[URBANTH-L] CFP: "The Right to the City and the Politics of Space," UC Berkeley grad conference

[Benito Vergara]

2006 Breslauer Graduate Student Conference
Friday, April 14, 2006, 9-5 pm
The Sultan Room, 340 Stephens Hall
UC Berkeley

The Right to the City and the Politics of Space

Call for Papers
Millions of people around the world live on the streets, in substandard
structures, or on plots of land under the constant threat of eviction and
displacement.  With the rise of neoliberal policy regimes, these struggles over
urban and rural space have intensified.  But these old and new marginalities
have been and continue to be challenged by a host of survival strategies,
negotiations that claim a right to the city, social movements, peasant
uprisings, squatter mobilizations, and other forms of resistance.  This
conference brings together graduate students interested in these struggles for
shelter and livelihood, competing claims to land, and politics of space.  It
also seeks to cut across the often-divided analytical and geopolitical domains
of First and Third Worlds, bringing together those working within the Global
South and those working within the Euro-American context.

Potential themes may include:
The Right to the City                                                
Politics of Space       
Peasant Struggles                                                    
Slums & Squatters
Displacement & Migrations                                  
Homelessness    
Carceral Geographies                                        
Shelter Struggles
Land Reform & Tenure                                        
Social Movements in Space

Keynote Speaker:
Don Mitchell:  Chair of the Geography Department at Syracuse University,
Professor Mitchell is well known for his work on the historical production of
landscapes as they relate to workers and the working class, the relationship
between culture and power, and the production and meaning of public space.  His
groundbreaking book, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for
Public Space (2003), explores the struggles over public space in American cities
and the modes of control that have led to the marginalization of the homeless.
        
The Breslauer Graduate Student Symposium
The Breslauer Graduate Student Symposium is an annual one-day conference
comprised primarily of UC Berkeley graduate students on an internationally
relevant theme. The goal of the symposium is to support graduate student
research on international issues related to the pursuit of solutions to
real-world problems.  The symposium was established in 2001, and is made
possible by a campus donor in honor of George Breslauer, Executive Dean of
Letters & Science at UC Berkeley.

Conference Eligibility
All presenters at the symposium must be graduate students whose research focuses
on rights to the city and/or the politics of space. Graduate students from other
campuses are welcome. Submissions can include well-developed research proposals,
draft dissertation chapters, papers in preparation, and independent research
projects.  All presenters must be able to clearly explain the technical details
specific to their discipline in a manner that is accessible to all symposium
participants.

Abstract Submission Process
E-mail submissions will be accepted at breslauer.2006 at gmail.com through February
27, 2006. Authors should both attach the abstract as a Word document and include
the text of the abstract in the body of the message.  Please be sure to include
the following information in the e-mail as well: Full name, departmental
affiliation, degree program, and the title of your abstract.  Accepted authors
will receive notification no later than March 3, 2006.  Three weeks prior to the
symposium, accepted authors will be expected to submit a draft working paper.
Authors will have six weeks after the symposium to submit the final version of
their paper, which will be published on-line as part of the International and
Area Studies working paper series.


Contact information
For updates on the symposium, please visit the symposium website at
http://dcrp.ced.berkeley.edu/breslauer. All additional questions can be directed
to co-coordinators Stacey Murphy, Sylvia Nam and Carmen Rojas via email at:
breslauer.2006 at gmail.com.