing area of activity, the city as
organizing platform is now (again) at the forefront of debate in the
social and human sciences.

Applicants for the Postdoctoral Scholarship must hold a PhD in the Social
Sciences or the Humanities and should have a number of publications in
either of these fields. The ideal candidate should have a strong
interdisciplinary interest in the issues outlined above. Furthermore, the
candidate would be a productive and independent person preparing for an
international academic career. The successful applicant will be based at
the University of St. Gallen’s Center for Social Enterprise. The duration
of the PostDoc-Scholarship is for a minimum of one year with the
posssibility for extension. The salary is 2500 EUR per month and also
covers travel expenses.

Furthermore, the prospective scholar will be involved in setting up a
seminar series at the universities in St. Gallen and Lueneburg, bringing
together an international group of leading researchers in the field of
spatial and urban theory to share their insights and ideas.
Interested candidates should electronically submit application documents
along with a brief outline of research interests – and the corresponding
research intentions as regards the scholarship – to Dr. Timon Beyes
(timon.beyes@unisg.ch). Please send pdf-files only. Applications must be
received no later than June 20, 2007.

Both Universities are committed to increase the number of women in science
and therefore encourage women to apply for this PostDoc position.

Dr Richard G. Smith,
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography,
Centre for Urban Theory,
Department of Geography,
School of Environment & Society
Swansea University,
Singleton Park,
Swansea,
SA28PP,
UK
Email: r.g.smith@swan.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)1792 602558
Fax: +44(0)1792 295955
Web Page:
http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/EnvironmentSociety/Geography/smithrich
ardg/

Forthcoming Book, Jean Baudrillard: Fatal Theories:
http://www.routledgesociology.com/books/Jean-Baudrillard-isbn9780415464420

Forthcoming Event (welcoming Paper & Poster Submissions), UGRG Annual
Conference "Urban MultipliCITIES":
http://www.urban-geography.org.uk/

Urban Geography Research Group Annual Conference

Urban Geography Research Group Annual Conference

6-7 November 2008
Queen Mary, University of London

Call for Contributions

Building on two earlier conferences - Paradigmatic Cities? and Approaching
the City - this year's UGRG conference aims to examine the multiplicities
of 'the urban'. Rather than the unitary object implied by the terms 'the
urban' or 'the city', multiple urbanisms are currently being called forth
by research that, for instance: challenges conventional representations
and hierarchies of cities; 'parochialises' cities of 'the North'; develops
research into 'ordinary cities'; uncovers/explores diverse ways of
inhabiting urban space; re-examines urban histories; or employs inventive
methods of investigating urban experiences.

Urban MultipliCITIES aims to bring some of these proliferating fields into
creative contact, and we are seeking contributions from a wide range of
urban research that reflect the rich variety of work being undertaken in
the field. Topics and methodologies might include (but are in no way
restricted to):

* gender and sexuality
* methods: e.g. visual, aural, tactile, oral, performative, participatory
* non-'Western' urban experiences
* poetics and politics of urban imaginaries
* post-coloniality
* regeneration projects and everyday life
* socio-technical materialities
* suburban studies
* practice, activism and politics

Over two days, the conference will take the form of keynote presentations,
shorter papers, and include a poster session by postgraduate students. We
hope to leave plenty of time for discussion, stimulated by papers that
engage with Urban Multiplicities - in research, methods or practice.
Papers are welcomed from researchers (including PhDs) at any stage of
their careers, but the Poster Session is specifically designed for
postgraduates.

If you would like to contribute a PAPER or a POSTER, contact Margo Huxley
at M.Huxley@sheffield.ac.uk or Richard Smith at R.G.Smith@swansea.ac.uk

Deadline for 250 word Abstracts is Friday 19 September 2008



Dr Richard G. Smith,

Senior Lecturer in Human Geography,

Centre for Urban Theory,

Department of Geography,

School of Environment & Society

Swansea University,

Singleton Park,

Swansea,

SA28PP,

UK

Email: r.g.smith@swan.ac.uk

Tel: +44(0)1792 602558

Fax: +44(0)1792 295955

Web Page:

http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/EnvironmentSociety/Geography/smithrich
ardg/

Forthcoming Book, Jean Baudrillard: Fatal Theories:

http://www.routledgesociology.com/books/Jean-Baudrillard-isbn9780415464420

Forthcoming Event (welcoming Paper & Poster Submissions), UGRG Annual
Conference "Urban MultipliCITIES":

http://www.urban-geography.org.uk/

Regen Seminar Glasgow

Seminar on regeneration that may be of interest to you....

