‘Cities rethought’: a book launch and lunchtime discussion

Past Event

Date
 27 November 2024, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Location
 Oxford Martin School & Online
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

Event Recording:

In a world of disruptions and seemingly endless complexity, cities have become – perhaps more than ever – central to thinking about the future of humanity.

Yet rarely has the study of cities been more fragmented among different silos of expertise, diverse genres of scholarship, and widening chasms between theory and practice. How can we do better?

The book Cities Rethought suggests that we need to remake the way we see and know cities in order to rethink how we act and intervene within them. To this end, it offers the contours of a new urban disposition. This disposition, articulated through its normative, analytical, and operational elements, offers an opportunity for scholars, practitioners, and citizens alike to approach the complexity of cities anew, and find ways to rethink both scholarly analyses as well as modes of practice.

In a short discussion, Professor Fran Tonkiss, LSE and Professor Gillian Rose, School of Geography & the Environment, will comment on the book’s place in a wider academic and social context. The discussion will be chaired by Professor Tim Schwanen, Transport Studies Unit.

This event will involve a short discussion and a book launch of ‘Cities Rethought: A new urban disposition’ by Gautam Bhan, Michael Keith, Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse.

Keith Michael 2

Professor Michael Keith (Author)
Director, Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS)

Michael Keith is the Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and is the Director of the PEAK Urban Research programme. He was, until 2021, co-ordinator of Urban Transformations (The Economic and Social Research Council portfolio of investments and research on cities) and was the Co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities. He is also a Co-Investigator of the Open City research project.

His research focuses on migration-related processes of urban change. His most recent works include Urban Transformations and Public Health in the Emergent City, and African Cities and Collaborative Futures, both published by Manchester University Press and The Unfinished Politics of Race, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.

ACC Parnell

Professor Sue Parnell (Author)
Chair in Human Geography, University of Bristol

Susan Parnell is the Deputy Principal Investigator with PEAK Urban and holds a Chair in Human Geography at the University of Bristol. Her research is focussed on contemporary urban policy research, including local government, poverty reduction and urban environmental justice.

Her early academic research was in the area of urban historical geography and focussed on the rise of racial residential segregation and the impact of colonialism on urbanisation and town planning in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1994 and democracy in South Africa her work has shifted to contemporary urban policy research (local government, poverty reduction and urban environmental justice). By its nature this research is not been purely academic, but has involved liasing with local and national government and international donors. Sue is also on the boards of several local NGOs concerned with poverty alleviation, sustainability and gender equity in post-apartheid South Africa. She serves on a number of national and international advisory research panels relating to urban reconstruction.

Grose

Professor Gillian Rose
Professor of Human Geography, School of Geography and the Environment

Professor Gillian Rose joined the School of Geography and the Environment in 2017, moving here from The Open University. She was Head of School from 2019 to 2022.

Gillian is a cultural geographer. Although her empirical research interests have shifted over time, a central theme has been the techniques and politics of knowledge production about places. Her longest-running project is the book Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials; its fifth edition was published in 2022.

Tim Schwanen

Professor Tim Schwanen (Chair)
Professor Tim Schwanen (Chair)

Tim is Director of the Transport Studies Unit, Professor of Transport Geography in the School of Geography and the Environment, and also a Supernumerary Fellow at St Anne's College. He joined the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) in March 2009 and became Director in September 2015.

Tim is one of the editors of Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice, the youngest addition to the E&P family, and he serves on the editorial advisory boards of five journals focused on transport and mobility. Since September 2021 he has been a Fellow of the Academy for Social Sciences, the UK's national academy for academics, learned societies and practitioners in the social sciences.

Tonkiss Fran

Professor Fran Tonkiss
Professor in Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Fran Tonkiss is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research and teaching are in the fields of urban and economic sociology.

Her work focuses on urban inequalities, urban design and development, social and spatial divisions, and the socio-economic organisation of urban space. She is a member of the editorial boards of the British Journal of Sociology, City and Economy and Society.