Guest Lecture Dr Peter North (U Liverpool) - Dignity and prosperity for the Anthropocene: Towards social and solidarity economies

On Wednesday 9th March
at 12h30-14h,
in the Black Box (MSH),
please join us as the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning welcomes Dr. Peter North from the University of Liverpool, to present "Dignity and prosperity for the Anthropocene: Towards social and solidarity economies"

AbstractFor some, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was ‘the end of history’ in that humanity had decisively rejected the 20th century challenges of market economies and democracy in the form of Fascism and Soviet Communism. For a time, lightly regulated markets supported by the institutions to make them work well was the sine qua non for successful economies. We might as well dispute that the world was round than challenge that common sense: until 2008 that is.

Yet it is still the case that we do not know how to build democratically-controlled market economies that meet the needs of the many to live the life they wish to with dignity, in ways that are within the limits of the ecosystem to provide resources and absorb its wastes. The Diverse Economies perspective has recently suggested the need for a ‘economic ethics for the Anthropocene’ which focusses on how we want to live, in common, in ways that respect the ecosystem, other species, and other people both now and in the future.

I want to argue that developing an ethics of How we should live is valuable, but perhaps the issue is less to imagine other ethical perspectives than to examine practices for living in a convivial economy. The paper looks at two areas in which a convivial, democratically-controlled economy is being enacted, through community currencies and worker managed firms, to examine the extent that practices are enabling a different ethics to be enacted.

Reflections on science, research and practice

Last year Markus Hesse was invited to contribute to the Kolumne (‘column’) in disP – The Planning Review, published 4 times a year by Taylor & Francis in association with the ETH Zurich. The journal is devoted to professionals in research and in practice who are interested in European planning issues. For more see http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rdsp20.

The contribution comprised a series of small commentaries (2 pages) that were addressing popular claims on the purchase of contemporary research, such as innovation, science-policy interaction or transdisciplinarity. These comments can also be read as somehow summarizing a particular style of thought that is cautious on such expectations and insists on a reflective, independent and critical positioning of science in general and the researcher in particular. The fourth and final piece of this series on 'Language' came out recently; a couple of free copies may be still available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UJpe8hq2hmW8QwhwCDPR/full.

Guest Lecture - Dr. Olivia Bina (U. Lisbon), Mind the Gap: Our future imagined in popular art and in the Grand Societal Challenges

The Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning welcomes Dr. Olivia Bina 
 

Tuesday, 23 February 2016, 12:30 -14:00
Campus Belval, Maison des Sciences Humaines, Black Box

European science policy (so-called Horizon 2020) is guided by Grand Societal Challenges (GSCs) with the explicit aim of shaping the future. In this talk I propose an innovative approach to the analysis and critique of Europe’s GSCs. As part of a task within FP7 project FLAGSHIP I ask: what do imagined futures and challenges within fiction (novels and films) have to say about our policy-defined challenges, and why does it matter?

The aim is to explore how speculative and creative fiction offer ways of embodying, telling, imagining, and symbolizing ‘futures’, that can provide alternative frames and understandings to enrich the grand challenges of the 21st century, and the related rationale and agendas for ERA and H2020. There are six ways in which filmic and literary representations can be considered creative foresight methods, providing alternative perspectives on these central challenges, and warning signals for the science policy they inform. As well as, potentially for our futures.

I will highlight how fiction sees oppression, inequality and a range of ethical issues linked to the dignity of humans and nature, as central to, and inseparable from innovation, technology and science. I conclude identifying warning signals in four major domains, arguing that these signals are compelling, and ought to be heard, not least because elements of such future have already escaped the imaginary world to make part of today’s experience. I identify areas poorly defined or absent from Europe’s science agenda, question our technoscience agenda and argue for the need to increase research into human, social, political and cultural processes involved in techno-science endeavours.

