Main Session

Main chair: Daniela Nunes Pereira, Post Doctoral Research Juan de la Cierva, University of Complutense de Madrid
E-mail: dnunes02@ucm.es

1^st Co-chair: David Igual Luis, Titular Profesor of Medieval History, University of Castilla-La Mancha
E-mail: david.igual@uclm.es

2^nd Co-chair: María Asenjo González, Full Profesor of Medieval History, University of Complutense de Madrid
E-mail: majonsa@ghis.ucm.es

Short abstract

The geographical position of the border towns, far from the main seaports and, in other cases, with essentially land accessibility, limited their inhabitants to benefit from long-distance socio-economic dynamics, promoting ever closer trade contacts between the towns of the Portuguese-Castilian border towns. In this context, a question arises: what were the commercial relations between the border towns of Portugal and Castile, first, and the Spanish monarchy, later, and their projection on the colonial frontiers between the two kingdoms in America?

Keywords: Cities, Boundaries, Commerce, Iberian Peninsula, Ibero-american cities, Medieval and Early Modern Age.

Topic(s)

Documental sources on commercial networks, ways of seeing and evidencing mercantile exchanges, alliances, trade networks, regional trade networks, customs, smuggling, ferries of passage, agents of transports and exchanges, architecture and market spaces

Session content

After many attempts to stabilise the border between Portugal and Castile, it was only with the Treaty of Alcanizes, signed on 12 September 1297 by King Dinis of Portugal and King Ferdinand IV of León and Castile, that the boundaries between the two kingdoms were definitively fixed.

Despite the new borders, many of the business contacts established since time immemorial have been maintained. It should not be forgotten that the geographical location of border towns, far from the main sea ports and in other cases accessible mainly by land, limited the access of their inhabitants to major international trade while encouraging cross-border regional trade.

The border forced the two monarchies to protect, control and supervise these small trade routes and the goods traded. This reality leads one to question what were and how were the commercial relations between the border towns of the two Iberian kingdoms?

At the end of the 15^th century, the discovery and exploration of the American continent by the Portuguese and Spanish crowns led to the division of the "new world", established in the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed on 7 June 1494. In order to secure and guarantee the possession of the new territories, both kingdoms founded and populated numerous towns, villages and hamlets. Given that, in the beginning, communication between the peoples of the Americas was essentially maritime and fluvial, easily crossing any defined frontiers, we are interested in receiving proposals that explain how commercial exchange took place between the inhabitants of these territories, through which they sought means of subsistence and survival.

At such a significant time, when the domination and survival of borders mark the European present, in this macro-session we are interested in receiving scientific reflections on the commercial relations that existed in the border towns between Portugal and Castile, first, and between the Spanish monarchy, later, including the smaller villages, throughout the 13^th-17^th centuries. We invite you to reflect on and compare all the many aspects of the city, such as: documentary sources on trade networks; ways of seeing and evidencing trade exchanges; alliances; formation of new trade networks; identification of regional trade networks; ferries of passage; agents of trade and transport, customs; smuggling. The session takes into account architecture and market spaces, so studies on the commercial structures that materialise these commercial contacts are welcome.

Main chair: Professor Jelle Haemers, University of Leuven
E-mail: jelle.haemers@kuleuven.be

1^st Co-chair: Professor Peter Clark, University of Helsinki
E-mail: peter.clark@helsinki.fi

2^nd Co-chair: Professor Hilde Greefs, University of Antwerp
E-mail: hilde.greefs@uantwerpen.be

Short abstract

This session is concerned with catastrophes - sudden natural or manmade crises (pandemics, earthquakes, wars...) - which need to be managed immediately, events with a severe and visible impact on citizen's lives. It would focus on three major themes: the impact on townscape; the memorialisation of crisis; and the urban renewal after the crisis.

Keywords: Catastrophy, urban recovery, from Middle Ages until today

Topic(s)

Catastrophes and urban resilience, from the Middle Ages until today

Session content

The underlying message of the historiography on urban crisis and renewal so far is that crises were severe but basically episodic events which cities learnt to manage in their return to normality. Social science research and  the recent Covid pandemic, Ukrainian war, and natural disasters linked to climate change have suggested the need for a different approach, one which recognizes that crises are endemic in the modern and contemporary era and may have been an existential threat to cities since early times. Yet most cities have survived and succeeded despite these threats. This resilience raises the two fundamental questions. Firstly, we need to ask: what are the opportunities, structures and policies, created by urban catastrophe and how do they contribute to urban resilience? At the same time, and this is our second fundamental question, how do different types of catastrophic crisis vary in their experiential impact on cities? Thus some crises, for instance wars, seem to be more imprinted in urban collective memory than others (such as pandemics). And how does this affect urban resilience?

The purpose of this proposed main session is to open the range of debate on urban catastrophe, taking a European wide perspective over the period from the Middle Ages to the present time. Fully aware that urban Europe is a continent of regions we are particularly interested to attract scholars from different regional contexts, particularly East/Central Europe and Mediterranean countries. We would also hope to attract researchers from a wide range of disciplines apart from history, including geography, heritage studies and planning. Preference would be given to papers that are comparative, analysing two or more urban centres.

Taking account of  both the outcomes of catastrophic crisis and differences between crisis types, the session would focus on three major themes: the impact on townscape; the memorialisation of crisis; and the varying experience of crises on different types of urban communities. We are less interested in the specific dynamics of catastrophe than on its effects on the urban communities and the urban responses.

Possible questions for papers:

• Following castrophic crises, what is the role of city leaders, urban elites, planners, architects, developers of urban renewal and regeneration?
• Top-down initiatives by politicians and experts are only part of the story: popular 'bottom-up' experiences and activities are a key part of urban resilience. What is the attitude of  ordinary citizens? How do they appropriate crisis impacted sites? Is there resistance and why?
• How do crises get incorporated into collective memory?
• Is memorialisation important for how cities learn to manage future crises?
• Do big cities suffer worse crises but manage them better?
• How resilient are small communities in coping with and responding to crisis?
• Can catastrophic crisis destabilize an urban system? Or consolidate it? And how?

Main chair: Dr James Lesh, Deakin University
E-mail: james@heritageworkshop.au

1^st Co-chair: Professor Rebecca Madgin, University of Glasgow
E-mail: Rebecca.Madgin@glasgow.ac.uk

2^nd Co-chair: : Dr Tanja Vahtikari, Tampere University
E-mail: tanja.vahtikari@tuni.fi

Short abstract

How might urban historians push the boundaries of heritage conservation in cities across the world? Our purpose is to interweave history and heritage, both conceptually and practically, to address the enduring failure of conservation to centre historical, social and community perspectives.

Keywords: heritage; conservation; methodology; social history; public history; people-centred; heritage studies

Topic(s)

History and Heritage Interfaces, Historical Methodologies, People-Centred Heritage Conservation

Session content

The relationship between urban history and heritage conservation is unstable. Both fields are overlapping yet have distinctive concerns. While historians inquire into past places and communities, conservationists decide about the preservation of the past for future places and communities. For this reason, urban historians have long expressed interest in urban heritage (Davison and McConville 1991; Hayden 1995) and urban conservation (Larkham 1996; Pendlebury 2009). Heritage has also been identified by historians as a phenomenon shaping cities, particularly since the mid-twentieth-century citizen and professional backlash against the ahistorical and technocratic character of modernism, and the emergence of a widespread post-1970s urban interest in history, context, and conservation (Lesh 2023; Vahtikari, 2017; Madgin, 2009).

Yet urban historians have had just a tangential influence on the practice of heritage conservation, alongside the maturing field of critical heritage studies. A key shared insight, nevertheless, emerges from both academic literatures: the enduring failure to centre social and community historical perspectives in heritage conservation. Across the world, conservation privileges the retention of built fabric and the perspectives of heritage experts. These issues suggest opportunities for urban historians to articulate a clearer intellectual contribution and practical approach for safeguarding the social and community aspects of the urban past. We are inspired by the notion that historians have the capacity to pursue people-centred conservation by engaging with the structural and everyday social, policy and economic realities of protecting heritage places (Madgin and Lesh, 2021).

The session seeks conceptual and case study contributions of the ways that urban historians have pushed the boundaries of grounded urban heritage conservation in cities across the world. Engaged with sub-disciplines of history, we invite not only urban historians but also social, policy, planning, architectural, public, applied, community and local historians. Conceptually, we request papers that interrogate the temporal and spatial distinctions between history and heritage, the approaches and sources needed to interrogate heritage within urban history, and the opportunities for urban historians from connecting with cultural heritage. We are especially interested in methodologies for foregrounding urban histories in heritage conservation. Practically, we also invite historians to share critical case studies of working on heritage places on the ground. What intellectual and practical benefits come from interweaving heritage and history? How might historians contribute to people-centred conservation? The future of the urban past is at stake.

Main chair: Dag Lindström, prof., Uppsala University
E-mail: dag.lindstrom@hist.uu.se

1^st Co-chair: Jakub Wysmułek, dr, Polish Academy of Sciences
E-mail: j.wysmulek@isppan.waw.pl

Short abstract

The session is addressed to researchers of domestic life in early modern towns. We invite you to discuss the methods, theoretical conceptualization, and share your empirical research on relationship between the architectural structures of the houses, the differences in housing conditions and the various practices of their inhabitation by households.

