Cities in the South revisited

Cities in the South are very often depicted as problematic or even pathological entities marked by lack, decay, scarcity and marginalisation, by increasing poverty and de-industrialisation, by violence and breakdown, or by an increasing lack of space and an ever-growing demographic density. Although to some extent this might be true, the use of the words ‘poverty’, ‘violence’, ‘slum’, etc, has also rendered invisible the everyday practices and experiences of urban dwellers, the concrete content of urban life as lived on a daily basis.

The 2011 Interdisciplinary Debates on Development and Cultures seek to offer an in-depth reflection on the development of cities in the Global South, and the different dynamics that shape these urban sites today. Renowned architects, urban planners, anthropologists, geographers, activists, artists, sociologists and engineers such as Garth Myers, Arjun Appadurai, Carole Rakodi, Vanessa Watson, Stephen Cairns and Aryo Danusiri will share with us their alternative, sometimes artistic, readings of these specific urban spaces. The lectures will acknowledge both the tensions and conflicts at work in such sites, as well as the opportunities that are generated thanks to or in spite of them. Finally, the debates will also pay a great deal of attention to the specific ways in which city dwellers’ ‘agency’ is enabled or disabled by such urban environments.

The K.U.Leuven runs the two-year interfaculty course ‘Interdisciplinary perspectives on Development and Cultures’. The general objective of the course is to raise critical and interdisciplinary reflections on essential and pressing problems concerning development (cooperation) and North-South relations. In 2011, the Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA) coordinates the debates in collaboration with the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning (ASRO). The focus is on Cities in Development: Spaces, Conflicts and Agency.

The full programme and practical information can be found on www.cades.be/debates.