Today’s increasingly diverse and complex cities produce new and dynamic ways of relating to one another. Globalisation, migration and societal change on the one hand produce contested understandings of caring for each other. On the other, opportunities arise to (re)define caring in relation to changing economic conditions, social meanings and cultural norms. In many capitalist societies, however, existing unjust social structures and conditions continue to reinforce uneven geographies of care. Rather than a focus on how economically competitive cities are, this project explores the ‘caring city’ by investigating how cities ‘work’ and are understood as places that intersect with interpersonal caring, care relations and care work.
 

By bridging urban migration studies, youth geographies, feminist care theory and critical men and masculinity studies, you will investigate how young migrant men and masculinities are understood as subjects of urban care/ing. Young males with a migrat ion background are increasingly seen in the public opinion as 'idle’, ‘disorderly’ or ‘aggressive’ subjects, and therefore a social problem and a matter of ‘urban security’ that needs addressing. In the spirit of finding alternatives based on social justice, and by challenging and complicating public discourses that link masculine migrant youth with 'aggression’, ‘backwardness' and ‘dominance’, this project aims to promote social cohesion and the creation of a more caring and tolerant urban life for all.

• dr. Ilse van Liempt
• dr. Rik Huizinga