Keywords: Houses, households, housing conditions, early modern times, towns and cities.

Topic(s)

The relationship between houses and forms of their inhabitation by households in early modern towns.

Session content

Housing is a fundamental dimension of human life and it certainly entangles much of urban everyday practices across all social classes. Living spaces do not only provide shelter, space for work and rest, but also constitute resources and constraints effectively affecting human interactions and generating cultural references, economic dependencies, and social forms. Housing is also inextricably linked to households, a fundamental unit of early modern society, which members comprised of people bounded by blood or contract have shared common “roof and table”.

We still know surprisingly little about diverse forms of early modern urban dwellings, discrepancies of living conditions and the various ways in which houses were inhabited. Our knowledge about the relations between urban space, social meanings, and domestic life is still limited, and we still lack much of the empirical material necessary to establish long-term developments and comparative conclusions.

This, however, is a field where important methodological and conceptual progress now take place. A ‘spatial turn' in historiography, and more open and dynamic understandings of early modern households have developed. Joachim Eibach's concept of “the open house” and Peter Arnade, Martha C. Howell and Walter Simons call to make urban space a central theoretical concern are valuable examples. Buildings and households are more frequently understood as dynamic processes of doing houses and doing households, closely related with social- and life-circle developments. Space and materiality have also become more frequently included in social and cultural analyses. With this, it is no longer possible to treat the built structures of dwelling houses, streets, and back yard areas as simple backdrops to social organization and social practices. Instead, houses and people appear as intertwined in constant dynamic interaction. New methods for house analyses develop and generate new information about the transformations of built structures and spatial practices. Simultaneously, the analyses of households develop in directions emphasizing variation, interaction, and transformation. This is becoming a vibrant field of research, connecting social organization, practices, and relations with space and materiality, generating new knowledge about urban ways of life.

Referring to Louis Wirth's seminal essay “Urbanism as a Way of Life”, we argue that the way of life depends on the place of life. Therefore, for this session, we invite contributions that discuss methods and theoretical conceptualizations of the dynamic interaction between houses and people as well and empirical research on housing arrangements and living conditions in the early modern town. With this session, we also aim at enhancing comparative, longitudinal and interdisciplinary approaches. We welcome contributions from different country contexts and methodological perspectives.

Main chair: Mateusz Fafinski, Max Weber Centre, Erfurt University, Germany
E-mail: mateusz.fafinski@uni-erfurt.de

1^st Co-chair: Sara Keller, Bamberg University, Germany
E-mail: sara.keller@uni-bamberg.de

Short abstract

Cities are quintessential products of boundary making. This panel addresses the question of the production of boundaries in the urban context, with a special focus on religion: what are the imagined and lived boundaries that shapes the city and what is the role of religion in these boundary making processes?

Keywords: Boundary making, urbanity, religion, imagined and lived boundaries, ritual, temporality

Topic(s)

Boundary making and the city; religion as producer of imagined and lived boundaries.

Session content

Cities are quintessential products of boundary making. Taking diversity and complexity as the primary characteristics of the urban, the city can be understood as a result of grouping and differentiating processes. This panel addresses the production of boundaries within the city, with a special focus on religion: what are the imagined and lived boundaries that shape life in the city and what is the role of religion in these boundary making processes?

If the most obvious way to look at urban boundaries is to map physical borders of the built cityscape, we are more interested in looking at imagined and lived boundaries produced by speech acts, cultural practices or religious rituals. City life appears as a product of synchronic and diachronic processes that produced the spatial, temporal, and social differentiation. Religion significantly contributes to the formation of boundaries that underpin these processes. While the panel focuses on the religious aspect of boundary making, we want to go beyond institutionalized religious groups and identities. We are inviting papers addressing the question of how religious practices contributed to spatial, temporal and social differentiation, thus shaping urbanity.

Inner urban boundaries (but also other forms of the liminal like margins, barriers, or edges) could be drawn to differentiate spaces, groups and/or ideas such as secular and profane spaces or temporalities; pure and impure groups, spaces or acts; private, public and semi-private areas; urban and “tamed” nature; genders; the visible and the invisible in the city etc. Boundary making underscores the success and failure of ideologies and often defines the survival or disappearance of groups.

If cities can be thought of as “sorting machines” letting people in but also throwing them out, we are interested in how the boundary making in both physical and symbolic sense, especially through the influence of religious practices or rituals, structures life inside of the city. From the walls of a medieval cemetery to the areal of a Buddhist monastery, physical borders have enabled this sorting. But symbolic boundary making is just as powerful: ritual merging of courtyards in Judaism or temporal borders allowing different groups to use the same baths are poignant uch borders. The large geographical and historical scope encourages to look at contrasting boundary making processes and the resulting urbanities. We want to engage with the process of boundary making as one influenced by religious practices within th city.

With those considerations in mind, papers engaging with the following questions are particularly welcomed:

• Imagined boundaries and their impact on the social and the physical city
• Translation processes from imagined boundaries to lived and/or physical boundaries
• Discrepancy between imagined, lived and/or physical boundaries
• Boundary characteristics: Impermeability, crossing and flow
• Disruption and changes of boundaries.

Main chair: Dr Simeon Koole, University of Bristol
E-mail: simeon.koole@bristol.ac.uk

1^st Co-chair: Dr Joseph Ben Prestel, Freie Universität Berlin
E-mail: joseph.prestel@fu-berlin.de

Short abstract

This session thinks of migrants outside of the brief frame of mobility. It traces how, through affective relationships within and between cities, migrants made their own worlds, or conceptions of time, space, and possibility. In so doing, it shows how ‘static' histories of migration focused on affect help us rethink scale in global history.

Keywords: Migration; Affect; Global; Scale; Diaspora

Topic(s)

Histories of affective relations among migrants within and between cities.

Session content

Migrants are typically defined in terms of their movement: their crossing of borders in order to make another life. Yet often this can simplify migrant identity, framing it only as an effect of migrants' mobility and host responses of hostility or acceptance. Think of the current political debate about migrants arriving in Britain in small boats, which reduces lives to either a threat to the taxpayer or objects of empathy. Too frequently, migrants' multiple identities, affective ties spanning time and space, and different modes of survival are overlooked in this analytic frame. Focusing on mobility can also flatten scale, treating the ‘world' as a pre-given space to move across, rather than as something made through the way in which it is inhabited. What if, rather than focusing on migrant mobility, we examined the ways in which migrants have historically made their worlds through affective relations within and between cities?

This session takes a different approach to urban histories of migration, suggesting that we think about migration in terms of everyday practices of ‘world-making'. It examines how, through their affective and sensory relations within and between cities, migrants established their own worlds, or unique conceptions of time, space, and possibility. Jews who fled to London after pogroms in Russia in the 1880s; indentured Indian labourers in Durban in the 1900s; Palestinian students in Frankfurt in the 1960s: all established different solidarities amongst themselves and transnationally which changed over time. What relationships of trust, convenience, or dependency enabled migrants to endure in new cities, and how did these shifting collaborations cross local and national boundaries? Taking this approach enables us to complicate migrant identities beyond the moment of movement in a migrant's life. It foregrounds migrants' ability to produce place rather than only be marked by displacement: to make the world habitable, rather than only move, often with great hardship, across the world. And it situates migrants within a broader spatial and temporal context, tracing their affective ties across space and over time.

Ultimately, rethinking migration beyond mobility helps us to also rethink scale in global urban history. Migrants are the exemplary figure in global histories which trace connections between places through movement. But once we think of migrants outside of their moment of movement, and instead in terms of their situated affective ties across space and over time, we can also think outside of distinctions of local and global, micro and macro. Long the paradigmatic example of transnational and global histories of cities, migration told from a ‘static', affective perspective can now help us to rethink the meaning of the global in global urban history.

Main chair: Dr Erika Hanna, University of Bristol
E-mail: erika.hanna@bristol.ac.uk

1^st Co-chair: Dr Sam Grinsell, UCL
E-mail: s.grinsell@ucl.ac.uk

Short abstract

This session explores the urban dimension of infrastructural development over the last two-hundred and fifty years, both in terms of how infrastructures have transformed cities and how urban dynamics have shaped infrastructure. This brings together histories of matter, energy and people to produce entangled histories of cities as environments.

Keywords: Borders, Infrastructures, Place, Urban History, Mobility, Environmental History, Spatial History

Topic(s)

Borders, Infrastructures, Place, Urban History, Mobility, Environmental History, Spatial History

Session content

In the past two-hundred and fifty years, the increasing movement of goods has transformed the landscapes of cities across the world. In Britain, vast factories and warehouses were bulit in Manchester to receive cotton from the Americas, pens and markets were constructed in Bristol to sell and move cattle from Ireland, and sugar merchants with fortunes bulit on slavery promoted new docks in London and Glasgow. In Egypt, securing a more reliable flow of water to the northern cotton fields involved not only damming the Nile but also constructing more permanent banks through Cairo, while entirely new port and towns were bulit to service the Suez Canal. Urban sites of entry and processing have also had a variety of surprising spin off effects, becoming home to exotic plants carried on foreign boats, while, more recently, changes to global supply chains along with containerization has led to the docks becoming huge tracts of dereliction within the urban core, often used for squats and nightclubs. Here we see entanglements of things, infrastructures, mobilities in the creation and recreation of places.