DEPARTMENT of URBAN STUDIES

Seminar Series: May-June 2008


New Approaches to Regeneration in Scotland and England: Single Outcome
Agreements and Local Area Agreements in Comparative Perspective


Alisdair McIntosh (Housing and Regeneration Directorate, Scottish
Government)
Helen Sullivan (Cities Research Centre, University West of England)


Friday, 13 June 2008 2.00-4.30 p.m.
Room T316, Adam Smith Building


Abstract

The last five years have seen enormous changes to the way regeneration is
done at the neighbourhood level across the UK. The end of intensive
area-based initiatives and the development of local-authority wide and
Single Outcome Agreements/ Local Area Agreements within the context of
strategic partnerships raise important questions as to how regeneration is
carried out. This seminar seeks to reflect on experience thus far:
particularly the lessons from the Regeneration Outcome Agreements developed
for community regeneration activity in Scotland as well as the first round
of Single Outcome Agreements submitted to the Scottish Government in spring
2008. The seminar will also consider experience from England, especially of
LSPs and Local Area Agreements. Key questions for debate and discussion
include:-
. The nature and development of governance relationships between
national government, local authorities, and localities.
. The role of partnerships and local authorities within governance as
the role and existence of QUANGOs and executive agencies is changing
. The emphasis placed on the fortunes of deprived communities within
new government performance frameworks.


For further details of this Seminar (including final confirmation) please
contact Betty Johnstone (b.johnstone@lbss.gla.ac.uk) on 330 4121. After the
Seminar, refreshments will be served in Coffee Area of 25 Bute Gardens.

POLICY & POLITICS: CALL FOR "THEMED SECTION" PROPOSALS

+++ Apologies for cross-posting +++

POLICY & POLITICS

CALL FOR "THEMED SECTION" PROPOSALS


Deadline: 30 June 2008

Policy & Politics is a leading international and multi-disciplinary journal
analysing the theory, origins and impact of public policy. The journal
focuses on topical issues that cut across a wide range of policy areas
including governance and democracy, state and civil society, globalisation
and internationalisation, policy making and implementation.

We are currently inviting proposals to form a 'themed section' within the
journal. We are planning to publish 4 to 5 related papers with a short
editorial by a guest editor. Likely publication date will be either October
2009 or January 2010. Proposals should contain a name and affiliation of
the guest editor; a title for the themed section; a brief description of
the theme including its topicality and originality; and titles and
(confirmed) author names of the papers.

The deadline of the proposals is 30 June 2008. For further details, please
contact the editor, Misa Izuhara (M.Izuhara@bristol.ac.uk), Policy &
Politics

Monday 19 May 2008

Regeneration and Wellbeing

http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/bcid/research/Regeneration/

Jobs needed for 'sick' Britain

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7402810.stm

THE SOCIAL SITUATEDNESS OF ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AN ERA OF PEAK OIL AND CLIMATE CHANGE

THE SOCIAL SITUATEDNESS OF ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AN ERA OF PEAK OIL AND CLIMATE CHANGE

June 5th 2008 Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool

Part of the ESRC funded seminar series

There are still places available for this seminar

The seminar looks at the social situatedness of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the context of local economic development in an era of peak oil and climate change. In the first part of the day we consider how the role of enterprise is understood and invited speakers include Rob Blackburn (Kingston), Denise Fletcher (Sheffield), Sue Baines (Manchester Metropolitan) and Andre Spicer (Warwick), who will provoke thought and discussion in this field. The previous work of speakers has been to critically consider the economic, social, cultural and political contexts of enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Seminar Schedule

