UTA-Do Conversations
UTA-Do? is a sheng slang phrase from Kenya meaning ‘what are you going to do about it?’ (said defiantly). For us, UTA-Do is a call to ask ourselves what we are going to do about the inequalities in our cities. We also use the term to reference a collective process that involves engaging with Urban Theory in Africa, as well as recognizing the doing that informs and enriches it.
Annual workshop
The UTA-Do African Cities Workshop is our main event, a critical urban studies ‘summer school’ that aims to contribute to making African urban scholarship and imagination more inclusive. UTA-Do also intends to contribute to democratizing access to the resources required to shape and produce information about African cities.
Much of the work on African urban change is coming from global North scholars, who are deploying research and analytical methodologies which are often insufficient when faced with empirical realities. We are motivated by the need to develop a richer dialogue among African scholars, which can contribute to challenging existing knowledge and funding asymmetries, while also amplifying perspectives from the continent.
UTA-Do Conversations
Building on the annual workshop, UTA-Do Conversations convenes dialogues among activists, practitioners and scholars working in Africa. We aim for these conversations to be an antidote to the talk treadmill, challenging dominant narratives about African cities and unsettling rote talking points and buzzword checklists in urban studies. And, most importantly, to ask ourselves uta-do?
Events
No upcoming events scheduled at the moment. Check back soon.
The inaugural UTA-Do Conversation, this event aims to interrogate how Africa features in global theory on and policy practices of climate change and related phenomena, including the Anthropocene and “green transitions.” In particular, we seek to foreground how the experiences within African cities can nuance these discourses and practices.