The focus of urban global history has reamined largely on the migration of people, but scholars have increasingly explored how borders create infrastructures which reshape cities. There are many aspects to this: rivers have been straightened and canalized to allow the movememnt of bigger boats: the movement of animals and agri-goods requires places for processing and segregation in case of disease; the movememnt of gas and coal requires vast storage facilities; while the movement of commodities requires the construction of large disembarkation sheds and storage warehousing. These enormous processes of movement also relied on an army of porters, dockers, clersk, stevedores, sailors, who needed to be housed. Indeed, the way in which the movemement of goods relies on their labour often becomes visible during striktes and/or times of labour shortage.

This session seeks to historicize this story by exploring infrastructures and sites of Exchange between cities. We welcome scholars working on these themes from across the world and at all career stages, in order to compare and explore the impact of the movements of goods and commodities on space across a wide variiety of urban contexts across the modern period. We would be delighted to receive proposals from scholars working with new sources or pioneering approaches, working in environmental humanities, digital history, social history, histories of technology and infrastructure and beyond.

Main chair: Prof.dr. Manon van der Heijden,, Leiden University, The Netherlands
E-mail: m.p.c.van.der.heijden@hum.leidenuniv.nl

1^st Co-chair: Dr. Mago de Koster, Ghent Universtity, Belgium
E-mail: Margo.DeKoster@UGent.be

Short abstract

Mass migration to European and colonial cities has seldom been studied from the perspective of discrimination and conflict. To what extent did courts and urban populations discriminate against migrants in legal practices? We invite scholars who examine the legal dimension of social co-existence in European and colonial cities between 1600 and 1900.

Keywords: Migration, migrants, urban courts, crime, laws, legislation, discrimiatio,social cohesion, conflicts

Topic(s)

Discrimination of migrants, conflicts between migrants and locals, urban crime, 1600-1900

Session content

The main session Migrant Cities and Urban Courts in a Global World, 1600-1900 will look at the legal dimension of social co-existence in European en colonial cities between 1600 and 1900 from two perspectives:

1. Top-down: the representation and treatment of migrants coming before the courts in European and colonial cities. In current scholarly migration debates the overrepresentation of certain groups of migrants in the urban criminal system is a central subject of debate. Membership theory explains so-called crimmigration: the convergence of migration and criminal law. Membership theory provides decision makers with justification for excluding individuals from society, using immigration and criminal law as the means of exclusion. Over-representation is considered a recent phenomenon that is related to the large migration flows since the late 1950s, but there are indications that the courts systematically discriminated against immigrants before the 20^th century. The interrelationship between migration and crime was a continuous issue of official concern from the 16^th century onwards. Research for various regions and periods in the world demonstrates that distinctions between ‘insiders' and ‘outsiders' often resulted in biased policing and criminal prosecution. The early modern judicial system was characterized by legal inequality and biased prosecution policies. The first part of the main session focuses on research on over-representation and crimmigration and the treatment of various groups of migrants by the courts between 1600 and 1900.
2. Bottom-up: conflicts between migrants and locals before the European and colonial courts. Judicial practices show how locals and colonial rulers discriminated against migrants, how and why migrants and locals came into conflict, and to what extent mutual violence was committed in dense urban settings. Various scholars claim that immigration might reduce solidarity and social cohesion, leading to distrust and discrimination in neighbourhoods. Did immigration in European and colonial cities lead to increasing tensions and conflicts between locals and newcomers? Urban migration studies have largely neglected judicial sources that offer detailed information about tensions between newcomers and locals. Between 1600 and 1900 conflicts were handled by a broad variety of institutions of conflict regulation. In European cities, conflict could result in prosecution by the public prosecutor, but many cases of conflict resolution concerned bottom-up procedures. In colonial cities, judicial plurality resulted in a multiplicity of legal orders, in which conflicts were handled by different legal systems. Scholars have focused on theorizing legal pluralism, and paid much less attention to every¬day practices of actors using legal plurality. The second part of the main session focuses on conflicts between migrants and locals handled by courts and other forms of conflict regulation.

Main chair: Christoph Strupp, Dr., Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (FZH), Germany
E-mail: strupp@zeitgeschichte-hamburg.de

1^st Co-chair: Paul van de Laar, Prof. Dr., Department of History, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
E-mail: vandelaar@eshcc.eur.nl

Short abstract

On the basis of three thematic categories, the panel examines boundary shifts in the evolution from industrial to late-modern society since the 1970s using the example of metropolis.

Keywords: Late-modern city, urban governance, spatial transformation, identity and heritage

Topic(s)

Political, social and spatial changes in the city since the 1970s

Session content

In Europe and North America, the metropolis of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries served as a laboratory for modernity. It was in urban settings that key elements of the industrial society could be observed: In spatial, political, social and cultural terms, the city of modern industrial society was also characterised by new boundaries, both tangible and intangible.

Since the 1970s, modern industrial society has been replaced by a society characterised by diversity and difference, if not fragmentation. By focusing on changes in internal and external boundaries, we want to ask whether the city can once again serve as a laboratory for the manifestation of the late-modern „society of singularities“ (A. Reckwitz)? And cant he history of individual cities be written in this sense?

Our approach includes the materiality of the city in its architectural and spatial structuring, social practices of urbanity and cultural representations of the city. While our perspective is shpaed by the Euro-American context, we do not exclude case studies of cities in the Global South that have undergone similar transformations. Proposals for presentations may fall into one of the following categories: urban governance; spatial transformation; local identities and heritage. Using concrete examples, participants shloud demonstrate which analytical perspectives can help us to understand late-modern society at the urban level.

1. Urban governance: Have urban policy makers in the late-modern city been constrained in their scope of action due to changes in the field of actors? Have grassroots movements, neighbourhood initiatives and marginalised groups made their voices heard or have economic interests and neoliberal public-private partnership in urban planning set up new limits to political participation?
2. Spatial transformation: Is the late-modern city one that, following the processes of funcional segregation and suburbanisation since the 1950s, continues to dissolve as a spatially bounded structure, merging into amorphous metropolitan regions? Or will urban planning concepts for living and working in the city, such as the „15-minute city“ lead to a reintergration of the city with more clearly recognisable external boudnaries, but create new internal ones?
3. Local identities and heritage: Has the culture of memory in recent decades reflected the dissociation of the late-modern city through the pluralisation of actors and places? Or could the celebration of outstanding events in local history transcend social and cultural boundaries and act as a counterweight to tendencies towards fragmentation? What is the relationship between bottom-up approaches in individual neighbourhoods and the staging of overraching urban identities for the purposees of „branding“ and city marketing?

Main chair: Laura Kolbe, Professor of Europen history, University of Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: laura.kolbe@helsinki.fi

1^st Co-chair: Aleksandra Stupar, Professor of urbanism, University of Belgrade, Serbia
E-mail: stuparalx@gmail.com

Short abstract

The process of globalization is not a contemporary phenomenon, The tension between global dreams and local realities is varied and complex. We welcome contributions focusing on the manifestations of the "global dream" in different periods and places, their spatial expressions, and the social and symbolical implications of transformations in cities.

Keywords: globalization flows, urban transformations, planning history, urban architecture, local politics

Topic(s)

Globalization studies, urban and local history, planning history, history of architecture

Session content

In the light of contemporary understanding, the latest Golden Age of globalization took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Cold War, when political, economic, cultural and media globalization flows intensified. It shaped a new existential context declaratively based on universal standards, supranational organizations, and control. Initially proclaiming the importance of human rights, environmental protection, and balanced social differences, as well as the notions of global idealization and consumerism, the globalization process has instigated numerous paradoxes and contradictions, when meeting with “local realities”.

Historically, displaying the bond between fashionable architecture and overlapping ideological streams, global flows have triggered numerous local urban transformations. Also, the problems of population growth and decline, migrations, poverty, inequality, as well as the multiplying environmental challenges are linked to globalization flows, increasing the gap between the rich/developed and the poor/undeveloped, multiplying fears and uncertainties. The tension between global dreams and local realities is accordingly varied and complex today and in the past.

The process of globalization is not just a contemporary phenomenon, and, in this session, we want to look beyond the 21^st century. We welcome all kind of contributions focusing on the manifestations of the "global dream" during 1850-2000, their spatial expressions in cities and the social and symbolical implications of applied transformations. As the modern history of important urban nodes like London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo has been well studied, we are more interested in the next-level metropolises, i.e., the capitals and big cities of smaller nation-states, regional centers, and cities at the boundaries, in Europe and other parts of the world.

We are interested in both planning ideas and spatial/architectural typologies, as well as the local strategic and political thinking related to the "global dream" and “local realties” and hope that the presentations will cover at least one the following themes, also being open to other suggestions:

• how global economic cycles have been seen and what kind of traces the "global dream" has left on cities and their policies
• what kind of new spatial typologies and topologies have been created (public spaces, buildings, districts etc.) and how they have been utilized and organized in different cities
• how economic megatrends of different periods have manifested themselves in urban planning and urban policies and encountered “local realties”
• how the "global dream" and the associated monetary economy have shaped public space
• what kind of architecture the "global dream" has brought to cities at different times and what kind of meanings have been given to the emerging urbanscape.