9.30 – 10.00 Arrival and Registration. Tea and Coffee will be available

10.00 – 10.10 Introduction and Welcome from Peter North

Part I: The concepts of enterprise and entrepreneurialism in today’s environment (Chaired by Alan Southern)

10.10 – 10.55 Robert Blackburn on how enterprise is understood in the context of the local

10.55 – 11.40 Andre Spicer on understanding entrepreneurialism through rigorous critique

11.40 – 11.55 Coffee

11.55 – 12.45 Sue Baines on how enterprise is understood through the lens of the family

12.45 – 1.30 Denise Fletcher on social constructivism and entrepreneurialism

1.30 – 2.00 Lunch

The second part of the seminar turns specifically to consider the behaviour of entrepreneurs and the context for small enterprise in the context of major environmental worries. Speakers during this part of the day include Sarah Longlands (Centre for Local Economic Strategies) on local economic strategies and the green agenda, Will Williams (Natural Northwest) on the economic benefits for enterprises from a green agenda, Erik Bichard (University of Salford) on incorporating sustainability into planning by enterprises and Simon Snowden (University of Liverpool) who looks at private enterprise oil vulnerability and auditing.

Part II: Enterprise and making things happen in an are of peak oil and climate change (Chaired by Irene Hardill)

2.00 – 3.00 The four panel members will present their ideas about the practicalities facing small enterprise in an era of peak oil and climate change and what role enterprise and entrepreneurialism has in this period.

3.00 – 4.00 Seminar debate with questions from the floor and answers from the panel

This part of the day is designed to be interactive and to engage the audience in taking forward the debate on enterprise, entrepreneurship and local economic development in an era of peak oil and climate change.

4.00 – 4.15 Afternoon Tea

4.15 – 4.30 Summary and Next Steps by Peter North

Further details on the seminar series can be found at:

www.liv.ac.uk/geography/seminars/ESRC-funded_seminar_series.htm

To book a place contact Alan Southern at: Alan.Southern@liverpool.ac.uk or telephone +44(0)151 795 3820

A limited number of bursaries are available for research students and contract researchers.

For more information see the website at the address above or contact Alan Southern.

Visuality/Materiality: Reviewing Theory, Method and Practice

Visuality/Materiality: Reviewing Theory, Method and Practice


An international conference to be held in London 15th-17th July, 2009

Organizers: Professor Gillian Rose and Dr. Divya P. Tolia-Kelly


This conference takes as its starting point the apparent exhaustion in much critical theory of the term 'representation' as a means of grasping the effect of the visual in contemporary times (although, in contrast, ‘representation’ remains a key driver in advertising, geopolitical policy and military practice). Conventionally, critical interpretation has concerned itself with the meaning of images by situating their connections to broader discursive formations, but for many this is now a reductive analytical schema. There are suggestions that these approaches have become formulaic; that they ignore the physical materiality and political and cultural power of visual imagery and visualities; and that this approach can reinstate the power structures it intends to critique. The aim of the conference is to consider where representation and the need for a new interpretive paradigm may coalesce/intersect.

Visuality/Materiality attends to the relationship between the visual and the material as a way of approaching both the meaning of visual and its other aspects. The image as sign, metaphor, aesthetics and text has long dominated the realm of visual theory. But the material role of visual praxis in everyday landscapes of seeing has been an emergent area of visual research; visual design, urban visual practice, visual grammars and vocabularies of domestic spaces, including the formation and structuring of social practices of living and political being, are critical to 21st century networks of living. The relationship between Visuality/ Materiality here is about social meaning and practice; where identity, power, space, and geometries of seeing are approached here through a grounded approach to material technologies, design and visual research, everyday embodied seeing, labour, ethics and utility.

This conference is aimed at providing a dialogic space where the nature and role of a visual theory can be evaluated, in light of materiality, practice, affect, performativity; and where the methodological encounter informs our intellectual critique. One strand will invite sustained engagements with the theoretical trajectories of the ‘material turn’, the 'emotional/affective turn' and the 'practical turn' away from the 'cultural turn'. Where are these turns taking us, exactly? What are we leaving behind when we turn, and does that matter? The organisers are also keen to encourage contributions based on research experience and practice into specific aspects of visuality and visual critique including:

· What is the relationship between the material and the visual?

