Just urban imaginaries colloquium

The colloquium offers an inclusive and diverse set of presentations from NGO's, academics and community activists.

The Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP), both research entities in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits will host this two day colloquium.  The colloquium offers an inclusive and diverse set of presentations with speakers from NGOs, such as Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute, community activists and initiatives, Slovo Park, and the Makers Valley, as well as, academics and officials. These reflections are also drawn from a range of cities including Tshwane, Cape Town, eThekwini, and Johannesburg.

The colloquium is looking at questions of Spatial and Social Justice is a crucial academic and practical pre-occupation for city governments and urban scholars alike and much has been written and discussed about what these notions may mean. However while there has been much focus on forms of exclusion in cities, less explored or understood are the ways in which different forms of inclusion are being materially constructed and created in city spaces – sometimes through conscious design, sometimes more spontaneously. There is much to explore and understand about these examples, in neighbourhoods across a variety of contexts, relevant for how to foster and accelerate the urban transformation that is essential to a more socially cohesive urban future but which is currently eluding South African cities. From a theoretical perspective there is a need to engage with the various conceptions of inclusion in a transitioning contemporary South Africa, the urban visions that are driving these and as well as their potential impacts on the city’s form and on society.

Add event to calendar