CFP- RGS-IBG - Be constructive! Situating sustainability research between positivism and reflective positionality

Proposal for a paper session at the Annual Conference 2016 of RGS-IBG, London, 30 August – 2 September, 2016

Organisers:

Constance Carr, University of Luxembourg

Markus Hesse, University of Luxembourg

Abstract

Sustainable development remains a powerful concept across European and global fields of policy-making. Spurred by the all-encompassing threat of climate change, the rhetoric of a great transformation successfully occupies current policy and practice. However, in contrast to the doom and gloom predictions, and in stark contrast to the sheer magnitude of the challenge of dealing with such complex set of problems, recent policy ideas and recipes seem trivial, and overly rationalized and optimistic. With respect to this, there are two interrelated issues that we want to explore in this session.

First, much of this new rationality of sustainability moults into popular labels such as ‘green’ or ‘smart’ where the city is the primary setting. This search for practical solutions in the city is further buttressed by the ‘sustainability business’ and associated green-washing practices that have emerged, as well as a variety of tools to assess, monitor, evaluate, and certify sustainability initiatives (indicators, metrics, and planning orthodoxies such as density, integrated, or holistic planning) that have become standard practice. Scholars have been active to identify the pitfalls here: Elgert & Krueger (2012) discussed the epistemology of metrics; Wiig (2015) interrogated the corporate strategy of a multi such as IBM behind ‘smart city’; Angelo & Wachsmuth (2015) criticized ‘methodological cityism’ in political ecology; Purcell (2006) showed the limits to localism; Mössner (2013) exposed socio-political limits of green cities. These criticisms highlight that there is something else to explore beyond current notions of sustainability. In this session, we welcome further critiques of existing attempts, as well as imaginaries of sustainability that embrace more contemporary imaginaries of urban geographies. These may include:

• Critical reflections on super-optimist projects such as transition towns, or green cities (e.g. localism, methodological city-ism, green-washing in urban marketing);
• Research on the disparity between the normative of sustainable development and current policy realities (How has this disparity changed? How is it produced? What lays outside the current lens? How has green urbanism changed over time and across places?)

The second issue relates to expectations of knowledge proliferation in academia, as research communities are increasingly embedded in contradictory settings, expected to provide results and not problems, to be frank but constructive, and moreover, to be elite, excellent, income-generating as well as critical. In this respect, there is thus good reason to analyse the research-policy nexus, as Woods & Gardner (2011), Pain (2006), and Beaumont et al. (2005) have explored, examine the construction of knowledge claims as Rydin (2007) has explained, and rework some considerations with regards to rationalist modes in sustainable development and emerging sustainability modernities. We thus also want to, additionally, interrogate the tensions between the construction of positivist sustainability on the one hand, and the position of the critical researcher on the other hand, treading the fine line between Dennis Judd’s claim that urban scholars tend to assume that “everything is always going to hell” (Judd 2005) and Elbert Hubbard’s classical “positive anything is better than negative nothing” (Hawthorne 1902). Concrete questions in this regard may include:

• Who is producing and endorsing claims to knowledge in practices of sustainable development urbanism?
• What are the possibilities and limitations for researchers to balance constructive interventionism with realistic limits of sustainable development and all its complexities, messy politics, wicked problems that are observed in human geography?
• How is it possible to pursue state-led contract work while maintaining critical integrity?
• What are relevant reflections the ontology, methodology and ethics of applied SD research practice?

Lastly, we also welcome contributions that address how these two issues intersect and are interrelated. Please send abstracts of ca. 250 words, including a preliminary title, by February 10, 2016 to Constance Carr (constance.carr@uni.lu) and Markus Hesse (markus.hesse@uni.lu)

Call for Abstracts Deadline

February 10, 2016

Bibliography

Angelo, H. & Wachsmuth, D. 2015. “Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12105

Beaumont, J., Loopmans, M. & Uitermark, J. 2005. “Politicization of research and the relevance of geography: Some experiences and reflections for an ongoing debate”. Area 37: 118-126.

Elgert, L. & Krueger, R. 2012. “Modernising sustainable development? Standardisation, evidence and experts in local indicators”. Local Environment 7(5) 561-571.

Hawthorne, H. (1902) “Contemplations: being, several short essays, helpful sermonettes, epigrams, and orphic saying selected from the writings of Elbert Hubbard” NY, The Roycrofters.