· How do we develop new theoretical approaches to new visual practices?

· What can we learn from everyday visualities?

· How can we approach the ethical through visual practices?

· How valuable are theories of materiality, performance, embodiment in research on the visual?


We welcome participation from all disciplines and from varying research approaches. To participate in the conference please send a 200 word abstract before December 1st 2008, to: Visuality-Materiality-Conference@open.ac.uk

The two-day conference fee will be approximately £180 (waged) /£85 (students).

All details will be updated on the conference web site: http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/conf/visualitymateriality


Conference organisers: Professor Gillian Rose (Geography, Open University)

Dr Divya P. Tolia-Kelly (Geography, Durham University)

Organising committee: Dr Paul Basu (Anthropology, University of Sussex)

Professor David Campbell (Geography, Durham University)

Professor Nick Couldry (Media and Communications, Goldsmith’s)

Dr Stefano Cracolici (Modern Languages, Durham University)

Dr Mike Crang (Geography, Durham University)

Professor Elizabeth Edwards (University of the Arts)

Dr Ruth Fazakerley (Visual artist, Adelaide)

Dr Paul Frosh (Communication and Journalism, Hebrew University)

Professor Marie Gillespie (Sociology, Open University)

Dr Agnieszka Golda (Visual Arts, Wollongong)

Professor Christopher Pinney (Anthropology, UCL)

Dr Michael Pryke (Geography, Open University)

Dr Nirmal Puwar (Sociology, Goldsmith’s)

Dr Mimi Sheller (Sociology, Swarthmore College)

Dr Marquard Smith (Art and Design, Kingston University)

Niki Sperou (Visual Artist, Adelaide)

Professor Teal Triggs (University of the Arts)



Dr. D.P. Tolia-Kelly

Rm 412, West Building

South Road, Durham,

Co. Durham

DH1 3LE

Telephone: +44(0) 191 334 1819

Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 1801

Email: divya.tolia-kelly@durham

Lived and Material Cultures Research Cluster (Convenor):

http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/clusters/lmc

Arts and Humanities Research Council Award:

http://www.durham.ac.uk/roman.centre/hadrianswall


Visuality/Materiality, London, 2009:

http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/conf/visualitymateriality

S P U R: Social Policy and Urban Regeneration Research Institute: Annual Lecture

London South Bank University
S P U R: Social Policy and Urban Regeneration Research Institute

A N N U A L L E C T U R E

You are cordially invited to SPUR's Second Annual Lecture

"(Dis)allowing intimacy: Negotiating multiplicity in transnational families"
by
Professor Ann Phoenix (Co-Director of Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education)


Date: Wednesday 25th June 2008
Time: 6.30pm (Reception at 5.30pm)
Venue: Keyworth Centre, London South Bank University
(Keyworth Street, off Borough Road)

RSVP: Beverley Goring, goringbl@lsbu.ac.uk

Dr Beverley Goring
Senior Research Administrator
SPUR Research Institute
Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences
London South Bank University,
103 Borough Road
London SE1 0AA
Telephone 020 7815 5796
www.lsbu.ac.uk/ahs/spur

BISA working group on historical sociology and Manchester Centre for International Politics

BISA working group on historical sociology and Manchester Centre for
International Politics

One day workshop: 'The historical sociology of domination and resistance'
Centre for International Politics, Manchester University Wednesday September
11th 2008

This workshop builds on long-standing work in historical sociology which
focuses on processes of domination and resistance - and it asks what an
international perspective can add to that work. Since the publication of
Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy some forty
years ago, much research in historical sociology has centred on diverse
forms of rulership and how these are challenged, successfully or otherwise,
by forms of collective action. Yet Barrington Moore was famously criticized
for failing to theorise the international side of the struggles which he
analysed. As such, this workshop aims to interrogate both past and
contemporary processes of continuity and change, with special reference to:

- ways of conceptualising and interrogating modes of domination and
hierarchy in world politics;
- the role played in challenging forms of domination by diverse forms of
resistance such as social movements, revolutionary groups and other such actors;
- how relations of domination and resistance have intersected in ways that
challenge us to develop the international side of the historical
sociological imagination.

