ARL International Summer School 2021

„Urban and Regional Infrastructures”
29 September to 2 October 2021 in Vienna

The ARL – Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association in cooperation with the University of Vienna is inviting applications for the ARL International Summer School 2021 on “Urban and Regional Infrastructures”, which will take place from Wed. 29 September to Sat. 2 October, 2021 in Vienna (the arrival is scheduled for 28 September 2021). Advanced master and doctoral students from all disciplines are invited to apply. The summer school will be held in English. 

THE ISSUE

Infrastructure has regained interest in geography and planning studies in course of a global, interdisciplinary ‘infrastructural turn’ during the last two decades. The new systemic questions around infrastructure development and planning exceed well beyond engineering and technology issues of the former centuries and reach into social, political and economic spheres of debate. Global connectivity, mobility, digitalisation, urbanisation, energy demand, capitalist growth and crises attach their uneven trajectories to infrastructural networks and services. Through that, the development of urban and regional infrastructures may shape new geographies of inequality and re-negotiates standards of infrastructural provision – such as availability, accessibility, affordability, quality and variety. At the same time, normatively spoken, ‘good’ governance and development of infrastructure can be a key for sustainability oriented urban and regional planning as well as policy.

POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

The ARL realizes its International Summer School 2021 in cooperation with the Department of Geography and Regional Research at the University of Vienna as a member of the UNIVIE Research Platform ”The Challenge of Urban Futures“. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore urban and regional infrastructures with critical, spatial, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. The presentations and discussions should deliver insight into selected facets of infrastructure planning and discourses, relate these to the role they may play in/for urban and regional development, and address their consequences for spatial planning and development strategies. Specifically, we invite – but do not limit – contributions from early career researchers who demonstrate a particular interest in:

• analysing social and technical infrastructure planning practices,
• governance and policy discourses, the politics of infrastructure,
• the role of public, private, and civic actors and their connections (public-private-partnerships),
• historical avenues, postcolonial and political economy perspectives,
• future trends, digitalisation, social, economic and technical innovations,
• collaborative practices as drivers for community-based economies/collaborative endeavours,
• arrival infrastructures, 
• gender approaches to infrastructure provision and access,
• implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

PARTICIPATION & APPLICATION

Please see the call for applications for further information on the event, the terms of participation, and information on the application process.

CONTACT

For further questions, please contact Dr. Lena Greinke (greinke@arl-net.de, +49 (0)511 34842 34).