CALL FOR

ABSTRACTS
SUBMISSIONS
OPEN FROM
MAY 15TH 2015

January 20, 21 and 22, 2015

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Rethinking Cities in the Global South:
Urban Violence, Social Inequality and
Spatial Justice
Organized by the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai with Instituto de
Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional, Rio and
University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban

DEADLINE
FOR
SUBMISSION
JULY 31ST
2015, 6.00 PM
E.S.T.
Submit to:
cupg.tiss@gmail.
com

TATA INSTITUTE OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Opposite Deonar Bus Depot,
V N Purav Marg, Mumbai,
Maharashtra -400 088

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Rethinking Cities in the Global South: Urban Violence, Social
Inequality and Spatial Justice
January 20 to 22, 2015
Tata institute of Social Sciences
Mumbai
CONCEPT NOTE

At a time when the global south is being reconstituted by the force of urbanization there is
simultaneously hope and despair. Hope in that cities of the global south are our future - they
present opportunities for economic growth, a better quality of life, provide multiple
possibilities of being and becoming, and offer freedoms to express, participate and collectively
decide these futures. And despair in that southern cities, with widely different histories and
diverse development trajectories, are characterised by degrees of unevenness, spatial
polarization, social inequality and debilitating poverty.
Both these positions are informed by theories, concepts, approaches and methodologies that
have emerged predominantly from the global north. Given that the empirics of urbanization is
shifting definitively to the global south, there is an urgent need therefore to stimulate
comparative conversations, actively build knowledge and analysis, and consolidate empirical
and theoretical studies about the urban. This requires a critical, grounded and southern
perspective, by privileging conversations focused on southern narratives, experiences, and
voices that challenge and engage with the existing scholarship on cities, exploring continuities
as well as disjuncture with cities in the developed countries.
This conference seeks to include voices from the ground to better understand the aspirations,
the strategies, the actions and the agency of communities and people in actively seeking to
align with the urban transformation, or to influence the restructuring process, to seek strategic
spaces to consolidate their tenuous claims to space, identity and livelihood, and the protests or
violence they resort to in response to their exclusion from the body politic of the city in violent
and repressive ways. In bringing divergent viewpoints and multiple voices situated across a
range of cities in the global south, this international conference seeks to contribute to recent

theorizations on the heterogeneous processes of urbanization and urban restructuring that have
been emerging from urban scholars working in Latin America, Asia, and South Africa.

The conference themes include:

Theorizing spatial justice in cities of the global south, the different histories and
legacies of spatial (in)justice in different urban contexts

Theorizing urban violence in cities of the global south, examining the everyday and
episodic nature of urban violence, violence as repression and violence as protest, violent
state versus extra-legal modes of violence

Theorizing the role of the state, and state-society interaction in the restructuring of cities
in the global south, interrogating the role of urban planning, governance and policy and
the possibility of insurgent, radical and progressive planning in countering the spatial
(in)justice

Re-examining and reimagining the south, what constitutes the global South? In the
new world order, what kind of strategic space is being sought by the global South?
What kind of political and economic alignments are being crafted across civil society
groups, across social movements, across academia, across nations?

Deciphering the variety of outcomes, (both intended and unintended) from the sociospatial transformations in cities of the global south at different levels - from the street
level, to the neighbourhood level and to the city and city-regional level, understanding
spatial restructuring engendered through mega urban infrastructure projects and mega
events and its implication on people, places and the city, with a particular focus on
ethnic and religious minorities, women and the poor

Debating the contradictions between justice and efficiency in shaping urban futures

Narratives of peace production in cities of the global south

Analysing the stories of the people, by the people and for the people in trying to counter,
resist, influence and deal with urban restructuring and the learnings they can share of
their struggles

ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The conference is being organized by the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance at the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in partnership with Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento
Urbano e Regional, Rio and University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban as the culmination of a three
year research on People, Places and Infrastructure: Countering Urban Violence and
Promoting Peace in Mumbai, Rio and Durban funded by the International Development
Research Centre, IDRC as part of their Safe And Inclusive Cities project. The major theoretical
frameworks, empirical findings, and case studies from the project will be shared during the
course of the conference through specific panels and presentations as well as field visits in
Mumbai.
This conference invites academics, students, community activists, trade unions, political
activists, urban practitioners, state actors, planners, engineers, architects, policy makers, and
NGOs who are engaged in research, advocacy, campaigns and movements to promote social
and spatial justice in cities situated in the global south. The two and half day international
conference to be held in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai hopes to provide a space
to facilitate a discussion and deliberation across groups and individuals with diverse opinions
about these issues, to sow the seeds of a global south-south network cutting across these issues,
and to develop an urban agenda for the global south.
The conference will feature international speakers, urban academics and activists from the
global south as well as local urban practitioners and students. There will be paper presentations
and panel discussions, plenaries and key note addresses. The organizers also hope to enliven
the conference venue through poster and photography exhibitions, local music, street art and
plays. Conference participants will be given a sneak peek into the Maximum Citys diverse
neighbourhoods through field trips organized in collaboration with local non-governmental
organisations and community groups.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AND SELECTION PROCESS

We invite interested authors, academics, students, practitioners and activists for paper
presentations.

Abstract submission
The abstract submission will be open from the 15th of May 2015. The deadline for abstract
submission is July 31st 2015, 6.00 pm E.S.T. Abstracts for proposed papers should be 500
words and should be submitted at the following id: cupg.tiss@gmail.com
Abstracts should contain the following information:
1. A synthesis of the issues to be addressed in the paper, the key arguments underlying
them, the empirical and/or the theoretical basis, and the structure of the paper in 500
words.
2. The contact of the author(s): Name(s), affiliation, address, and an e-mail address

Final paper
Upon selection by a Selection Committee, authors will receive more detailed instructions about
the full paper by 30th of September 2015. The final paper will be around 20,000 characters
long. It is due by the 15th of December 2015, 6.00 pm E.S.T. The full papers have to be
submitted to the following id: cupg.tiss@gmail.com