Past Events
11 November 2021 12:00 – 15:30
Workshop organized in collaboration with CITEUS and Anders Utrecht.
12 October 2021 16:00 to 17:00
Seminar on Urban Stuggles with, Dr. Maggi Leung, dr. Thijs Jeursen and dr. Karin Geuijen.
12 October 2021 09:00 to 12:00
Workshop to dive into how cities can learn from another concerning urban sustainability transformations and transformative approaches to urban governance.
LAUNCH WEEK
16 March 2021 to 26 March 2021
Launch of the initiative: a series of webinars and workshops took place to share and exchange knowledge about the concept of the open city.
Speaker: Roberto Rocco, TU Delft & Rike Sitas, African Centre for Cities
Date & Time: March 16, 14:30–15:45 (CET)
Description: In this lecture, Roberto & Rike will explore the political economy of sustainability, making a case for a radically different interpretation of the problem of the tragedy of the commons. In this talk, issues of sustainability, democracy and spatial justice are not only related, but underscore each other. Roberto also explores ideas of communicative planning that address this intersection.
Roberto Rocco is an associate professor of spatial planning & strategy at TU Delft, working and researching metropolitan and regional governance, social sustainability and spatial justice. He obtained his PhD at TU Delft in 2008. He is responsible for course development and coordination in the areas of research methodology and design practice, regional planning and design, governance and sustainability. He leads the TU Delft Summer School Planning and Design with Water, in which a large group of international students explores how to make cities simultaneously more just and more resilient to climate change through water sensitive urban planning and design. He is also a consultant for the Union for the Mediterranean, for whom he has written the UfM Strategic Action Plan for Sustainable Urbanisation and the UfM Housing Action Plan, together with Carola Hein and Remon Rooij. Additionally, he studies informal urbanisation in the Global South, connected to rapid urbanisation in weak institutional environments and leads several initiatives connected to sustainable urban development in the Global South.
Roberto started his academic career at the University of Sao Paulo, where he obtained a diploma in Architecture and Urbanism, and later a master’s in urban planning. He also has a specialisation in urban studies from the Institut Francais d’Urbanisme (now École d'urbanisme de Paris), and a post-doc in philosophy of science at the University of Hertfordshire, with a specialisation in academic research in areas of design practice.
Rike Sitas straddles the academic world of urban studies and creative practice, she is fascinated by the intersection of culture cities, and more specifically on the role of art in urban life. Her doctoral research stemmed out of several years of experience as a public arts practitioner, particularly in the NPO dala. The PhD focused on exploring the idea of an affective urbanism by looking at the role public-facing art can play in producing knowledge about the city. Linked to this is exploring the impact of the creative economy and cultural policy.
A large part of this focus means unpacking the notions of public space and public life in Southern cityness. It was this interest that underpinned her involvement in the Density Syndicate and Serious Fun, two components of ACC’s City Desired exhibition. She came to Urban Studies via Historical Studies, Political Science, Sociology and Fine Art. It was this grounding in the Humanities and Social Sciences that underpins her involvement in ACC’s Urban Humanities group. Currently, she is coordinating Cape Town’s involvement in Mistra Urban Futures, UrbanAfrica.Net, Cities Alliance Africa Think Tank, Public Art and the Power of Place, and coordinating the ACC’s Academic Seminar Series.
Over the past 10 years she has been involved in a range of art related projects with organisations such as the Visual Arts Network South Africa (VANSA) and the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA). She has participated in a range of solo and group shows at the KwaZulu-Natal Society for the Arts (KZNSA), Durban Art Gallery, ArtSpace Durban, The AVA Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Bag Factory; presented video work in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Rio; has taken part in a range of collaborative public events with local organisations such as Siwela Sonke and CAPE06, and international organisations such as Netherlands Media Institute (NIMK), Cascoland, AvideoArte-Mozambique and Raw Projects amongst others.
She has also coordinated and presented at a range of conferences and public symposia, most recently at GIPCA’s symposium on public art called ‘Remaking Place’ (2015); European Conference on African Studies (2013); and GIPCA’s ‘Thinking the City’ (2012). And presented plenary presentations at ‘Representing the South African City’ at the Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (2013) and the ACC/CUBES South African Cities Conference (2011).
