The workshop “Beyond Urban Transformation. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Everyday Life” organized by scholars from Humboldt University, Harvard University and the University of Toronto brings together senior and junior scholars from urban anthropology, geography and design to collaborate on researching how urban transformation can be studied ethnographically from the perspective of everyday practice. As ethnographers, geographers, artists and urban planners, our research models must navigate multiple scales of analysis in cities while committing to the fine-grained analysis of everyday life experiences of urban transformations, which reflect the larger scale processes of urban change.
Under the broad theme of urban transformation, our workshop will focus on the two sub-themes of urban resilience and urban commons. The topics will be explored during the workshop through a detailed process of sharing about current research praxis and developing collaborative, interdisciplinary models for research engagement. We will focus on methodological approaches that generate “thick data” (as opposed to big data) about the practice of the urban everyday life. The workshop will focus explicitly on the connection between core theoretical concepts in urban studies, including resilience, urban commons, and practice, and their concomitant interdisciplinary methodological approaches. The workshop participants will develop new approaches to bridge theoretical concepts with interdisciplinary research methods.
Urban Ethnography Lab, Berlin, Germany
KOSMOS – Excellence Initiative, Berlin, Germany
Georg-Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies, Berlin, Germany
Humboldt-University of Berlin, Geography Department, Berlin, Germany
University of Toronto, Anthropology Department, Ethnography Lab, Toronto, Canada
Harvard University, Boston, USA