Workshop attendance is free, but places are limited. Thanks to a recent
award from BISA, travel expenses will be provided for research students and
paper givers. Lunch and other refreshments will be provided on the day itself.

Those interested in presenting papers should send abstracts to George Lawson
(g.lawson@lse.ac.uk ) Stuart Shields (Stuart.Shields@manchester.ac.uk) and
Justin Rosenberg (j.p.rosenberg@sussex.ac.uk) by August 11th 2008.

Those who want to register for the workshop should email the three
organisers as soon as possible

Thursday 8 May 2008

Planum Newsletter - Special News - May 2008

Planum Newsletter - Special News - May 2008

Planum is the online magazine and international network dedicated to
territorial planning, urban development and architecture.

------------------------------------------------------
CORP 2008: 13th International Conference on Urban Planning
and Regional Development in the Information Society
3rd International Vienna Real Estate Conference · GeoMultimedia 008

MOBILITY NODES as INNOVATION HUBS

Download conference programme and schedule:
http://programm.corp.at/2008/CORP2008_program.pdf

Get more at:
http://www.planum.net/Nnews/detailNews.php?ID=949
http://www.corp.at/

Planum.net is CORP partner since 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WELFARE & PLUS
New frontiers of urban welfare between stabilisation and creativity
Le nuove frontiere del welfare urbano tra consolidamento e creatività
Rome 13/06/2008

for further information contact Prof. Manuela Ricci: manuela.ricci@gmail.com
download the provisional programme at: http://www.planum.net/news/welfare.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Planum - The online magazine and international network dedicated to urban
planning, territorial development and architecture
http://www.planum.net
- ISSN 1723-0993
European Community project funded by Ten Telecom in the year 2000

Contact staff@planum.net
if you wish:
- to publish articles, essays, reports about urban policies, master plans,
urban planning project management
- to send your announcement about upcoming events, projects, workshops
- to become a Planum partner for disseminating E.U. funded project

If you are looking for a window in this newsletter,
through which to promote your special event or your firm, become a Planum
guest and reach more than 22 000 planners around the world!
http://www.planum.net/services/services.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update from Planners Network UK

Dear PNUK members,

I thought you might like a report back on the event in London recently concerning the Olympics and its planning. The event was really successful on a number of levels – we had about 40 people come on Thursday evening, and about 20 for the longer meeting on Friday. Many were local residents. Iain Sinclair gave a really wonderful and insightful talk about life in the East End, and he was followed by Bill Parry-Davies from OPEN Dalston about large development pressures and disastrous planning messes currently underway in Dalston and Shoreditch. If anyone is keen to be further educated on the potentially harmful effects for local people and environments of holding an Olympics event, then watch the film The Five Ring Circus – an excellent documentary on a series of disasters currently unfolding in Vancouver and its region. Highly recommended.

On Friday we explored a whole range of planning-related issues concerning Olympics developments, the process that has been undertaken to date, the extent to which local people have been able to find a way to have a voice in those processes, and the various challenges they have faced. PNUK members were able to give some feedback on more general aspects of the planning system, its various guises and the changes afoot. Games Monitor representatives felt this was helpful. At the end of Friday, we constructed a list of ideas that might be useful in continuing work in this area. This was simply a brainstorming, rather than a definitive strategy, but there is much that PNUK could do not just on this particular issue of the Olympics but more widely. Here’s a summary of things I thought had particular resonance for a network like PNUK (they aren’t my ideas, they came from a variety of participants):
remind planners (ourselves?) that they’re citizens too. Get planners walking in the neighbourhoods they plan for.
can anybody do something with maps/graphics to show what is coming for the East End if all development plans for towers go ahead, eg show (graphically) the 2012 skyline with its fringe of towers? See skyscrapercity.com
make available some guidance (brief) on how to go about fighting against bad development plans, ways to object and have a say, language to use within the ‘industry’ of development planning. Also, keep a website (pnuk?) up to date on the changing planning system, new threats and opportunities and information that would help local groups
Run a series of seminars on how to fight against bad development, activist-led seminars on how to get through the planning process – hold them on different sites, estates etc to inform people.
more clearly articulate what we are trying to do. PNUK to create a research project and develop an alternative for planning. Provide analysis/data/depth of argument that can give weight to local groups who are trying to develop alternatives for development.

