Events

Final symposium in the first iteration of the series.
Join us a full-day symposium in which we explore the democratic and sustainability potential of ambitious cities. 

Confirmed speakers:

Tea Lobo (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)

Stijn Oosterlynck (University of Antwerp, Belgium) 

plus Jan Kees Kleuven (Municipality of Groningen). 

Date: Thursday 25 September 2025

Time: 9.30 - 16.30 

The final programme for the day will be published here by the end of June. .  

Location: House of Connections, Grote Markt, Groningen

https://maps.app.goo.gl/8oXzeMXfUxGM91ua9

Online access - note the talks will not be recorded

(will be shared with registered participants)

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Cities at the Frontier

As urbanisation picks up pace, so does the importance of cities, both as loci of climate change and mitigation/adaptation, and as sites of political and societal contestation. This lends urgency to the question: how can we (re-)gain urban political agency for just and thriving futures? In this symposium we seek to contribute to the burgeoning critical, interdisciplinary dialogue on urban political agency and the potential of cities to shape just and sustainable futures (e.g., Creutzig et al., 2024; Frick, 2023; Oosterlynck et al., 2020; Davies & Msengana-Ndlela, 2015). The symposium serves as a culmination of the first “Where is Urban Politics?” seminar series. 

Globally, we observe cities setting ambitious goals connecting climate, governance, and justice – often going further than the policies and laws of the nation state. In doing so, cities seek to engage with the broader ecological and societal impacts of their uneven development. This is evident in city networks (such as C40, ICLEI, CitiesAlliance), urban knowledge partnerships (such as URBACT), urban awards (e.g., European Capital of Democracy), but also in the application of progressive socio-economic models (e.g., Doughnut Economics). In some regions the gap or even conflict between local politics and the national political arena seems to accelerate. In this symposium we seek to address future-oriented questions engaging with this situation. 

What do cities’ progressive commitments tell us about:

• the evolving (self-)understanding of ‘city-nature’ relations? 

• the evolving understanding of wider political and economic structures which co-shape urban development? 

• the possibilities of urban (political) agency towards ecologically and socially just futures?

• the limits and risks of co-optation, and potentials to connect with wider agendas for meaningful change?

We engage with forward-looking contributions which see cities as political actors, while also recognising that urban politics is shaped beyond the geographic or administrative boundaries of the city, and considering impacts and associated inequalities of urbanisation processes more broadly. The open symposium splits into three elements: 1. invited speakers, 2. submitted contributions, and discussions. 

We invite researchers and practitioners working in or across relevant fields such as political or environmental philosophy, political theory, urban studies, planning, geography, sustainability studies etc to join us for an inspiring day of talks, meeting and discussion.

Please register here. 

Full Programme

9.30 Arrival & Coffee

10.00 Welcome & Invited speaker:

Stijn Oosterlynck (University of Antwerp, Belgium)

Title: “Regulating like a city: urban civil society and

the limitations of the national governance of poverty and diversity”

11.15 Contribution:

Bart Popken (RUG): “City of the Commons or City of Commodities? New

Municipalism and Housing in Groningen”

11.45 coffee break

12.00 Interview and discussion:

Jan Kees Kleuver (Municipality of Groningen):

Title: “Groningen - Carbon-Neutral by 2030 - lessons on urban ambitions”

12.45 Lunch Break

14.00 Invited speaker:

Tea Lobo (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), ON SCREEN

Title: “The City as Nature and Political Agency”

14.45 Contribution

Penelope Vasquez Hadilyra (Frederick University, Cyprus): “Caring for

municipal capacity.”

15.15 Coffee Break

15.30 Contribution:

XiaoxiaZhang (TU Delft): “Reassembling State Entrepreneurialism: What

China’s Interventionist State 2.0 Reveals about Urban Political Agency after

the Pandemic”

16.00 Contribution:

Efstathios Margaritis (University of Southampton, UK): “What if the politics

of the city began with how it sounds...?”

16.30 Closing & Discussion:

Marian Counihan & Christian Lamker (University of Groningen)

“Urban politics between centre, margin, and crossroads - learning from two

years of ‘Where is Urban Politics?’”, with closing discussion

17.00 Open Borrel & Drinks

evening Potential joint dinner (upon interest, self-paid)

(banner image: Duurzaam Gebouwd)

Fourth seminar in the series  'Where is Urban Politics?'

We are delighted to welcome Bart van Leeuwen (Radboud University, Nijmegen) for a lecture on the spatial dimensions of urban justice.  This lecture will be a combined seminar with 'The City' course. 

Date: Friday 16 May 2025

Time: 13.00

University College Groningen, online joining also possible. Note: The lecture will not be recorded. 

Spatial aspects of urban justice

This seminar will address a normative conception of urban space. I will discuss a number of distinctions, including a distinction between justice "in" and "of" the city, where "in" refers to justice as a distribution issue and "of" refers to justice embodied in the organization of urban space itself. I will discuss a further conceptual subdivision of the latter category by distinguishing between urban space as "actor" and as "expression".