Judd, D. R. (2005). “Everything is always going to hell. Urban scholars as end-time prophets”. Urban Affairs Review 41 (2), 119-131.

Lyons, N. (ed.) 2010. “Handbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry: Mapping a Way of Knowing for Professional Reflective Inquiry”. Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-85744-2

Mössner, S. 2013. Sustainable Urban Development as Consensual Practice: Post-Politics in Freiburg, Germany. Regional Studies 10.1080/00343404.2015.110287

Pain, R. 2006. “Seven deadly myths in policy research”. Progress in Human Geography 30: 250-259.

Purcell, M. 2006. “Urban democracy and the local trap”. Urban Studies 43(11) 1921-1941

Rydin, Y. 2007. “Re-examining the role of Knowledge within planning Theory” Planning Theory 6(1) 52-68.

Wiig, A. (2015). “IBM’s smart city as techno-utopian policy mobility”. City 19 (2-3), 258-273.

Woods, M. & Gardner, G. 2011. “Applied policy research and critical human geography: Some reflections on swimming in murky waters”. Dialogues in Human Geography 1(2) 198-214.

Guest Lecture: Robert Shaw (University of Newcastle) on The Fragmenting Frontier of Night in an Urban World

The Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Luxembourg is happy to present Dr Robert Shaw, from Newcastle University, who will be here to give a talk on his forthcoming book about the urban night.
 
Tuesday, 19 January 2016, 18:00 - 19:30
Maison des Sciences Humaines (MSH), Blackbox 
11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-Belval

In an area of global connections, increasingly ‘smart’ cities and increased social, economic and political flows, what remains of ‘night’ in an urban context? Does the darkness, solitude and isolation of night persist into the twenty first century? Can night still function as a space for outsiders, dissidents, what sociologists what called ‘the deviant’? And why should night matter to our understanding of the city at all?

In this presentation I will explore these questions by reflecting on the dominant conceptualisation of night as frontier (Melbin, Schivelbusch, Giwazdzinski), offering a sympathetic critique which seeks to retain the value of this metaphor in face of the apparently totalising forces of globalisation. I will argue that the spread of capitalism and strategies of governmentality into the night have caused the nocturnal frontier to fragment, with cities necessarily using night as part of an integrated twenty-four hour system for cities to function. I will align such a spread with debates about ‘planetary urbanization’ (Brenner, McFarlane, Robinson), drawing connections between the spatial transformations identified in that discourses and the temporal transformations about which I speak. Supported by a series of case studies, I argue that night seems to remain as a powerful force in cities for a number of reasons, and that there are several potential benefits for a continued fostering of the nocturnal in our cities. In conclusion, I note some of the future directions that social scientists of the night might explore. 

Taylor & Francis gives free access to articles in support of UN Millennium Development Goals

Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent the most important promise ever made to the world’s most vulnerable people. Promoted by the MDG Advocacy Group, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed to:

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality
5. Improve Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability; and
8. Global Partnership for Development

As described by Taylor & Francis, the main targets of Goal 7 were to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources; reduce biodiversity loss; lower the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and to instigate a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers. In efforts to endorse Goal 7, T&F has given free access to a selection of articles related to Urban Sustainable Development  chosen from its wider portfolio.

Congratulations to Tim Freytag, Stefan Gössling & Samuel Mössner whose paper entitled, Living the green city: Freiburg's Solarsiedlung between narratives and practices of sustainable urban development was included in this list, and is currently free to download.

This was a paper published in Constance Carr's (UniLu) and Julia Affolderbach's (U Hull) (2014) Special Issue of Local Environment, entitled, "Rescaling Sustainability".

Thanks to Rob Krueger (WPI & UniLu) and Julian Agyeman (Tufts U) who made this possible.

