Spatial Typologies and the Built Environment: Navigating African Urban Landscapes
WiSER/UMichigan Mellon Collaboration
May 6-7, 2019 | WiSER
MONDAY MAY 6
9-1030: Keynote 1: Danny Hoffman (U of Washington, Seattle): “Seeing Urban Theory in the African City”
Chair: Pamila Gupta (WiSER)
1030-11: tea/coffee
11-1230: Panel 1 Planned Urbanisms: Gating and Golfing
Richard Ballard (GRC Wits): “Trickle out Urbanism: are Gated Communities in Johannesburg good for poor neighbors?”
Jonathan Cane (WiSER): “The New South: Post-Mining Landscapes and the Un/built Johannesburg”
Federica Duca (PARI Wits): “Is Leisure Innocent? Reflections from Golf Courses”
Chair: Sarah Nuttall (WiSER)
1230-215 lunch break
Please note: The WiSER conference room will be in use for a presentation by
Ravi Sundaram (CSDS Delhi): “A New-New Crowd? Digital Infrastructure and the Political” from 1-215.
*You are most welcome to attend the lecture if you are interested*
215-315: Panel 2 Durable Materialities and the Built Environment
Alex Wafer (Wits): “The Materiality of Abandonment: obsolete infrastructures as durable presents and imaginary futures in a former township”
Pamila Gupta (WiSER): “Notes for a Visual Essay on the Experience of Art Deco in South Africa”
Chair: Anne Pitcher (UMich)
315-345: tea/coffee
345-445: Panel 3 Global Imaginaries: Music and Film
Mpho Matsipa (Wits): “Mad Horse as Speculative Future”
Melissa Tandiwe Myambo (CISA, Wits): “#Afropunk, Global Citizen Festival and Class(ist) Borders: Cultural Time Zones of Musical Migrations”
Chair: Hlonipha Mokoena (WiSER)
9-1030: Keynote 2: Mona Fawaz (American University of Beirut): “Navigating the City as a Refugee Food Delivery Driver”
Chair: Martin Murray (UMich)
1030-11: tea/coffee
11-1: Panel 4 Housing and Land
Sarah Charlton (Wits): “Housing Logics, drivers and consequences on African urban Peripheries: Soweto’s Western Edge”
Fana Sihlongonyane (Wits): “The Role of Swazi Land Tenure in the production of Formal, Informal and Peri-Urban Settlements in Eswatini”
Tim Berke (UMich): “Refugee Camps and Settlements: Planning for the Long Terms”
Taru Taru (UMich): “Contested Memory and Adapting Place in Ghanaian Cities: Old Accra”
Chair: Jonathan Klaaren (WiSER)
1-2: Lunch break
2-4: Panel 5 Comparative City Spaces
Marie Huchzermeyer (Wits): “Urban Typology and the disruption of everyday life in Nairobi”
Philip Harrison (Wits), Yan Yang (Wits), Romain Dittgen (Wits), and Gerald Chungu (Wits): “Rethinking the notion of Chinese Space in Johannesburg” (double session)
Martin Murray (UMich) and María Arquero de Alarcón (UMich): “Perforated Detroit: Troubled Histories and Imagined Futures”
Chair: Anne Pitcher (UMich)
4-430: tea/coffee
430-5: Closing/Wrap up Session