Two additional things emerged:
1. Bill Parry-Davies and the OPEN Dalston/Shoreditch groups are looking for some help to develop alternative plans for their centres and additional specific sites. One of the central concerns we discussed at both events was the importance of having an alternative to present rather than just relying on objections/submissions. The latter is seen as a particularly futile and counter-productive activity and there is considerable interest in developing alternative ‘community’ plans (for want of a better word). If anyone can provide any help at all specifically to OPEN Dalston/OPEN Shoreditch, please be in contact with Bill – his email is: bpd@dowse.co.uk. The OPEN groups have websites, see: http://opendalston.blogspot.com/ and http://open-shoreditch.blogspot.com/
2. Games Monitor are interested in pursing some project work but of course can’t do it themselves because they lack institutional support, funding, access to networks etc. Here’s a way that PNUK members, particularly those based in Universities, might be productively involved. Julian Cheyne (of Games Monitor) and I are currently putting together some thoughts on what the project might look like but will be based around attempting to assess the impact of the Olympics developments, as well as developing alternative models of urban change for the East End.

Anyone interested in any of these, or with helpful comments, ideas, contacts, resources etc. do please get in touch with either me, or Bill Parry-Davies, or just write to the list and share ideas.

By the way, a full report of the London event is now on the website, which you can read at your leisure. You will also find there some other new bits – in particular some papers from the roundtable PNUK hosted at the Planning Research Conference held in Belfast earlier this year. We hope to continue hosting roundtables at conference events in the future as it proved a useful forum for discussion. Be in contact if you’re keen to participate or can organise one.

Libby



Dr Libby Porter
Lecturer in Spatial Planning
Department of Urban Studies
University of Glasgow
25 Bute Gardens
Glasgow G12 8RS
Phone: 0141 330 3664
Email: l.porter@lbss.gla.ac.uk

Interested in progressive planning? Check out Planners Network UK www.pnuk.org.uk

The University of Glasgow is a registered charity, reference SC004401

Ideal City: Conference and Workshop in Amsterdam October 10-14 Register Now

Ideal City: Conference and Workshop in Amsterdam October 10-14 Register Now

We are doing a conference and workshop: The Ideal City: Amsterdam Conference October 11-14. We are looking for conference papers to be given for a edited book / journal (Sustain). In addition, we have arranged for numerous workshops throughout Amsterdamand Rotterdam on social policy, transportation, housing, green urbanism and tolerance in the Netherlands. We hope our colleagues from Urban Geography will join us and present papers on the "ideal city." Please visit our link for early discount registration:

http://www.hollandnow.org

Dr. John I. Gilderbloom
Conference Coordinator--Ideal City
Louisville, Kentucky
502-582-0024 / jgilde02@sprynet.com

New: MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice, Cardiff University.

MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice, Cardiff University.

The School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University is pleased to
announce that a new MSc is available in Geography, Policy, and Practice
for 2008/9 entry. There are also up to five £1000 bursaries available for
students enrolling on this degree before 30th May.

The MSc in Geography, Policy, and Practice offers a unique opportunity to
study human geography at postgraduate level in a context intimately
connected to current policy developments and informed by contemporary
critical theory.

It capitalises on the distinctive capacities of the School of City and
Regional Planning as a leading centre of expertise in research and
teaching in both human geography and spatial policy. The school’s staff
and students are actively engaged in geographically-related policy
development for a range of governmental, corporate, and voluntary bodies,
as well as critically investigating broader forms of political and civil
society activity.