Main chair: Prof. Dr. Gerrit Verhoeven, University of Antwerp
E-mail: gerrit.verhoeven@uantwerpen.be

1^st Co-chair: Prof. Dr. Kate Hill, University of Lincoln
E-mail: khill@lincoln.ac.uk

2^nd Co-chair: Prof. Dr. Ilja Van Damme, University of Antwerp
E-mail: Ilja.vandamme@uantwerpen.be

Short abstract

Our session will radicaly historicize the relation between cities and „their“ museum. What was the impact of local museums of the urban fabric? How did the city shape the collecions, management, and storytelling of the museum? And how did museums reproduces (or question) the social boundaries in the city?

Keywords: museum history, urban development, growth-coallitions, cultural and social capital.

Topic(s)

Cultural history, urban history, social history

Session content

During the last few decades, museums such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Louvre in Paris, or the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam have developed into major hubs for mass tourism. They have become important billboards to promote the town, city or metropolis abroad or at home. Museums can also play an important role in urban renewal, as popular coffee bars, trendy restaurants, fashionable shops and exclusive galleries often pop up in the surrounding streets.

Quite often the public infrastructure is also affected, as town planners divert metro lines, turn adjacent streets intraffic-free boulevards, or construct new green or blue zones for recreation. Museums have – in sum – the ability to warp the urban fabric. At the same time, cities also have a large impact on local museums, as urban elites often contribute(d) part of the collection trough legacies and donations and set their scope and narrative. Usually, city administrations also have a say in the storylines of these museums, as politicians often see them as a tool to bolster feelings of local identity, regionalism, and even nationalism.

In 2005 Kate Hill launched the call to explore the historical links between local museums and the city in more detail. While, by then, the history of national museums had become an important line of research, Hill noted that far less ink and paper had been spend on the history of local, city museums and their development in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Nearly two decades later, the situation remains virtually unchanged, safe some proverbial exceptions. Our session aims to provide a new perspective in this debate by radically historicizing the relation between cities and “their” museum. What was the impact of local museums on the urban fabric in the nineteenth and early twentieth century? How did the city shape the collections, management, and storytelling of the museum? And how – given the special theme of the EAUH conference – did museums reproduce (or question) the social boundaries in the city, between outsiders and insiders, based on economic, social, and cultural capital, gender, religion, race, and other differences? Themes that can be explored are:

• Museums and urban renewal
• Museums and local, neighbourhood economies
• Museums and public infrastructure
• Museums and local growth-coalitions
• Museums and local identity versus regionalism and nationalism
• Museums and civic patronage
• Museums and local urban history, archaeology & heritage
• Museums, societal boundaries & urban diversity

Main chair: Petr Gibas, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology
E-mail: petr.gibas@soc.cas.cz

1^st Co-chair: Barbora Vacková, Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Social Studies
E-mail: bvackova@mail.muni.cz

Short abstract

The panel traces changes to approaching, planning for and (re)defining the relationship between the urban and the natural across changing ideological, political, economic environmental and other contexts in the 20^th century Europe. Emphasis is put on the transformation of the roles, forms and functions of urban nature and their impacts.

Keywords: City, urban nature, urban planning, urban politics, culture-nature division

Topic(s)

history of urban nature; history of urban planning; 20^th century urbanism;

Session content

The boundary between nature and non-nature (cities, culture, civilization) has been the subject of philosophical, anthropological and sociological research throughout history and continues to be so today. In modern history, nature played a role of the other to the project of modernization; it was also posited as a space of “naturalness," “purity,” or even “morality.” Industrialization and urbanization were enabled by the exploitation of natural resources which in turn underscored the distinction – both material and imaginary – between city and nature. The relationship between cities and nature, both within and beyond city limits, kept changing throughout the 20^th century in the capitalist as well as socialist parts of Europe. The fall of socialism in the former East and the ensuing predominance of neoliberal capitalist urbanism intensified the dynamic transformation of and around urban nature. And Anthropocene evidenced most intensely in ongoing climate change has provided a stark challenge to the established notion of the separation of nature and city.

The panel focuses on the transformation and re-negotiations of the relationship between nature and city with particular emphasis put on the changes to the supposed and supported roles, forms and functions of urban nature. Throughout the contributions, we aim at exploring transformations of imaginaries, policies and practises defining what is/is not appropriate urban nature and how these impacted on and materialised in cities in the 20^th century Europe. In doing so, the panel wants to trace continuities and discontinuities, changes and developments of approaching, planning for and (re)defining the relationship between the urban and the natural across continental divides (such as the one of East and West) and changing ideological, political, economic environmental and other contexts. The panel seeks theoretical and empirical contributions that can answer questions including:

• What does “nature” in the city means and how does this change over time?
• What kind of urban nature is appropriate in a centralized economy, neoliberal capitalist system and what are the historical alternatives and variations?
• How do the relationship to and definition of nature manifest in urban policies, planning and design throughout the 20^th century across the continent?
• Who were and are the actors making decisions about nature in urban space?
• How did the imaginaries, use and planning of nature changed due to political, social and other transformations?
• How is nature used as a political instrument and how does it impact on social stratification and differentiation?
• Was / is “nature” a public good and under what circumstances?

Main chair: Christian Lotz, PD Dr., Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe
E-mail: christian.lotz@herder-institut.de

1^st Co-chair: Łukasz Musiaka, PhD , Faculty of Geographical Sciences, University of Łódź
E-mail: lukasz.musiaka@geo.uni.lodz.pl

2^nd Co-chair: Carlotta Coccoli, PhD Prof., Università degli Studi di Brescia
E-mail: carlotta.coccoli@unibs.it

Short abstract

This panel seeks to compare western and central European cities that underwent crucial changes in terms of cityscape and ethnic composition which were direct or indirect consequences caused by wars in the XX and XXI centuries State borders shift, post-war landscape, migrations, resettlement and dissonant heritage are the main topics of the session.

Keywords: ethnicity, (dissonant) heritage, authorities, memory, border shifts, war, reuse, reconstruction

Topic(s)

exclusion of ethnic groups, heritage mapping, urban planning,reconstruction, war damages, narratives

Session content

World War I and II impacted many European cities and challenged the post-catastrophic recovery not only for regular citizens, but also for stakeholders such as local and displaced communities, urban planners, tourism sector, political actors. The treaties such as Versailles, Trianon, and later Potsdam, reshaped the political map of Europe. As a result, some cities found themselves under the sovereignty of another state, which reconfigured their status regarding ethnic and national majority or minority. While Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory, Romania rose to become "Great Romania" incorporating numerous multi-ethnic groups. In Southern Tirol, Italians became the hegemonic group, rather than a minority abroad of their nation-state. The Great War also weakened the position of the German-speaking population in France. For such reasons, questions of how the ‘newly created' majorities adjusted the cities are worth exploring: How was the "dissonant" urban heritage perceived and embedded in the future narrative of the cities? For instance, in Poland, where territorial shifts to the West after 1945 are a great example for contested land urging for a quick incorporation of cities into the national imaginary, whereas at the same time the loss of Poland's former Eastern parts was silenced and erased from public discourses.

(Re)nationalising cities and discovering or creating the (hi) were not the only processes which shaped the cities across the continent. Also, the creation and the dissolution of the Soviet and Western Bloc drastically determined the nature and pace of cities reconstruction and economies. The development plans drawn during and in the aftermath of the world wars were not only concerned with the removal of undesirable national features and replacing them with favourable ones, but also were preoccupied with urban modernisation. This meant deciding which elements of built heritage deserve to be protected or even reconstructed and which were merely perceived as "old" or "difficult" and as such not worth saving. Exposing how those forces were intertwined in different broader regions is another topic that this session wants to explore.

In this panel addresses national, ethnic, and architectural boundaries through both an individual and political lens. It asks how urban politics envisioned a betterment of the cities in the post-war context, (e.g. hygienization, heritage preservation) and it also incorporates the perspective from the grass-roots level of local actors, and the impact on history from below such as tourism and contemporary discourses.

By comparing and contrasting different European cities that experienced destruction, demographic change and underwent essential reconstruction processes, the panel aims to serve as a platform to address common strategies of sharpening or dissolving boundaries. Furthermore, it seeks to overcome binary centre-periphery conflicts which imply urban, regional, or cultural divisions and clashes.

Main chair: Victòria A. Burguera-Puigserver, Dr., Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg
E-mail: victoria.burguera-puigserver@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de

1^st Co-chair: Roser Salicrú i Lluch, Prof. Dr., Institució Milà i Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council (IMF-CSIC Barcelona)
E-mail: rsalicru@imf.csic.es

2^nd Co-chair: Alessandro Silvestri, Prof. Dr. Università degli Studi di Salerno
E-mail: alsilvestri@unisa.it

Short abstract

By assembling studies on the projection of maritime cities' governance at sea and their intervention in maritime activities, this panel will assess the question of whether their physical and geographical borders acted also as political and economic boundaries in Late Medieval Western Europe, delving into the different levels of urban agency at sea.

Keywords: Sea government, sea power, urban jurisdiction, urban agency, cities' intervention at sea

Topic(s)

Urban history, maritime history, medieval Europe history, political history, economic history

Session content

Late medieval polities of Western Europe were marked by significant compositeness, with cities and lordships possessing important autonomies and broad jurisdictions. In this respect, scholarship has broadly acknowledged the important role cities and municipalities played for the government of territories. In particular – and in connection with governmental authorities – for counterbalancing the power of medieval princes and lords operating in the localities. Although this seems to be a common trait among Western European polities, each context was marked by different balance, which in turn originated from their specific political, social, and economic environment. In that regard, the specific role of maritime cities with respect to governance at sea still needs to be fully investigated.

