Since mid-2000s theories of network governance in public policy have been criticised for overlooking power relations and conflict in everyday practice. The workshop seeks to build upon these criticisms through the discussion on urban/peri-urban infrastructures. This topic is timely as several world regions are facing continuous pressure generated from clashes between global capitalism and the environment across urban and quasi-urban localities and which involve continuous relationships between state and non-state actors throughout several stages of the policymaking process. However, local specificities have rendered these relationships diverse despite the first impressions of similarity that global contextual factors portray.
Building upon debates from an interdisciplinary perspective (public policy, geography, anthropology, law, sociology), the discussion of the workshop will depart from a methodological framework that touches upon issues on participation and human rights, conflict, social movements, expertise-depoliticization and the role of the state. The workshop aims to bring together academics who study these topics in Latin America and Europe.
The workshop has two main objectives, to:
- Analyse critically the current practices of governance in contexts of infrastructural investment in Europe (urban infrastructures) and Latin America (peri-urban, neo-extractivist infrastructures).
- Exchange methodologies and methods of data collection which could tease out the study of the complexities, scales and dimensions involved in participation and conflict that may result from, or are comparable to, the implementation of infrastructures.
The workshop’s speakers aim to create a novel dialogue based not on the comparison of similarity but on the potential learning from comparing difference. Some questions which may be guiding discussion are:
- How are (large) infrastructures coexisting alongside inequality and conflict/ violence?
- How do types/scales of conflict between state, businesses and community groups develop?
- Through what practices, connections or bridges are the urban and peri-urban (semi-rural) interweaving? Are these characterised by multi-scalarity?
- Are ideas and meanings the way forward to understand why states in the global south and north favour a corporatist agenda?
- Is situated agency the way forward to address the problems or working solutions that infrastructural investment underline across the north-south and urban-rural divides? What are its limitations?
- What are the meanings and values that frame environmental governance alongside (large) infrastructures?
To book a place please contact Valeria Guarneros-Meza valeria.guarneros@dmu.ac.uk by 1 May 2017. Catering will be provided on both days.
| WORKSHOP PROGRAMME | |
| Thursday 11th May | Location: Hugh Aston 2.32 & 2.33, DMU |
| 2.30pm – 2.45pm | Welcome/Registration
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| 2.45pm – 4.45pm | Session 1: Knowledge creation and infrastructures |
| Discursive constructions of noise and air: the environmental politics of airport expansion in France and the UK Prof. David Howarth (University of Essex) and Prof. Stephen Griggs (De Montfort University) | |
| Energy landscapes in peri-urban areas: notes on Concepción, Chile Dr. Vanesa Castán Broto (University College London)
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| 4.45pm – 5.30 | Wine reception |
| Friday 12th May | Location: Hugh Aston 2.32 & 2.33, DMU |
| 9.30am – 11.00am | Session 2: Re-politicisation and citizen participation in urban infrastructures |
| Re-politicisation and civil society expertise in the UK’s high speed rail megaproject, HS2 Dr Dan Durrant (University College London) | |
| Impact of citizen participation on drinking water and basic sanitation governance and management: Regional Analysis of Four Case Studies in Latin America Dr Ernesto Isunza Vera (CIESAS-Mexico/Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) | |
| 11:.30am – 1.00pm | Session 3: Disobedience, conflict and violence (Chair: TBC) |
| Performing democratic engagement in climate disobedience actions in Europe Dr. Graeme Hays (Aston University) | |
| Conversing with Goliath: Participation, mobilisation and repression in neo-extractivist infrastructures, Mexico Dr.Gisela Zaremberg and team (Facultad Lationoamericana de Ciensas Sociales, Mexico) | |
| 1.00pm – 2.00pm | Lunch |