The degree will develop an integrated and critically aware understanding
of geography, policy and practice. It offers:

• the advanced study of geography as an academic discipline and the
changing external context with which it engages;
• preparation for and/or development of a career in business, local
government, academia, or broader civil society with a critical
understanding of geography and its relationship with policy
• development of the ability to apply knowledge and understanding of
geography to complex issues to improve the functioning of policy and
practices within society.
• enhancement of lifelong learning skills and personal development
so students can strengthen their ability to work with self-direction and
originality and to contribute to geography, policy, and society at large.

Further details of the degree scheme can be found at School’s homepage
http://www.cf.ac.uk/cplan/ or by contacting the Course Director, Dr Jon
Anderson, Email: andersonj@cardiff.ac.uk Tel: (44) 02920 875308.

Deadline for bursary applications is 30th May, 2008.



Dr Jon Anderson

Course Director MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice
Email: AndersonJ@cardiff.ac.uk
Tel: 02920 875308
School of City and Regional Planning,
Cardiff University,
2.71 Glamorgan Building,
King Edward VII Avenue,
Cardiff, Wales, U.K.
CF10 3WA.

Thursday 1 May 2008

ESF-LiU Conference on THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: NEW CHALLENGES, NEW ISSUES

Conference Announcement:

ESF-LiU Conference on THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: NEW CHALLENGES, NEW ISSUES

Dates: 11-15 October 2008

Location: Klosterhotel, Vadstena, Sweden

Programme and applications: accessible online at www.esf.org/conferences/08264

Chair: Professor Bernard Jouve, Universite de Lyon, FR
Co-chair: Dr. Mark Purcell, University of Washington, US

Deadline for applications: 6 June 2008

Grants: some grants are available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and travel
costs.

Further information: www.esf.org/conferences/08264 or Ms. Anne Blondeel-Oman (ablondeel@esf.org)

Wednesday 30 April 2008

Health and society events - Cardiff University

The usual H&S meeting will be replaced this month by the Third Julian Tudor-Hart Lecture.

See details below

Lecture which will be given by Professor George Davey Smith, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology,
University of Bristol. The lecture is entitled 'Chance, choice and collective risk: why we need more
impersonal medicine'

Date: Wednesday 14th May 2008
Time: 5:30pm for wine reception, 6:00pm for lecture
Venue: Committee Rooms, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University

Lecture Summary:
Epidemiologists (among others) have successfully identified some modifiable risk factors for
disease, but
there has been dissatisfaction regarding the ability to accurately characterise the prognosis or
risk status of
individuals. The apparent promise of personalised medicine, particularly when based on
pharmacogenomics,
offers to transform practice in this regard. This lecture will suggest that this is fundamentally
misguided, given
that we can only truly understand group- level, rather than individual- level, risk. Evidence from
behavioural
genetics, epidemiology, developmental science and detective novels will be mobilised to support
this position.
The lecture will conclude that, far from needing more personalised medicine, ensuring that those
who could
benefit (impersonally) from effective treatments receive them is the major task for any effective
and equitable
health service today.

For more information and a booking form (if you 've not booked already) please contact Lorelei
Simon at CISHE on the details below.
Tel: 029 2087 9609
Email: CISHE@cardiff.ac.uk
or through the website: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/cishe


The following research group meeting will be on June 11th at 4pm in Room -1.72 in the Glamorgan
Building. We are happy to welcome two speakers:

Professor Marcus A. Doel (Head of the School of the Environment and
Society, Swansea University)
Professor Frances Rapport (Head of the Qualitative Research Unit,
School of Medicine, Swansea University)

The title of their presentation is:

"Bio-photographic study of community pharmacy workspace and practice"

Drinks and nibbles to follow.

Many thanks

Eva Elliott
(Convenor of the Health and Society Research Group)


Eva Elliott

RCUK Academic Fellow
Cardiff Institute of Society, Health and Ethics
School of Social Sciences,
Cardiff University
53 Park Place
Cardiff
UK
CF10 3AT

Tel: 029 2087 9138

E-mail: elliotte@cf.ac.uk

CISHE website: www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/cishe
WHIASU website: www.whiasu.wales.nhs.uk

Tuesday 29 April 2008

MANCHESTER, MAY 15TH 'ECONOMY, NATURE, SPACE'

