[URBANTH-L] Cfp: Urban Ontologies: Importing Actor-Network Theory into Urban Studies

[Bas van Heur]

/// PLEASE CIRCULATE AND SORRY FOR CROSSPOSTINGS ///

The Center for Metropolitan Studies – Berlin cordially invites you to an 
international and interdisciplinary workshop on:

Urban Ontologies: Importing Actor-Network Theory into the Urban Studies

Invited Mentor: Prof. Tom Bender (History Department – NYU / 
Transatlantic Graduate Research Program ‘New York – Berlin’)
Organiser: Ignacio Farías (European Ethnology – HU Berlin / 
Transatlantic Graduate Research Program ‘New York – Berlin’)

29. May 2007. 9 am to 3 pm

At the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CMS), Technical University of Berlin

The main objective of this workshop is to explore and discuss the 
advantages and limitations of importing some basic theoretical 
principles proposed by Actor-Network theory into the study of the city. 
Particularly, we would like to focus on the consequences of such theory 
for the ontology of the city.

We welcome paper presentations dealing with some of the following issues:

1. Expanding the Urban Ecology: Nature, objects and technologies as 
urban actors.

2. One-multiple-city: Sociotechnical networks, virtual assemblages, and 
multiple imaginaries.

3. Politics of urban ontologies: Responsibilities, interventions, and 
Otherness


The workshop addresses Ph.D. Candidates and Post-Doc scholars from 
social sciences and the humanities working within the field of urban 
studies.
Papers (3000-6000 words) or detailed abstracts (ca. 1000 words) should 
be sent until April 23 to the workshop convenors. Acceptation and 
comments will be communicated by April 27. No more than six papers will 
be selected for presentation in order to have enough time for 
discussion. Final papers should be sent by May 7. These will be 
circulated among presenters and discussants two weeks before the workshop.

Papers will be briefly presented (15 minutes) and extensively discussed 
(30 minutes). Presentations should summarize the central arguments 
presented in the papers and critically reflect on questions and problems 
left open in the papers.

The number of attendants, hearers, and discussants will be kept down. 
People interested in attending must register in advance. There are no 
registration fees for the workshop. Unfortunately travel, possible 
accommodation and lunch cannot be funded by the CMS. Presenters and 
participants will be also officially invited to attend the conference 
“Time Space Dynamics in Urban Settings” organized and hosted by the CMS 
in Berlin (May 24-26).

Contact: Ignacio Farias. ignacio.farias at metropolitanstudies.de