Please register here. 

To participate online, please join the following Google Meet:

Where is Urban Politics with Bart van Leeuwen

Friday, May 16 · 1:00 – 2:30pm

Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/idg-rsfy-jkx

Arts-based practices and urban politics

Third seminar in the series  'Where is Urban Politics?'

Please register here.

Join us on Tuesday 21 January for a lecture by Rita Sitas, senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town.

This event is organised as part of the kick-off of the Erasmus+ funded partnership project ACT-UP! Active Citizenship through Theatre for Urban Politics. 

ACT UP! will develop theatre-based educational methods to strengthen active citizenship and to broaden possibilities for civic action and participation in the urban arena in response to the climate emergency. In the project presentation we motivate the project and tell about our plans, collaborations and objectives, as well as possibilities to participate. 

Details of Rike's talk are as follows: 

Arts-based practices and urban politics

Over the past two decades there have been increasing ‘urban turns’ in art, and ‘artful turns’ in urban studies across the world. In many ways the positive role of arts in urban justice has been exuberantly asserted, and in some places, well-funded. But circulation of Anglophone global North perspectives have been more energetically enabled than those from elsewhere. In this talk I will reflect on quieter forms of artful “activism without announcement’ (Mlandu, 2022), paying attention to intersectional feminist and queer initiatives and the role they play in troubling politics and power dynamics in, between, and from African cities.

Schedule - Project kick-off ACT UP! and WUP lecture

Tuesday 21 January 2025

14.00 - 15.00 - ACT-UP! project presentation with project partners Marian Counihan and Marline Lisette Wilders (RUG), Cecilie Sachs Olsen (OSLOMET), Anneli Saro and Hedi-Liis Toome (UT), Rike Sitas (UCT).

15.15 - 16.45 - Arts-based practices and urban politics - lecture by Rike Sitas followed a response by Senka Neuman-Stanivukovic of the Transitions and Social Justice Group from the Rudolf Agricola School​, as well as time for questions and discussion. ​

You are warmly invited to join us for drinks afterwards.

Venue: 

Learning Landscape

University College, University of Groningen

Hoendiepskade 23/24

Please register here.

Second seminar in the series  'Where is Urban Politics?'

In recent years, housing policy has reemerged as a major domain of contestation in cities across Europe. In this seminar we bring together speakers from economics, philosophy and spatial planning to share and exchange on the the (re)politicisation of urban housing, to consider and critically evaluate the ways in which housing policies and regulatory decisions contribute to or undermine forms of spatial and socio-economic justice.

Wednesday 13 November 2024, 

13.45 - 17.45, including drinks. 

University College Groningen, online joining also possible. 

Co-organised with the PPE Centre, RUG

Please register here.

Schedule 

13.45  walk in 

14.00  keynote: The financialisation of housing: drivers, outcomes and options for reform  Josh Ryan Collins (UCL, UK) -  including response by Dirk Bezemer & questions

15.00  coffee break

15.15  Housing allocation, clustering and spatial justice - Elisabetta Gobbo (EUR) 

16.00  Urban Interventions: property development, spatial planning, and the just city - Christian Lamker and Sara Özogul (RUG)

16.45  closing discussion

17.00  drinks 

Rediscovering Urban Politics 

First seminar in the series  'Where is Urban Politics?'

Monday 16 September, 2024

14.00 - 17.00

With Ross Beveridge (University of Glasgow (UK),
Philippe Koch (ZHAW School of Architecture, Design and Civil Engineering, Switzerland)
and others.

Urbanisation is changing landscapes, social relations and everyday lives across the globe. At the same time, urbanisation is also changing the ways democracy is understood and practiced. In this lecture, we provide a novel way of thinking the relationship between democracy and the urban based on two main arguments. First, across the globe claims for and forms of urban collective self-rule signal that the city retains democratic significance in a very specific sense: as an object of practice and thought the city is a source and stake of the urban demos. Second, urbanisation unsettles seemingly fixed boundaries between the state and society and thus opens the possibility of weaving together a new democratic fabric encompassing both. There is a democratic politics of urbanisation that shifts perspectives from institutions to practices, from jurisdictional scales to spaces of collective urban life. Seeing democracy like a city, we argue, foregrounds a way to re-locate democracy in the everyday lives of urbanites and to unlock the transformative potential of an urban democracy.

They will draw on recent work like their book “How Cities Can Transform Democracy” (2023) and their article “Seeing Democracy like a City” (2023).

Venue: 

Learning Landscape

University College, University of Groningen

Hoendiepskade 23/24

🗺️ https://g.co/kgs/JwWvgWx

Schedule:

14.00 arrival and introduction

14.30 presentation "Seeing Democracy like a city" by Ross Beveridge and Phillipe Koch

15.30 break

15.45 presentation by Darren Sierhuis, followed by discussion.

16.45 closing and drinks.

All guests are invited for drinks afterwards.

Registration:

Please register here.
The event is free of charge.