Post-doc position in Global Urban Studies

The University of Luxembourg seeks to hire outstanding researchers within its Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE)

Post-doctoral Researcher in Global Urban Studies (M/F)

• Réf.: F3R-IPS-PFN-15GLOB
• Full-time, 40 hrs/week
• 3-years contract
• Start date: 1 March 2016

The scientific collaborator position is part of the new FNR-funded research project GLOBAL that aims to study the processes and strategies of the internationalization of cities, making such cities becoming “relational”. In empirical terms, the project is based on three case studies to be conducted in Luxembourg-City, Luxembourg, Geneva, Switzerland and in the city-state of Singapore. (See blog post below). The successful applicant will be affiliated with the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning within the Research Unit "Identités. Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces" (IPSE). The candidate will contribute to the research activities in urban studies led by Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse.

Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse, the successful candidate will

• Participate in further developing the research concept of GLOBAL, most notably the approach of “relational cities”,
• Prepare the data-basis of the research on the internationalisation of cities in general and the three case study places in particular (literature, secondary data, archival data, press releases, grey literature),
• Contribute to the data collection in the case studies of GLOBAL, most notably by preparing and (partly) conducting the primary research activities,
• Take care of related field research activities in one of the three case studies areas, including on-site visits, preparatory arrangements and interviews/focus groups,
• Provide accurate data collection, assessment and interpretation, particularly with respect to non-standardised methods, and among others by means of software assistance (i.e. MaxQDA),
• Prepare the scientific reports on the related subject matter,
• Disseminate findings through blog entries and peer-reviewed publications, and also presenting the project’s findings at relevant scientific conferences.

Desired candidates will have:

• A completed PhD related to the field of human geography, sociology, other social sciences, or planning;
• Professional experience, i.e. research practice of at least three years following the termination of the doctorate
• A publication record that includes single and co-authored peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on the subject matter
• Fluent written and spoken language skills in English and further competencies in either German or French;
• A network of established research contacts at national and international levels;
• Ability to work independently and within an interdisciplinary team.

We offer

• A collaborative research environment in the social sciences and humanities in general and in geography and spatial planning in particular;
• Opportunity to participate in the development of interdisciplinary research structures, both within and beyond IPSE;
• Possibility to become part of a highly committed, highly international and dynamically developing Institute of about 30 people.

Applications are welcome in German or in English and must include the following:

• A letter of motivation;
• A detailed CV including research experience and publication record;
• A copy of the PhD diploma;
• At least two names and addresses of potential referees.

Deadline for applications: December 31st, 2015
Information and application procedures here: http://emea3.mrted.ly/we83
Contact: Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse (markus.hesse@uni.lu), Tél. +352 46 66 44-9627.
 

New Project Launch

GLOBAL research project to be commenced soon

This is to announce a new research project that will be conducted by our group: "GLOBAL: Relational cities and enclave urbanism in the 'Singapores of the West'. How niche-sovereignty strategies and political economy help minor metropolises to globalise. The cases of Geneva (CH) and Luxembourg (L)”.

The project is funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), Luxembourg, and will commence on 1^st March 2016. It has a duration of three years. GLOBAL complements previous research undertaken in the domains of sustainable development in general and regional governance in particular (see the research projects SUSTAINLUX and SUSTAIN_GOV), and it adds to our research trajectory on the link between city-regions and flows. These flows include not only material flows, but also the circulation of money or political ideas, and it specifically aims to link concepts of relational cities with a new understanding of how urban space is organised and governed.

The project addresses three main issues. First, the research will deal with the increasing degree of global integration of local places, an integration that is not related to their economic or population size but which is an outcome of their specialisation and the politics of niche-sovereignty. This will be done by drawing on the idea of relational cities and the example of three cities: Luxembourg, Geneva and Singapore. Second, the project will emphasise the urban-regional implications of the integration of these cities into global processes, with particular attention being paid to the emergence of specialised locales that are rather distinct and, in locational terms, separated from others. Here, it is the concept of enclave urbanism that will be mobilised to frame the development and implications of actually existing enclaves in the three relational cities investigated. And third, the project will interrogate the links between the macro-scale notion of the relational city and the meso-level concept of enclave urbanism by exploring how both of these imply similar governance attitudes and practices. This will be done by juxtaposing the traditions, beliefs and dilemmas of the key actors involved in both the original development of the case study cities as relational and of those responsible for the generation of enclave urbanism.

