The **Urban Political** delves into contemporary urban issues with activists, scholars and policy-makers from around the world.
Providing informed views, state-of-the-art knowledge, and unusual insights, the podcast aims to advance our understanding of urban environments and how we might make them more just and democratic.
The **Urban Political** provides a new forum for reflection on bridging urban activism and scholarship, where regular features offer snapshots of pressing issues and new publications, allowing multiple voices of scholars and activists to enter into a transnational debate directly.
Hosted and produced by:
Ross Beveridge (University of Glasgow)
Markus Kip (Georg-Simmel-Center for Metropolitan Studies - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Mais Jafari (Technische Universität Dortmund)
Nitin Bathla (ETH-Zürich)
Julio Paulos (Université de Lausanne)
Nicolas Goez (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
Talja Blokland (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Hanna Hilbrandt (Universität Zürich)
Powered in partnership with the Georg-Simmel-Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Music credits: "Something Elated" by Broke For Free, CC BY 3.0 US
If you would like to produce an episode with us or have comments, please get in touch!
Follow us on
Twitter: @political_urban
Instagram: @urban_political
Featured on wisspod: https://wissenschaftspodcasts.de/podcasts/urban-political/
Email: urbanpolitical@protonmail.com
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Containment, States of Exception, and Solidarity Three prominent urban researchers with a focus on infectious diseases explain why political responses to the current coronavirus outbreak require an understanding of urban dynamics. Looking back at the last coronavirus pandemic, the SARS outbreak in 2002/3, they highlight what affected cities have learned from that experience for handling the ongoing crisis. Exploring the political challenges of the current state of exception in Canada, Germany, S...
Mexico City's Green Municipal Bonds and the role of standard setting organizations The crisis of 2008 has set into motion a growing influence of finance in municipalities. In particular, financial actors have identified an enormous "investment gap" in cities in the Global South. This trend intersects with a new set of urban development strategies, that present the financial market as a catalyst for sustainable development. Standard setting organizations facilitate this process by providing norms...
Exploring the urban dimension of the protests with Azun Candina and Daniel Opazo Chile despertó - Chile woke up - is a key slogan oft he ongoing uprisings in Chile that began in the capital Santiago in October 2019. Since then, heavy confrontations happened with the regime of president Piñera. For the first time since the dictatorship that ended in 1990, the army was deployed and curfews were installed in an attempt to quell the unrest. Although the protests have disappeared from the title pages...
Interview with Bertie Russell and Matt Thompson What is "New Municipalism"? In this first of a new series Ross seeks clarification from scholar-activists Bertie Russell and Matt Thompson who give us a conceptual and historical take on this new urban movement, offering reflections on UK examples like Preston. The interview was recorded at the end of August 2019 at the Royal Geographers Society / Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference Annual Conference in London. Guests: Dr Bertie Russ...
After the Test Phase Having successfully completed its initial test-phase, our podcast steps into higher gear. A good time for us to reflect on our experience so far and to plan for the next couple of months. Join us in our 15 mins editorial talk!
Queer Urban Space and Online Dating Looking for Love? Over the past decade, the market for online dating has been booming. And this did not leave the offline city unaffected. Listen to Sam Miles' sharp account on what online dating is all about and what it has to do with the urban. Far from being an innocent tool of the lonely hearts, online dating has been accused of a range of real life issues such as racism, lookism, the casualization of sex, or the de-queering of the city-scape. And Sam tell...
The Language of the City In a city, the idea of "standard language" falls apart. Linguistic researchers explain how urban space becomes a vital part of our ability to communicate in multilingual contexts. Think about "spatial repertoires" as the basis for communication. A market in Berlin-Kreuzberg, one of our guests' research site, is the backdrop to illustrate how Turkish, Kurdish, German, English, and other languages are turned into linguistic resources that vendors and customers draw on, swi...
An in-depth interview with Sampson Wong Activist-scholar Sampson Wong offers captivating insights on the current wave of protests that has galvanized Hong Kong since June. Sampson explains what is at stake, how the political dimension has gained predominance over economic concerns of the population, and why the protesters have become radicalized over the past few months. If you want to find out about the "be water" tactics of the movement, its experimental approach to urban space, the smooth tra...
Roundtable on cultural heritage as a resource of community resistance Among critical scholars and urban activists, the care for heritage of an urban area is often associated with strategies to commercialize, to touristify the area and ultimately to pave the ground for gentrification. Neighborhood development based on its heritage all too often is geared towards creating a unique selling point of the area to attract more visitors and to create commercial services to accommodate visitors: from tou...
The Future of Post-War Settlements Post-war mass housing is at a crossroads in Western Europe. Demolition, densification, adaptation, or conservation? Two experts help us sort it out. Maren Harnack proposes what it requires to take advantage of the existing settlements from that period. And Miles Glendinning draws lessons of what we may learn from the experience of mass social housing construction from the 1950s to 1970s. On October 11, Markus met our two guests at the conference „Adaptive Reuse...
A Roundtable with Theresa Enright, Bérénice Bon, Philippe Koch, and Roger Keil Roger Keil's new book, 'Suburban Planet', is a major contribution to (re)thinking the urban age in terms its peripheries rather than its centres. He seeks to provide us with a way of coming to terms with the process of suburbanization and the diversity of suburban forms. But does he succeed? And what are the political implications of his arguments? Listen to our book forum with Theresa Enright (University of Toronto),...
Interview with Roger Keil on his book "Suburban Planet" We are living on a suburban planet, if you ask Roger. He even wrote a book with that title. In the interview, he elaborates on the political implications of that condition. Situating his work on global suburbanisms in relation to the L.A. School and the debate around planetary urbanization, he flexes his intellectual muscles to make us believe that it is the suburbs that Marx and Lefebvre would pay most attention to today. Plus, find out ab...
Roundtable with Richard Wolff, Kate Shaw, Tomislav Tomasevic, and Ulrike Hamann The call to make academic research more socially relevant has become a commonplace. But what does it mean to for academic research to benefit urban activism? What is to be done when the logics of academia obstruct deeper activist engagements? This roundtable engages these challenges with four seasoned activist-scholars. Kate and Uli work in academia using different strategies to relate their job with activist engagem...
Berlin's left-wing government and the redevelopment of Checkpoint Charlie Part 2: Regaining Democratic Control The second part examines the extent to which democratic control has been exerted in the Checkpoint Charlie case and how development plans have been modified under increased pressure from societal groups. Listen to hear about the possibilities of contesting tourist-centred developments in inner cities and why activists should never automatically trust a leftwing government… With us in th...
The podcast examines Checkpoint Charlie, a site of immense historical significance and a heavily touristed area facing redevelopment plans. It discusses the challenges of balancing heritage preservation with urban growth, the impact of overtourism on Berliners, and the political complexities of integrating such a 'tourist bubble' into the city's daily life. The episode explores past failed development, current investor interests, and the crucial debate over establishing a museum versus embracing flexible, community-oriented urban uses for the empty plots.
The teaser to what we are up to! Welcome to the Urban Political Podcast! In this brief episode, we introduce ourselves, tell you about the motivation and purpose behind the podcast and what you should expect to hear in our pod in the following months.