Registration for this workshop is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
Organizers: Sterre Gilsing(MSc), Dr. Martijn Oosterbaan, Dr. Kees Koonings, Utrecht University
Date & Time: March 17, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
In which ways do authoritative (state and non-state) actors respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in so-called ‘urban margins’? In this webinar we will present the collaborative ethnographic research that we have carried out in the last eight months across eight different urban centers from the global South. The presentations will focus on pertinent issues that have emerged from the various research sites, namely grassroots coping strategies, policing practices, and governance discourses. By bringing together examples from diverse urban margins, we aim to draw out the various ways in which governments, local organizations and criminal actors have coped with the challenges of our current times.
In this Webinar, Murtala Ibrahim (Utrecht University) will speak about COVID-19, Religion, and Vigilantism in the Nigerian City of Jos. For more information see: https://bit.ly/3kWWpSA
Registration for this event is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
More information about the Corona Governance in Urban Margins webinar series can be found here: https://cgum.sites.uu.nl/
Organizers: Sterre Gilsing (MSc), Dr. Martijn Oosterbaan, Dr. Kees Koonings, Utrecht University
Date & time: March 18, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
In which ways do authoritative (state and non-state) actors respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in so-called ‘urban margins’? In this webinar we will present the collaborative ethnographic research that we have carried out in the last eight months across eight different urban centers from the global South. The presentations will focus on pertinent issues that have emerged from the various research sites, namely grassroots coping strategies, policing practices, and governance discourses. By bringing together examples from diverse urban margins, we aim to draw out the various ways in which governments, local organizations and criminal actors have coped with the challenges of our current times.
In this Webinar, Brian Kimari (Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies, Nairobi) will speak about COVID-19 emergency responses and politics in urban margins: The Kazi mtaani programme in Mathare Constituency, Nairobi, Kenya. For more information see: https://bit.ly/3v93jc6
Registration for this event is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
More information about the Corona Governance in Urban Margins webinar series can be found here: https://cgum.sites.uu.nl/
Organisers: Dr. Kei Otsuki, Prof. Dr. Ajay Bailey, Utrecht University
Date & Time: March 19, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
The Transforming Cities Hub of Pathways to Sustainability organizes a seed funding workshop on Inclusive Cities and Global Urban Transformation. The purpose of the workshop is to set up a research agenda that leads to funding proposals on inclusive city making through various infrastructures and people’s actions in cities throughout the globe.
Registration for this workshop is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
For more information about this workshop and the Transforming cities hub, please refer to this website.
Organizers/Speakers: Dr. Rick Dolphijn, Utrecht University; Prof. Grey Kochhar-Lindgren, Hong Kong University
Date & Time: March 23, 10:00 – 12:00 (CET time)
In this workshop we will give a short overview of an ongoing cooperation between the University of Hong Kong and Utrecht University that has been running for six consecutive years. This cooperation involved an annual student exchange, concerning ten students from both institutes, with which a series of transdisciplinary projects were developed. Entangled with theoretical writings that concerned otherness, posthumanism, the ecological crises and different situationist notions of urban life (to name just a few of the issues discussed), this project aims at a critical and creative rethinking of the urban sphere as we know it. With thought provoking short films made by the students over the years, surprising anecdotes and enough time for discussion, we aim to realize a workshop that will make you think of city life in inclusive (non-human), different and unexpected ways.
Registration for this workshop is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
Organizers: Dr. Francesca Pilo’ and Dr. Kei Otsuki, Utrecht University - This webinar is also linked to the CITEUS of the Transforming Cities Hub.
Speakers: Eduardo Avila (Revolusolar), Sofie van Bruystegem and Chloé Verlinden (City Mine(d)), Francis Mawejje (ACTogether), Jenny Senhorst (Milieucentrum Utrecht)
Date & Time: March 24, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
The webinar Sustainable solutions for Open cities brings together bottom-up initiatives that are experimenting new forms of citizens’ organization in dealing with sustainability-related challenges linked to energy (e.g. energy poverty, unequal access to infrastructures, etc.) and climate change. While energy is mainly produced and organized somewhere else, and predominantly by other actors, citizens’ initiatives challenge this top-down organization, providing an alternative/complementary vision of how energy-related challenges should be tackled. Similarly, we see a growing engagement of citizens in mitigating climate change effects in cities, which is often considered a way to empower urban dwellers, and to innovate governance. In this context, cities are not just the setting in which these initiatives take place. Cities shape the type of energy and climate related problems citizens face, and therefore also offer specific solutions and forms of organization, and their political meaning. More broadly, these initiatives have the potential to contribute to progressive (equitable and sustainable, inclusive and open) urban transformations.
