Events

Past Event

Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict: Day 1

February 16, 2023
Event time is displayed in your time zone.
Buell Hall, 515 W. 116 St., New York, NY 10027 East Gallery

Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict: Current Research, Ongoing Debates, and Next Directions

This two-day conference is organized by Assistant Professor Hiba Bou Akar with the Post-Conflict City Lab and the Urban Planning Program. Co-sponsored with the Heyman Center for the HumanitiesMiddle East InstituteMaison Française, Columbia GSAPP and Barnard Urban Studies.



OVERVIEW

The Post-Conflict Cities Lab at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation is hosting a two-day graduate student conference titled “Middle East Urbanism Beyond Conflict: Current Research, Ongoing Debates, and Next Directions,” to be held on February 16-17, 2023. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together doctoral students and scholars working on issues related to urbanism and the production of space in Middle Eastern and North African cities (MENA). The MENA region has been mostly discussed and narrated from the perspective of conflict and delineated as a space from which theory cannot emerge. However, the critical research coming out from the Middle East and North African cities is providing cutting edge scholarly contributions on how urban space is shaped by a range of actors (including political parties, international aid organizations, religious groups, and NGOs) and a variety of geo-political flows (such as capital, migration, labor, revolutionary solidarities, and militarization) that produce space and the built environment from housing and infrastructure to borders and refugee camps. This emerging body of urban scholarship is contributing to theorizing about the urban condition from the Global South at large. This conference includes panels of graduate students led by faculty discussants along with a faculty roundtable on the current status and future of Middle Eastern urban studies. In coming together for this conference, we look forward to providing the space to push the conversation on urbanism and spatial production in Middle Eastern and North African cities, and the theoretical implications of theorizing about the urban from the MENA region.

 

This event is open to the Columbia University community. The general public must register in advance and confirm COVID-19 vaccination status in compliance with current Columbia University health requirements using this online form.

GSAPP is committed to providing universal access to all of our events. Please contact [email protected] to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.

 

Contact Information

GSAPP Events