By investigating three enclave spaces in each of the three relational cities, the project will both strengthen the central concepts, develop a theoretical link between them on the basis of governance practices and generate insights on the three cities and their urban systems. In so doing, it will also contribute to detect both the “other” in globalisation, which is its local or regional imprint, and also the processes and dynamics that are going on “out there”, and study the manifold forms in which these two are linked together.

PLEASE NOTE:

We are seeking an experienced post-doc for collaborating in this research project over the next three years, to become a member of the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Luxembourg. Please find more information about the post here: http://emea3.mrted.ly/we83

Lecture - Luís Moreira de Sousa, “Frontiers in Energy Systems and Policy”

Speaker:	Luís Moreira de Sousa, Researcher and Journal Associate Editor “Frontiers in Energy Systems and Policy”.
Event date:	Tuesday, 08 December 2015, 19:00 - 20:30
Place:	Campus Limpertsberg, Bâtiment des Sciences, Auditoire BS 0.03 162a, avenue de la Faïencerie L-1511 Luxembourg
The Transition Towns movement started as a spontaneous reaction to the prospect of "Peak Oil" by an eight grade class in the Irish city of Kinsale in late 2005. Employing scientific resilience practices and dispensing a clear philosophical background, the movement grew incredibly fast, engulfing similar initiatives along the way, to reach over 1 000 communities around the world.   However, similarities and symbiosis with Green Anarchism and successor ideologies still pose a challenge to individuals that may not identify themselves with these previous philosophies. In this context, initiatives such as Energy Cooperatives provide an alternative path to engage the wider community in the inevitable energy transition process. This public lecture provides perspectives on the establishment of a citizens energy cooperative in Luxembourg.  Through Energy Cooperatives citizens invest financially on high technology to effectively earn dividends, but still within a framework of democracy, equality and transition.  The project of the Luxembourg transition town movement illustrates the transformative potential of energy cooperatives in a fairly favourable legal and regulatory environment. To conclude trends of the establishment of energy cooperatives in Europe are critically discussed:  Energy Cooperatives in Europe grew initially on the back of hefty feed-in-tariffs provided to technologies such as Photo-Voltaics, in what were essentially easy money processes. A rapid decline in renewable energy technology prices has since entirely changed the landscape. Today, not only have these feed-in-tariffs been scrapped, governments and industry now regard cheap renewable energies as a growing threat. With import duties imposed by the European Commission and heavy taxes approved by multiple member states, the energy transition is in practice being halted.   European energy cooperatives face today a sizeable challenge, in particular for its political dimension. However, with millions of citizens involved, these cooperatives can actually acquire a fundamental role in guaranteeing a thorough energy transition and the long term resilience of the European economy. Guest Lecturer: Luís Moreira de Sousa is a researcher with a background on Computer Science. He has worked in different national and European research projects, mostly applying open source tools in Geography and related fields. In 2005 he started the first Portuguese language website dedicated to "Peak Oil" (www.picodopetroleo.net). In 2006 he would be a founding member of the Portuguese branch of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO). Still that year he integrated the team that founded the European branch of the electronic energy forum TheOilDrum.com - to which he contributed until its closure in 2013. Since 2013 Luís has been an associate editor at the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Energy Systems and Policy. He writes regularly on Energy at his blog (attheedgeoftime.blogspot.com).

Lecture: Leymah Gbowee, winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

The University of Luxembourg and the RISC Consortium, in association with the European Commission, the United Nations Development Programme and the Luxembourgish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is proud to host Ms. Leymah Gbowee, winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize who will give a Kapuscinski Development Lecture on December 9, 2015. This lecture is part of the closing ceremony of the Luxembourgish Presidency of the EU and it will take place at the European Conference Centre in Kirschberg (Salle C) from 14:30 to 16:00.

The lecture is open to the public but registration is required by December 8 because badges will be issued to all who attend. It can be completed by providing a name and e-mail address at the following website: http://kapuscinskilectures.eu

This is a unique opportunity to hear a remarkable peacemaker speak in Luxembourg. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Harlan Koff