MANCHESTER, MAY 15TH 'ECONOMY, NATURE, SPACE'

The full programme is now available for the RGS-IBG Economic
Geography Research Group Annual Symposium on Thursday May 15th. See
http://www.egrg.org.uk/symposium2008.html

Highlights include:

Professor Richard Walker, University of California-Berkeley
--The Chinese Road to Capitalism--

Dr Marcus Power, University of Durham
--New African Choices? The economics and geopolitics of Chinese
engagement with African development--

Dr Daniel Buck, University of Oxford
--The Ecology Question--

Professor Diana Liverman, University of Oxford
--Offsets in the carbon economy--

Professor David Gibbs, University of Hull
--Prospects for an Environmental Economic Geography--

Professor Erik Swyngedouw, University of Manchester
--Impossible/Undesirable Sustainability and the post-political condition--

The event is open to all. Please circulate widely. To help us plan
numbers, pls register by sending a simple e-mail to Jason Beery
(jason.beery@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk). We should note that the
EGRG has introduced a registration fee of £25 for the Annual
Symposium, payable by those who draw a salary. This can be paid in
advance (by mailing a cheque, payable to EGRG, to the organisers at
the address below) or in person on the 15th.

ON WEDNESDAY 14TH, the EGRG will be holding its annual
Post-Graduate Symposium. We now have an excellent line up of
post-graduate papers (details to be posted on the EGRG website
shortly). This is also an open event - for which there is no charge
- and we look forward to welcoming you. If you intend to come for both
the 14th and 15th, let us know if you would like to receive
information on nearby accommodation.

Gavin Bridge and Jason Beery

School of Environment and Development

University of Manchester

Manchester

M13 9PL

ESRC SEMINAR SERIES: GENTRIFICATION AND SOCIAL MIX

ESRC SEMINAR SERIES
GENTRIFICATION AND SOCIAL MIX
2008-2009

Organisers: Tim Butler and Loretta Lees (King's College London); Gary
Bridge and Tom Slater (University of Bristol)

Brief Description:

'Social mix' has long been a planning/policy objective, and a sign of a
healthy, liveable urban area, but the concept has recently come under fire
from academics researching gentrification, especially for being too
one-sided - it is mostly in low-income and/or working-class neighbourhoods
where social mix is to be achieved through an influx of wealthier and/or
middle-class residents. Very rarely is social mix planned for wealthier
neighbourhoods, which raises questions about the motivations and the
politics behind the concept. Furthermore, what kind of social mixing
actually takes place in gentrifying neighbourhoods? Despite a significant
amount of research taking place that addresses these issues, there has been
no organised debate/interaction between researchers and practitioners, and
this seminar series proposes to bring people together to discuss these
issues in depth.

THE 2008 SEMINARS:

SEMINAR 1 (King's College London) MAY 22ND AND 23RD 2008

CHAIR:
Loretta Lees (King's College London)

PAPERS:
Jonny Aspen (Oslo University)
Paul Cheshire (London School of Economics)
Eric Clark (Lund University)
Mark Davidson (University of Western Sydney)
Chris Hamnett (King's College London)
Mike Savage (University of Manchester)

DISCUSSANTS:
Clare Colomb (Bartlett, University College London)
Kirsteen Paton (University of Glasgow)


SEMINAR 2 (University of Bristol) SEPTEMBER 25TH AND 26TH 2008

CHAIR:
Gary Bridge (University of Bristol)

PAPERS:
Marie-Helene Bacque (Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne)
Edmond Preteceille (Sciences Po, Paris)
Damaris Rose (INRS, University of Quebec)
Kate Shaw (University of Melbourne)
Justus Uitermark (University of Amsterdam)
Matthieu van Criekingen (Free University, Brussels)

DISCUSSANTS:
David Webb (University of Newcastle)
TBA



----------------------
Dr. Tom Slater
Centre for Urban Studies,
University of Bristol,
8 Priory Road
Bristol BS8 1TZ
U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)117 331 0808
Fax: +44 (0)117 954 6756

http://www.bris.ac.uk/sps/research/cus/staff/slater.shtml
http://members.lycos.co.uk/gentrification