This webinar aims to explore the link between sustainable bottom-up initiatives, their cities, and broad political implications in a conversation with organizations operating in cities around the world
(Brussels, Kampala, Rio de Janeiro and Utrecht), along with these initial open questions: How have the initiatives come about and been organized? Who participate and how does the initiative relate to the broader urban planning process? How do these initiatives connect with other urban and sustainability problems (inequalities, vulnerabilities displacement, disasters, safety, etc.)? What are the challenges (technical, institutional, urban, socio-economic, etc.) when implementing such initiatives, and for them to be effective? To which extent these initiatives contribute to larger urban transformations and what can be the roles of academics/researchers?
The following topics will be addressed:
Sustainable development of low-income communities (favelas) through solar energy in Rio de Janeiro (by Eduardo Avila, Revolusolar)
‘La Pile’: an integrated approach to emerging energy communities in Brussels. (by Sofie van Bruystegem and Chloé Verlinden, City Mine(d))
Sustainable energy in informal settlements in Kampala (by Francis Mawejje, ACTogether)
‘MeasureYourCity’ Utrecht: first steps towards a lively community and 100 sensors (at least!) (by Jenny Senhorst, Milieucentrum Utrecht)
Through this webinar, the objective is to connect different initiatives and promoting a mutual learning environment of discussion in which we can better understand the potential of bottom-up initiatives and their challenges in contributing to construct a more open city.
Registration for this event is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
Organizers: Sterre Gilsing (MSc), Dr. Martijn Oosterbaan, Dr. Kees Koonings, Utrecht University
Date & Time: March 25, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
In which ways do authoritative (state and non-state) actors respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in so-called ‘urban margins’? In this webinar we will present the collaborative ethnographic research that we have carried out in the last eight months across eight different urban centers from the global South. The presentations will focus on pertinent issues that have emerged from the various research sites, namely grassroots coping strategies, policing practices, and governance discourses. By bringing together examples from diverse urban margins, we aim to draw out the various ways in which governments, local organizations and criminal actors have coped with the challenges of our current times.
Registration for this event is unfortunately closed, in case you have any questions or still want to register last minute, please send an email to opencity@uu.nl.
More information about the Corona Governance in Urban Margins webinar series can be found here: https://cgum.sites.uu.nl/
Organizers: Jente Hoogeveen (MA), Dr. Corelia Baibarac-Duignan, Dr. Sigrid Merx, Utrecht University (part of the Urban Interfaces Group: https://urbaninterfaces.sites.uu.nl/).
Date & Time:
- Session 1: March 25, 10:00 – 12:00 (CET time)
- Session 2: March 26, 13:00 – 15:00 (CET time)
What is an open city? What makes a city open? When do we experience a city as open?
How we answer such questions not only depends on how we define openness, but also on our personal experiences of and in the city and neighbourhood that we live in, especially in this current time of the covid-19 pandemic. Taking into account this situatedness of openness we invite you for this two-session workshop. First, in a guided walk, participants are invited to explore the notion of the open city from an embodied and scenographic perspective. Armed with a collectively created legend, each participant will individually walk in her own neighbourhood, tracing experiences and instances of openness. We will experiment with exploring the neighbourhood through different lenses and draw alternative and multi-layered maps of the open city together. These maps will form the input for a second session in which we will reflect both on how openness manifests in our direct surroundings and what the value of openness for our cities might entail.
Session I - Walking the Open City
Online: getting to know one another + instructions
Offline: 3 walks (15 min. each)
Online: uploading data
Session II - Thinking the Open City
Completely online
Register no later than Monday, March 22, by sending an email to opencity@uu.nl.
Upon registration, you will receive an email with instructions for the first session. The maximum number of participants is 12.
Organizers: Abigail Friendly, Kei Otsuki, Francesca Pilo’, Martijn Oosterbaan, and Babette Berrocal, Utrecht University
Date & Time: March 26, 15:30 – 16:45
In this roundtable and discussion, we will reflect on what we have learned during the launch events of the Open City Initiative. How do each of these events relate to the Open City Initiative as a whole, and how do we move forward with our Initiative? Following the roundtable, we will brainstorm in small groups about how to continue our collaborations around the Open City Initiative, what topics should be included, and what format would be most conducive to taking this Initiative further.
If you are interested in participating, please email us at opencity@uu.nl.