Cities' degree of autonomy allowed them in each case a lesser or greater power of decision and influence over their citizens, their countryside and their surrounding waters. As a result, maritime cities developed an unequal extension of their terrestrial power of influence towards the sea and towards maritime activities. Moreover, the maritime frontier of the coastal cities often shaped them and helped them to develop their powers. Therefore, their axis at the boundary between sea and land makes them a coherent object of study throughout the Late Medieval Western Mediterranean and North-Eastern Atlantic.

This session invites scholars to examine maritime and port cities in the later Middle Ages with respect to their connection with the maritime environment. By adopting a comparative approach, this session will help us to discuss how maritime cities operated at sea in different political and social contexts. In so doing, the contributors to this session will debate on the different degree of autonomy these maritime cities enjoyed or, on the contrary, their subordination to seigniorial powers, which regulated maritime matters.

The following are some of the possible points to be discussed, among others:

• Municipal intervention in maritime conflicts' management: return of stolen goods, compensation to victims.
• Urban actions for the defence of seas, coasts, and maritime commercial activity.
• Network and alliances between maritime urban centres for common purposes: defence, mercantile exchanges, protection of ports.
• Municipal ordinances related to navigation, shipbuilding, ship armaments, trade and commerce by sea.
• Funding, possession and loan of municipal vessels for naval expeditions, both to private individuals and other institutions.
• Information management, correspondence and communication, contact and contracts between city authorities and captains for various purposes.
• Participation into and organisation of maritime expeditions, both as autonomous enterprises or in connection with the rulers' agendas, for instance, for promoting conquests or defensive purposes.
• Municipal intervention in the creation of sailors' and seamen's associations, fishermen's guilds...

Main chair: Associate Professor, Magnus Linnarsson, Stockholm University, Department of History
E-mail: magnus.linnarsson@historia.su.se

1^st Co-chair: Dr. Mikkel Høghøj, The National Museum of Denmark, Department of Modern History and World Cultures
E-mail: Mikkel.Hoghoj@natmus.dk

2^nd Co-chair: Professor Heiko Droste, The Institute of Urban History, Stockholm
E-mail: heiko.droste@historia.su.se

Short abstract

The welfare cities of the North are the result of an urbanisation process, where urban governments and different social as well as religious organizations negotiated citizenship and inclusion, thus creating a distinct urban political culture. That can explain, why welfare even today is an urban interest, reflecting on the political fabric of the Northern cities.

Keywords: Welfare city, welfare regimes, inclusion, popular movement, working class history, political culture

Topic(s)

Welfare city, welfare regimes, inclusion, popular movement, working class history, political culture

Short abstract

The urban political culture is an integral part of the Nordic welfare state, because welfare not only constitutes a substantial part of the cities' work. Urbanisation is the result of the negotiation of welfare services (infrastructures, schools, social care, culture, parcs and else). Welfare is both a driving force and the result of an urbanisation process that turned the North since the late 19^th century into a highly urbanised region.

This process has long historical roots, not the least as the Nordic countries, despite being highly centralized nation-states, were always based on municipal structures, in particular the parish communities, whose political culture is an important part of the national self-image of the Nordic countries. Given these historical roots, the development of urban welfare changed over time, entailing different welfare regimes. Political decisions were decisive to the development, as city leaders adapted its policy according to needs and conditions in the city itself.

However, the role of the variation, chronology and implementation of these welfare regimes has not gained sufficient attention so far. Since the early modern times, cities, despite their comparatively small numbers and sizes, have been the arena for negotiations between urban governments and a number of social and religious institutions, popular movements, in particular the working class, free-religious churches and the temperance movements. They shaped eventually a distinct Nordic political culture, fostering inclusion, democratic structures and an urban-based form of citizenship.

This urban political culture not only negotiated different aspects of public welfare. It has also been re-vitalized, when the neo-liberal turn since the 1980s resulted in the re-commodification of welfare services. During the last decades, new and old popular movements, with roots in the urban structures of the 18^th and 19^th century changed the rules of non-public welfare – and thus the rules of the urban political culture, once again.

The session invites papers on various aspects of this overall picture, covering the period from 1500 until present. An explicit focus is the specific urban culture of the Nordic countries as an arena for the negotiation of local democracies, based on urban governments and organisations that can be summarized as popular movements, mostly related to different protestant denominations. Besides these well-known religious organizations, this could also include housing organisations, the outdoor movement and various leisure organizations. Such movements and organizations were significant but are partly overlooked as agents in the creation of the welfare city's political culture. The session, therefore, strives to open up a broader discussion about the agents who were involved in the creation of the welfare city and the various welfare regimes it contained throughout history.

Main chair: Dr. Rita Gudermann, Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung (IRS), Erkner
E-mail: rita.gudermann@leibniz-irs.de

1^st Co-chair: PhDr. Ondřej Ševeček, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
E-mail: sevecek@flu.cas.cz

2^nd Co-chair: PhDr. Martin Jemelka, Masaryk-Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences
E-mail: jemelka@mua.cas.cz

Short abstract

The welfare cities of the North are the result of an urbanisation process, where urban governments and different social as well as religious organizations negotiated citizenship and inclusion, thus creating a distinct urban political culture. That can explain, why welfare even today is an urban interest, reflecting on the political fabric of the Northern cities.

Keywords: disruption, urban infrastructure, growth, shrinking, 20. century, path dependency, resilience

Topic(s)

Urban infrastructures in the 2nd half of the 20^th century in the face of social, economic, and political disruptions

Session content

Cities as historically evolved entities are by definition always in flux. And yet there are periods of disruption in their history that pushed them to the limits of their resilience: Natural and man-made disasters, refugee flows and epidemics, the settlement and departure of industry, commerce or the military, or the building and fall of the Berlin Wall are such situations.

How flexible were European metropolises in the second half of the 20st century in adapting to such challenges? What happened to their infrastructure when they grew and shrank, their age structure changed, political and economic conditions shifted abruptly and irreversibly?

Contributions are desired on the transformation of infrastructures of living and working, of education, culture and recreation that became visible in the cityscape.

The following questions could guide the contributions:

• Which urban infrastructures were particularly affected by disruptions? How did cities differ in their response to such changes?
• Are there path dependencies and rules that urban adaptation processes followed? What are they? Are they the same everywhere?
• Can we find examples of particularly high resilience of cities in the face of disruption? Or, on the contrary, of inflexibility and dysfunction?
• How can such adaptation processes be visualized, for example on maps or with the methods of digital history?
• How did the adaptation processes affect the quality of life and attractiveness and ultimately the sustainability of cities?

Main chair: Jana Vojtíšková, doc., PhDr., Ph.D., Institut of History, University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic)
E-mail: jana.vojtiskova@uhk.cz

1^st Co-chair: Drahoslav Magdoško, Mgr., Ph.D., Institut of History, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (Slovakia)
E-mail: drahoslav.magdosko@upjs.sk

2^nd Co-chair: Josef Kadeřábek, PhDr., Ph.D., Regional Museum in Slaný (Czech Republic)
E-mail: kaderabek.josef@seznam.cz

Short abstract

The section will be interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on the connection of history, sociology, and anthropology. It will deal with the issue of imaginary borders in urban space, in the wide timeframe of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.

Keywords: symbolic communication; imaginary boundaries; mind mapping; historical and visual anthropology

Topic(s)

symbolic communication; imaginary boundaries; mind mapping; historical and visual anthropology

Session content

There are borders that no one drew on maps, but people carried them in their minds. Often contemporaries even perceived them more sharply than the real, visually represented ones. Exceeding these imaginary boundaries was undesirable, punishable, and had social, economic, and political consequences. The goal of our section is to raise and then deepen the topic of imaginary borders and maps in the field of research in urban history. How did imaginary borders come about? Did they enter urban space to become physical boundaries? Did the vanished physical boundaries remain in people as mental traces? Were there rituals associated with crossing them? We would like to find an answer to these and many other questions with the help of the methodology of historical and visual anthropology, urban studies, or the history of everyday life. The issue of mental or imaginary mapping, which deals with the creation of alternative city maps and plans based on local awareness or the nomenclature of city districts used by different social groups, should not be left out. We are also interested in the answers to the questions whether these imaginary maps have the same borders as the physical ones, what their roots are. How do the imaginary maps of different social groups differ? In connection with the above, we open the scope to both medieval and early modern themes, so that we can trace the phenomenon of the imaginary borders of our ancestors across these two epochs in the light of summary contributions and case studies.

Main chair: Jakob Ingemann Parby, senior researcher, PI of Sounds of Copenhagen – Museum of Copenhagen
E-mail: jakobp@kk.dk

1^st Co-chair: Christine Jeanneret, Associate professor, PI of SOUND: Soundscapes of Rosenborg, , Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen
E-mail: christine.jeanneret@teol.ku.dk

Short abstract

Urban communities and identities are defined by both physical, social, political, emotional, and phenomenological borders. This session explores the sonic boundaries of urban communities constructed through silence, noise and the experience of urban sounds and soundscapes.

