L’espace urbain est un lieu propice à l’analyse des changements rapides vécus comme des situations d’épreuve et d’incertitude. Nous souhaitons interroger des contextes de changement urbain radical à partir d’une perspective de l’attachement en tant que manière d’habiter la ville. Ici l’attachement, compris comme ce à quoi nous tenons et ce qui nous tient, ou encore ce qui nous relie, se manifeste par l’instauration d’espaces-temps singuliers, exprimant les relations des individus à leur environnement. Or, en situation de changement radical ces attachements sont mis à l’épreuve, parfois détruits ou totalement reformulés, voire même le produit de ces contextes.

Presentation

Urban space is the fieldwork par excellence for the analysis of rapid changes experienced as challenge and uncertainty situations. We wish to examine the contexts of radical urban change considering the attachment perspective as a way of living in the city. Here attachment, understood as what we care for and what holds us, in other words what connects us, is defined by the instauration of singular spaces-times expressing the relations of individuals to their environment. However, in the situations of radical change these attachments are challenged, sometimes destroyed or totally reformulated, or even produced by these contexts.

Main themes

The expected papers will be based on ethnographic approaches to various lived situations of radical change (public space transformations, building demolitions, disruptions in homing, border changes, migrations and forced displacements, new digital lifestyles, industrial and environmental crises, etc.). The proposals should address the following two points: first, describe the process of attachment in the various dimensions involved (sensory, cognitive, political) ; second, identify social practices through which contemporary attachments are expressed and acted upon (i.e. urban exploration - urbex, "urban walks", roots or memory tourism, construction of new religious and worship spaces, digital networks of citizen action, amateur activities, commemorative devices, etc.).

Submission guidelines

Please, send your paper proposal (around 200 words) to the workshop convenors

before May 15th, 2014

Convenors:

• Dr Bianca Botea (Université Lumière Lyon 2)
• Sarah Rojon (Université Jean Monnet – Saint-Etienne)

Contact: ebbotea@yahoo.fr / sarah.rojon@gmail.com

Calendar : The results of the selection after evaluation by the organisers of the panel will be announced around June 2, 2014. The texts of the presentations (10 minutes) have to be sent at the latest by July 1^st, 2014.

The workshop will include an introduction by the convenors, a 10-minutes presentation from the selected participants and about one hour round-table discussion among panellists and from the floor. 

General convenors

• Michel Rautenberg, Centre Max Weber, Université Jean Monnet, St Etienne, France, michel.rautenberg@univ-st-etienne.fr
• Corine Védrine, Centre Max Weber, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon,France

Scientific committee

• Ahmed Boubeker, University of St Etienne (France)
• Bella Dicks, University of Cardiff (UK)
• Ivaylo Ditchev, University of Sofia (Bulgaria)
• Jerry Krase, Brooklyn College (USA)
• Italo Pardo, University of Kent (UK)
• Giuliana Prato, University of Kent (UK)
• Manos Spyridakis, University of Peloponnese (Greece)