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The DPU produces engaging blogs written by staff, students, alumni and partners on a range of relevant and topical subjects
As part of the DPU summerLab workshop series, the workshop 鈥淚nhabiting Edges鈥� took place in Nicosia, Cyprus, during September 2017. The workshop was led by Camila Coci帽a and Ricardo Mart茅n (DPU) and Silvia Covarino (Girne American University), and aimed to explore and critically understand the history and politics of Cyprus鈥� borders, navigating the complexities of the last divided capital city in Europe.
Contemporary urban studies, especially those in global cities often acknowledge the challenges in city planning and a variety of urban development problems that are associated with rapid urban growth. The city of S茫o Paulo, Brazil, which is one of Latin America鈥檚 most developed urban agglomerations, is no exception.
What is the role of civil society in addressing housing and habitat struggles in today鈥檚 globalised world? How can people, activists and organisations from diverse contexts worldwide collaborate and exchange their learning from struggles against the housing adequacy and affordability crises facing cities across the Global South and North? And what can Europe learn from other places?
The 鈥榩ositionality paragraph鈥� is a ubiquitous part of many a doctoral thesis and journal paper. It tends to list a series of identity attributes that cover the gender, age, nationality and possibly race of the author. The meaning coded into these represent an assumed shared understanding between reader and writer, whereby there is an unspoken invisible communication that suggests one鈥檚 gender (for example) affected access to respondents, influenced data analysis and in turn affected the claims one makes of data.
The contemporary urbanisation of Amazonas is a geopolitical creation, and a recent phenomenon. For long time native communities have been living in sparse, often isolated, settlements.听Adapting to the mutable conditions of the river, they created a system based on mobility, economic diversification and 鈥榤ulti-sited territorial appropriation鈥� (Peluso and Alexiadis, 2016). Such use and production of space was and still is disarticulated from any single master principle of spatial organization and from usual dichotomies such as rural/urban and public/private.
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While only lasting for a few weeks, the field research trip is an intense experience that provides in-depth learnings that go beyond the research outcomes themselves. One of the key highlights for me was how a good field research technique is about combining learnings from human interactions as well as using planning and organisational tools to reduce the uncertainty that surrounds field research.
Part 1: Learnings from the people 鈥� Disillusionment in the periphery
The international field trip is an integral part of the MSc Development Administration and Planning Programme (DAP) and this year, the students travelled to Kampala, Uganda for their field trip.听 This is the second year running that the MSc DAP programme has been working with development partners in Kampala, Uganda.
In the late hours of November 8th 2015 it was clear that Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had scored an unquestionable electoral triumph. After decades of military rule, the NLD categorically won Myanmar鈥檚 latest elections, gaining control of parliament and thus starting a new chapter in the country鈥檚 turbulent political history.
鈥楽ustainability鈥� is dead and much of its language should be buried and replaced.
To just 鈥榮ustain鈥�, will always fail to capture the people鈥檚 imagination, just as 鈥榬emain鈥�. If I go out for drinks, I want to do more than 鈥榮ustain鈥� and 鈥榮urvive鈥� the evening, I want to thrive and connect.
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