Keywords: Sound Studies, sonic hierarchies, listening regimes, 1600–2020

Topic(s)

Sound studies, sonic boundaries, listening regimes, history of the senses, hierachies, space-making

Session content

This session explores the sonic boundaries of urban communities in Early Modern and Modern Europe constructed through silence, noise and listening regimes e.g. the behavioral norms and divisions surrounding the experience, ordering, and hierarchization of urban sounds and soundscapes.

Inspired by the works of scholars like Raymond Murray Schafer, Emma Thompson, Jonathan Sterne, Karin Bijsterveld and Samuel Llano, this session explores how learnings from Sound Studies can be operationalized in the study of social change in European Cities with a particular focus on sound and aurality in the formation of social, ethnic and political boundaries and geographies within individual cities and across the rural-urban divide.

How have sounds, soundscapes and listening practices transformed or defined spaces, social group, neighborhood and workplace identities or political alliances? What are the social, racial, and gendered delineations in which sound and listening regimes have played a particularly susceptible role for their definition and transgression? What defining shifts can be discerned at the local, urban, and national level? What are the spaces that most representationally encapsulate sonic hierarchies?

We particularly invite contributions that uses the study of sound and listening practices to new research agendas and methodologic questions on urban history as well as contributions involving the material culture of urban soundscapes and boundaries. From the carriage-drivers whipcracks denounced by urban intellectuals in the mid-19^th century to the ghetto-blaster conquering the streets of European cities in the 1980s; from 19^th and early 20^th century neighborhood conflicts over industrial noise and sound enhancing gramophones to boomboxes and door phones in the contemporary city.

Main chair: Noel A. Manzano Gómez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
E-mail: noel.a.manzano@gmail.com

1^st Co-chair: Jorge Ramón Ros, Universitat de València
E-mail: jorge.ramon@uv.es

Short abstract

Contemporary urban studies show how informal settlements are frequently situated in spaces marked by pollution and environmental degradation, creating "sacrifice zones" in which the health of human beings is compromised. Our session proposes to study the historical development of these areas.

Keywords: sacrifice zones, environmental justice, informal settlements, urban peripheries, urban metabolism.

Topic(s)

sacrifice zones, environmental justice, informal settlements, urban peripheries, urban metabolism.

Session content

This session explores the sonic boundaries of urban communities in Early Modern and Modern Europe Contemporary urban studies have recently adopted the concept of "sacrifice zones" as spaces in which the health of human beings is compromised due to their exposure to environmental dangers. This question seems to be especially acute in the cases of which today we call informal settlements, frequently situated in spaces marked by pollution and environmental degradation. Although this conjunction has been observed since the outbreak of industrial urban growth, analyses in a historical perspective about it seem unexplored to date.

Our session proposes to study the historical imbrications between sacrifice zones and self-developed housing areas in Iberian Peninsula and Latin America from 1850s until the 1970s economic crisis. We assume that the different waves of industrialisation and the building of liberal States produced a redefinition of socio-environmental city boundaries, giving rise to a twofold process of displacement to the peripheries of (i) excretion metabolic processes and (ii) the populations in charge of dealing with them. While urban planning built transnationally since the end of the 19^th century, was intended to separate both spaces, recent historiography shows how this purpose was soon ignored by the authorities, permitting the development of sacrifice zones.

In first place, this session will be interested in investigations focused on how the emerging geographies of the capitalist city shaped a new metabolic order and a centre-periphery relation, leading to the production and reproduction of urban inequality.

Secondly, it's addressed to those studies about the creation of local governmentalities and the stigmatisations of peripheral territories to be sacrified, as well as the justifications about their transformation.

Thirdly, it will attempt to understand how the production of sacrifice zones clashed with the presence and activities of people affected by it, in particular with self-developed areas, and how this process boosted new social identities, politicisation processes and conceptions of city's space.

In conclusion, our initiative is open to any contribution about the historicity of "sacrifice zones", analysing the processes of juxtaposition, dependence or conflict between self-built settlements and urban metabolic outcomes. We propose to addresse among others the following topics:

• The development of self-built housing areas around industrial or waste spaces or, inversely, the implantation of environmentally conflictive projects in spaces populated by working classes.
• The analysis of governmental discourses and policies regarding the development of sacrifice zones and their conjunction with self-built settlements.
• The development of conflicts between vulnerable populations and state or private groups that trigger environmental damage in the territory.
• The global delocalisation of sacrifice zones and informal urbanism as a consequence of the progressive development of planetary urbanization.

Main chair: Jaume Dantí Riu, Dr. University of Barcelona
E-mail: jdanti@ub.edu

1^st Co-chair: Valentina Favarò, Dr., University of Palermo
E-mail: valentina.favaro@unipa.it

2^nd Co-chair: Ida Mauro, Dr., University of Barcelona
E-mail: idamauro@ub.edu

Short abstract

The session aims to explore the different meanings of the notion of boundary in Mediterranean cities in the early modern period. On the one hand, it focus on the border cities and their role in the circulation of information and the articulation of commercial networks, on the other, it examines the limit imposed by the sea on the urban development.

Keywords: Mediterranean, Early Modern History, City Networks, Commerce, Urban Defense System

Topic(s)

The Mediterranean sea as physical and political boundaries in the early modern urban history.

Session content

The session aims to explore the different meanings and implications of the notion on boundary in Mediterranean cities from a broad chronological perspective, ranging from the 15^th to the 18^th centuries.

The organisers wish to invite abstracts about cities situated in frontier regions in the Early Modern Mediterranean, focusing on the role played by these urban centres in the circulation of information and the creation of urban networks across political frontiers. Proposals about how these cities overcame boundaries and used their position in liminal areas to foster economic activity will be welcome, as well as papers on their political action, when the cities demanded a privileged status from their respective rulers because of their strategic place. In this vein, the session is also open to papers that focus on commercial and political agents active in these contact areas, and the cultural transference that they may have channelled.

On the other hand, the session wants to explore the limitations imposed by the Mediterranean Sea to urban development. We welcome proposals that present new perspectives on the (re)dimensioning of exchange during the centuries of the First Globalisation, paying attention to the multi-scalar commercial networks. Finally, from this perspective of the Mediterranean as a limitation, we invite proposals that address the impact of the internal Mediterranean frontier between the Ottoman and Spanish empires on urban development, examining the burden that defensive systems (towers, bastions, artillery, and militias) posed on urban governments in terms of funding and management.

The session topic focus on several aspects investigated by the research group GEHMO – Grups d'estudi d'Història del Mediterrani Occidental - Universitat de Barcelona, whose participation in the oncoming AEUH conference aims to expand its traditional research avenues (which revolve around the territories of the Crown of Aragon) to include the Mediterranean basin at large, generating a forum for comparison of different urban contexts.

Main chair: Garyfallia Katsavounidou, Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Urban Planning, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
E-mail: gkatsavou@plandevel.auth.gr

1^st Co-chair: Olga Touloumi, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Bard College, USA
E-mail: otouloum@bard.edu

Short abstract

This session invites papers on the many ways in which women have contributed and participated in the making of cities as users of the built environment, stewardesses of policy change, as activists, and as planners and theorists of urban space. The goal of this session is to foreground the many ways in which women have historically produced space and place.

Keywords: Feminisms; planning; activism; care; infrastructures; housework; degrowth; inclusive planning; non-sexist city

Topic(s)

female planners and architects; feminist activism in the built environment; women in planning and public works departments; infrastructural care; women in urban histories

Session content

"The city is an organized memory, and in history women are the forgotten”
Hannah Arendt

The canon of city planning and urban history has often reproduced a gendered boundary in the production of the built environment, overlooking how the complex and unequal relations between men and women shape our cities (Falú 2017). Despite, however, their omittance from official history, women have always been active participants in the shaping of human settlements, not only in their role in historic social movements, such as Jane Addams or Jane Jacobs, but also in their everyday lives, as makers and caretakers of habitats. Feminist scholars and activists such as the Combahee River Collective (1977), Dolores Hayden (1979), and Matrix (1984) have analyzed and criticized the way in which gender and race produce cities, while pointing to the necessity of an intersectional feminist approach to the question of the city.

In this session we invite papers that rethink the history of the relationship between women and urbanism, as well as assess feminist planning discourse and practices. Gendered differences exist in the perception of safety, in urban mobility, in accessibility, in opportunities for socializing and enjoying urban open spaces. In the face of such inequalities, feminist design practices (such as muf) serve as agencies of social change and as examples of a different ethos of professional practice that addresses the question of the commons and reconnects housekeeping with public-making. The goal is to see how women practitioners and theorists addressed the gendered boundaries of cities and the limitations they produce often with their words and actions.

We are particularly interested in papers that examine the work of different feminist groups in urban practice and discourse; curricular interventions in the space of the university; activism in professional organizations; feminist discourse on degrowth, infrastructural care, and social reproduction of the built environment. Following the pioneering work of Helena Mattsson and Elke Krasny, our panel attempts to also survey how women, often populating service work within larger bureaucracies, used their positions to recalibrate the welfare state by intervening on the design of urban policy, legislative frameworks and buildings codes. Finally, we welcome social histories and microhistories of the built environment that foreground housekeeping, migration, and homesteading as city-making practices.

