Beyond Splintering Urbanism: New agendas for infrastructure, urbanisation and city futures
Autun, France, 21-25 March 2022
Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin’s Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (Routledge, 2001) is one of the most influential and highly cited works of urban research of the last two decades. More than twenty years since the book’s publication, now is a good moment to take stock of its influence, identify emerging concerns and trajectories, and to ask how research on infrastructure and cities has and might move beyond the rubric of splintering urbanism.
The aim of this workshop is less to chart the influence of Splintering Urbanism on themes and trends in urban infrastructure analysis than to examine future research priorities in this area. These priorities might include, but are not limited to, the rise of pervasive digital technology, new ecological imperatives especially an intensifying climate emergency, and the persistence of socio-spatial inequalities. We welcome papers offering empirical studies of urban infrastructure around the world as well as conceptual contributions seeking to renew a “critical urbanism of the networked city” (Graham and Marvin 2001, p. 420).
The event will gather together around 30 participants over four days in Autun, Burgundy, the location of previous seminars in this field. A roundtable format will be used with draft papers submitted in advance and ample time for constructive discussion. Both Steve Graham and Simon Marvin will participate and offer their own reflections. It is our intention to publish a selection of the papers from the workshop either as a journal special issue or as an edited volume with a major publisher.
Please send 250 word paper proposals to us by 30 November 2021. Attendance will then be confirmed by 15 December 2021. Participants will need to send draft papers of between 5,000 and 6,000 words by 1 March 2022 to allow time for everyone to read all papers in advance.
Return travel between Paris and Autun plus accommodation and meals during the workshop will be provided for all participants. We ask participants to seek their own funding for travel to Paris. We may have a small amount of additional funding to help some participants with travel to Paris. Funding is being provided by the I-SITE FUTURE project of Université Gustave Eiffel in partnership with Ecole des Ponts ParisTech.
Our intention is to hold the workshop as an in-person event. Given the current uncertainty around Covid-19 travel restrictions, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about travel possibilities and arrangements in 2022, so the organisation of the workshop is obviously subject to change.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Andrew Karvonen, KTH, Stockholm, apkar@kth.se
Colin McFarlane, Durham University, colin.mcfarlane@durham.ac.uk
Jonathan Rutherford, LATTS, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, jonathan.rutherford@enpc.fr
Alan Wiig, University of Massachusetts, Boston, alan.wiig@umb.edu