Main chair: Viktor Pál, PhD, University of Ostrava
E-mail:

1^st Co-chair: Inna Häkkinen, PhD, University of Helsinki
E-mail: inna.sukhenko@helsinki.fi

2^nd Co-chair: Petr Popelka, Ph.D., University of Ostrava
E-mail:

Short abstract

This panel focuses on the environmental history of cities with particular focus on authoritarian regimes across the globe. The panel aims to incorporate papers analyzing the history of cities and the environment on both the political left and right starting from the Russian Revolutions until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Keywords: authoritarianism, environmental history, urban environment, 20^th century, global history

Topic(s)

History of the urban environment in authoritarian regimes across the globe in the 20^th century

Session content

When historians of technology or the environment have investigated the environmental consequences of authoritarian regimes, they have frequently argued that authoritarian regimes have been unable to produce positive environmental results or adjust successfully to global structural change, if they have shown any concern for the environment at all. Put another way, the scholarly consensus holds that authoritarian regimes on both the left and the right generally have demonstrated an anti-environmentalist bias, and when opposed by environmentalist social movements, have succeeded in silencing those voices.

In contrast, this panel takes as its points of departure that authoritarian societies have developed environmentalist policies of their own, that environmentalism is a protean ideology, and that the sets of structures and priorities prevailing in the West represent only some of many possibilities.

The present panel aims to investigate the above described theory on the environmental history of cities with particular focus on authoritarian regimes across the globe. This panel aims to incorporate papers analyzing the history of cities and the environment on both the political left and right starting from the Russian Revolutions until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although the panel's chronology is linked to the existence of the USSR, its focus is not confined solely to socialist cities, rather it aims to facilitate discussion between scholars working with rightwing and leftwing authoritarian regimes across the globe from Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, Africa and Europe.

Suggested themes for individual papers include:
Politics and the environment in authoritarian regimes
Urban planning under authoritarian regimes (construction/destruction, new concepts) and its environmental dimension
Authoritarian regimes, cities and economic growth (impact of industry, commerce and networks)
Water and the city (Urban water bodies, Municipal and industrial water and wastewater)
Consumption and waste; waste management in authoritarian regimes
Urban space, environmental disasters and their solutions in authoritarian regimes
War, war preparation and the urban environment
Air quality: heating, transport, industry
Animals in the city
Leisure and green spaces
Suburbanization, motorization,
City and its surroundings: urban metabolism

Any other theme that fits the proposed methodological and chronological frame of the panel is welcome!

Main chair: Dr Michael Sewell, Manchester Metropolitan University
E-mail: M.Sewell@mmu.ac.uk

1^st Co-chair: Professor Roey Sweet, University of Leicester
E-mail: rhs4@leicester.ac.uk

Short abstract

This panel will investigate similarities and differences in how the past has been used in the ‘reinvention' of urban identity in the modern era. It seeks to identify what characterises the ‘useable past' and what resources (textual, physical and imaginative) have been used in urban development across time and space.

Keywords: useable past, reinvention, identity, place, pride, urban, branding, tourism

Topic(s)

pride of place, town reinvention, urban identity, useable pasts, place branding, place leadership

Session content

In 2015 a series of road signs were erected on twelve ‘key gateways' to Leicester, greeting all incoming traffic with the message ‘Welcome to Leicester Historic City'. The marketing manager responsible for the signs expressed the hope that they would ‘evoke feelings of nostalgia and a strong sense of place'. This formed part of a wider initiative led by the City Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, to ‘raise awareness of Leicester's rich heritage' and make people feel proud of the city in which they live and work' (Leicester Mercury, 9 Oct. 2015). The desire of marketing managers, planners, and cultural organizations such as Historic England, to use the past to reinvent a sense of place is one that is deeply imbricated in late twentieth and twenty-first-century policy and transcends geographical boundaries. But it also has roots in the past. Deliberate attempts to evoke nostalgia, celebrate tradition and create a sense of place predicated upon the past can be dated back to the eighteenth century. This panel will take a historical perspective upon how the past has been used as a tool of ‘reinvention', in place branding and in the promotion of local identities in response to the challenges and opportunities of urbanization, industrialization, post-war reconstruction, de-industrialization, rise of the leisure economy and mass tourism.

This panel invites case studies of towns and cities from across the world to investigate similarities and differences in how the past has been used in the ‘reinvention' of urban identity in the modern era. It seeks to identify what characterises the ‘useable past' and what resources (charters, coats of arms, the physical environment, folklore, and legend) were used in urban development across time and space. We will explore themes of top-down paternalism in urban governance but will also ask how local communities have interacted with and have used heritage and the past to shape local identity. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives from art history, geography, literature, architecture, and tourism alongside history to analyse the ways in which urban authorities, planners, stakeholders, and residents have engaged with the past, historically and in the present, and how different strategies have impacted local identity.

We invite submissions addressing one or more of the following questions

• What pasts were considered useable in the process of reinventing a town, and how have these changed over time?
• In what forms has the past been used in the construction of local urban identities?
• How have efforts to exploit the past in the ‘reinvention' of urban identities affected the urban landscape/influenced town planning decisions?
• Which actors have been the key drivers of town reinvention and why?
• How has the past been used historically and in the present in place marketing?
• What is the future of the past in contemporary town planning?

Main chair: Dr. Marie-Paule Jungblut (L) Maître de Conférences, University of Luxembourg Institute of History
E-mail: marie-paule.jungblut@uni.lu

1^st Co-chair: Dr. Rosa Tamborrino (IT) Professor, Politecnico di Torino Department of Architecture and Design
E-mail: rosa.tamborrino@polito.it

Short abstract

In our session we would like to explore best practice examples of urban heritage projects that challenge the formal perspective at city heritage by offering a multiperspective view crosscutting physical and/or cultural (current or past) boundaries of the urban history. We would like to open the discussion about what can be considered as urban heritage.

Keywords: Bottom-up urban heritage, critical storytelling, contemporary perspectives to the past, social change, empowerment

Topic(s)

collaborative heritagization; urban heritage building; unveiling local heritage; socio-spatially dynamic neighborhoods

Session content

In many places today, academic historians still exercise the prerogative of defining the meaning of heritage evidence. Heritage has been acknowledged as an inclusive tangible and intangible understanding including artifacts and buildings as well as personal accounts and collective know-how and complex huge-scale cultural natural regions with their layers throughout time. Most often, the formal national historical narratives do not open the door to telling the whole story of a historic area or an artifact. Very often, they are limited to one particular perspective and rarely offer a critical thinking at diverse perspectives about the past and its perception in the present of the city and citizens.

However, digital society has fostered the creation of new and diverse narratives beyond national/cultural frontiers, also producing new formats for virtual spaces for exhibitions. Moreover, the Anglophone “community movement” has moved museums, libraries, archives, universities and other institutions in the direction of involving their communities. On one side, the “community movement” approach emphasizes the role of these institutions in service to society. On the other side, there is an increasing interest in local values. Today we see more and more community driven projects which are not necessarily linked to formal institutions where historic cities continue to play a role model. Their goal is to challenge perspectives and even evoke social change by fostering urban heritage.

In our session we would like to explore best practice examples of urban heritage projects that challenge the formal perspective at city heritage by offering a multiperspective view crosscutting physical and/or cultural boundaries of the past. We would like to open the discussion about what can be considered as urban heritage.

Main chair: Noel Manzano, Ph.D., Postdoctoral researcher, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
E-mail: noel.manzano@upm.es

1^st Co-chair: Florian Urban, Ph.D., Prof., Head of History of Architecture and Urban Studies (HAUS), Glasgow School of Art
E-mail: f.urban@gsa.ac.uk

Short abstract

Our session will focus on the history of informal housing in European cities, focusing on the 20^th century. This includes questions of architecture, policy, collective action and informal property.

Keywords: informal housing, production of space, planning history, informal real estate market, urban regulation beyond state institutions

Topic(s)

informal housing in 20^th-century Europe

Session content

Informal urbanization, understood as a process of production of precarious housing by deprived populations, is frequently attributed to the cities of the Global South. As recent historiography has shown, similar phenomena were widespread in many European cities until the second half of the 20^th century, and in fact have been a significant factor of urban growth until recently. To date, most authors working in this field have taken a localised, approach, giving the impression that informal urbanization was an exception and not a general trend in recent European urban history.

Our session proposes to establish a dialogue to show the European dimension of the phenomenon. We aim to historize the origins and transformations of informal housing and urbanization at a transnational level, transcending localised narratives, and discussing commonalities and divergences in different countries and cities.

Our hypothesis is that at the beginning of the 20^th century many European countries saw a two-fold process influenced by transnational experiences: on the one hand the adoption of modern hygiene laws and urban planning norms, and on the other hand the outlawing of precarious housing production. As a consequence, informal urban growth processes mutated and became clandestine, regulated by forces beyond the state, and subjected to varying degrees of tolerance and repression by national and municipal authorities.

We particularly invite proposals that focus on the following themes:

• urban policies and planning aiming at outlawing, eradicating or regularizing self-built housing, including the divergence between legislation and implementation, particularly from a transnational perspective
• collective action in defence of housing rights and spatial justice, and the influence of political or religious groups in the local, national and international coordination of those claims
• the architecture of informal housing, the morphology of informal settlements and their transformation over time
• The role of the real estate market and the emergence of modes of regulation of property and space outside state institutions, whether collaborative (neighbourhood associations) or coercive (mafias).

Main chair: Athina Vitopoulou, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, City_Space_Flux Research Unit, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
E-mail: avitopoulou@arch.auth.gr

1^st Co-chair: Marilena Kourniati, Maître de conférences, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d‘Architecture Paris la Villette, Research Laboratory Ahttep / AUSser 3329-CNRS
E-mail: marilena.kourniati@paris-lavillette.archi.fr

Short abstract

The main goal of this panel is to present and compare housing policies launched to accommodate large waves of refugees generated from the turbulent conditions in the first half of the 20^th century in Europe, as well as the resulting significant socio-spatial transformations within or in the fringe of the towns and cities.

Keywords: Refugee housing policies | Urban transformations | War | first half of 20^th century

Topic(s)

Architecture and Urbanism

Session content

The successive military conflicts (Balkan wars 1912-1913, Great War 1914-1918, Greek-Turkish war 1919-1922, Spanish War 1936-1939), the policy of denationalization of authoritarian regimes (USSR, Fascist Italy) and the resulted geopolitical transformations, as well as ethnic cleansing and national identity construction policies launched on grounds of ‘national security', generated large voluntary and involuntary displacement waves of population in most of European countries as well as in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey (for example, the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923).

From the political exile of the 19^th century to the communities or ethnic minorities persecuted for who they are and not for what they think, as Hannah Arendt would say (We refugees, 1943), the meaning as well as the status of the term “refugee” has changed over time along with relevant public policies.

A part of these refugees returned to their homelands, but many of them remained in the countries to which they fled. It is often the border towns that received the most refugees. At the beginning, emergency and temporary accommodation was usually used to shelter the refugees in refugee camps, army barracks, public buildings or abandoned premises. A common phenomenon was also arbitrary settlements with improvised accommodation, many of which evolved into permanent ones. Later, small- or large-scale housing programmes (self-help housing, organized construction, etc.) were initiated by local or central authorities, national bodies and/or international organisations for the rehabilitation of the refugees, resulting to significant sociospatial transformations within or in the fringe of the towns and cities.

Within this context, this panel welcomes papers that question the emergence of refugee housing category, and present different case studies and comparative research concerning refugee housing policies, temporary and permanent forms/types of refugee houses and settlements, the role of local authorities or national bodies in the refugees' rehabilitation programmes, as well as of international organizations in the transfer of housing and living models and urban development patterns, during the first half of the 20^th century until the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Main chair: Antje Kempe, Dr. University of Greifswald, Germany
E-mail: kempea@uni-greifswald.de

1^st Co-chair: Frank Rochow, Dr., Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany
E-mail: Frank.Rochow@b-tu.de

Short abstract

Following the assumption that urbanisation, globalisation and the Anthropocene created new categories and paradigms of borders the panel seeks to shed light on the question how the sea is perceived, narrated, mediated in the build environment of coastal towns and cities since Early Modern Times

Keywords: maritime history, port cities, land-sea relationship, globalisation, transformation, urban identity

Topic(s)

art and architectural history of maritime cities

Session content

Coastal cities are distinctively shaped by both, borders and connectivity, land and sea. They are mediators between these sides. Following the assumption that urbanisation, globalisation and the Anthropocene created new categories and paradigms of borders, the panel seeks to shed light on the question how the sea is perceived, narrated, and mediated in coastal towns and cities since Early Modern Times. Thus, categories of center and periphery, stability and transformation, the global and the planetary, and security and insecurity are called into question. The border theme will therefore be examined in terms of liminal spaces in the sense of a land-sea relationship to negotiate how boundaries of coastal towns and cities are shaped, imagined, and mediated.

Different ways of living, unequal modes of motion and distinct states of law and rule signify land and sea. In coastal towns and cities, these two worlds clash. This session seeks to investigate how these clashes looked like, how they were handled in the urban community, and to what distinct features of the urban communities they led.

Of particular interest are investigations focussing on the built environment. Deliberately setting an extended period, the aim is to identify phases of the transformation of coastal towns and cities in the global era to conclude the driving forces behind the design of a built environment: conditions of the sea, mercantile and neoliberal interests, competition between coastal cities, and cultural imaginations. Questions include: To what extent did the geographical position at sea influence the architectural discourse and language in these towns and cities in contrast to land-based ones? How did typical climate situations and unusual weather events influence these discussions? How sustainable were solutions once found in times of rapid change caused, e.g., by urbanization and industrialization? What were particular (landscape) architectural modes of mediation between land and sea? Moreover, how did they contribute to creating an environment of encounter and exchange between the two worlds? Did this atmosphere foster an understanding of the other side?

Another direction of the investigation will focus on the mediation of the self-image these towns and cities cultivated. This topic includes the question of motifs and narratives transmitted and asks for the motivation of the proponents, the audience's perceptions, and shifts and changes. How did the imagination of such places interfere with the built and social reality, and how was the image of coastal towns and cities mediated and visualized?

This session aims to identify overarching themes and motifs in expressing the hybrid identity of coastal towns and cities, and general insights into their formulation, contestation, and reassertion. Therefore, we ask for contributions that reveal connections between these places throughout time and space.

Main chair: Preston Perluss, associate professor, Université Grenoble Alpes, Laborataire de recherche historique Rhône Alpes
E-mail: preston.perluss@wanadoo.fr

1^st Co-chair: Mario Grassi, Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici University of San Marino
E-mail: mariograssi992@gmail.com

Short abstract

Our session seeks to study exactly how varied substances (coffee, distilled spirits, tobacco, sugar) all formed a locus of sociability that gave rise to the Enlightenment café. Clearly a number of factors contributed to the cafés dazzling success: proximity to theatres, heightened sodality-based linkages, a greater tolerance to consumption of addictive substances. Furthermore, the café itself became the object of intense commercialization and speculation. These are the subjects we seek to encourage researchers to share with the greater scientific community.

Keywords: Cafés, urban sociability, alcohol, coffee

Topic(s)

Origins of European cafés, social function of cafés, evolution of addictive substances in public space, market for café commerce.

Session content

Coffee entered the mores of European society in the course of the 17^th century. For over a century this Middle Eastern stimulant had formed the nexus of sociability in Ottoman society and Islamic culture.¹ Coffee's appearance in the Western Europe spawned an array of commercial practices involving collective consumption venues. If the earliest cafés or coffee houses date from the last third of the 17^th century and throughout the 18^th century, the café—whether Parisian or provincial—underwent explosive growth. An apparent point of inflection occurred in the middle of the 18^th century with a vast proliferation of coffee consuming venues.² Similarly coffee plantations took root in the West Indies during the first third of the 18^th and their extension furthered the spread of European coffee consumption.

In France despite the eponymous name “café”, coffee was not the exclusive commodity consumed in cafés nor were café owners/operators widely known as “cafetiers, instead they were called “limonadiers” as the lemonade craft guild members had the exclusive rights to run cafés. Lemonade vendors had been affiliated with the distiller's guild which had broken off from the Vinegar makers guild. This filiation holds more than mere archaic curiosity for a key reason : cafés offered their clients a wide range of distilled liquor. In fact, cafés were sumptuous temples to not the god Bacchus but rather to the less exalted, yet more potent, alchemistic alembic. That such an array of potentially abusive substances converge to a common locus (note that tobacco, chocolate, tea and saccharose imbued products all figured on the menu) should lead us to query the origins and evolution of the café as a commercial venture.

However, the study of the café, and the growth and social differentiation of the European café, conceals a further dimension : commodity-based value chains. The café and its social “space” stands as the end point of a very long chain of various products, some tropical and slave produced; this consummation of diverse commodity chains should be factored into the study of the café. The growth of Atlantic trade enabled coffee, sugar and chocolate to spread through consumer culture, just as tobacco had gained currency in the 17^th century. Thus we could also insist on this exotic element as a necessary cause in the startling expansion of cafés.

Our session will seek to draw together the various strands which converged to form the European café in the 18^th century : distilled beverages, tropical products and the rise of café culture initially oriented to wealthy palates but whose diffusion lead to a reconfiguration of drinking and socially stratified hobnobbing.

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¹ Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1985).
² Thierry Rigogne has deconstructed several myths surrounding the origin of Parisian cafés while Craig Koslofsky has uncovered material relating to the oldest known cafés in both London and Paris, »Parisian cafés in european perspective: contexts of consumption, 1660–1730» French History, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2017), p.39- 69.

Main chair: Pål Brunnström, Researcher, Malmö University, Department of Urban Studies
E-mail: pal.brunnstrom@mau.se

1^st Co-chair: Mikkel Thelle, Professor, The National Museum of Denmark, Guest Professor at Malmö University
E-mail: mikkel.thelle@natmus.dk

2^nd Co-chair: Philipp Reick, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University, Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies
E-mail: philipp.reick@aias.au.dk

Short abstract

This session explores the entangled history of cities and social movements in the post-industrial era. It does so by studying how municipal governments and other public urban bodies responded to the demands, framings, and repertoires of a new generation of social movements since the 1970s.

Keywords: Social movements, queer history, women’s movements, trade unions, activism, youth riots

Topic(s)

Urban social movements

Session content

Recent studies have shown that municipalities today often draw on social movement rhetoric in efforts to reinvent and promote their city. Scholars and activists regularly criticize city administrations that take credit for advancing legislative action and public debate even when this in fact originated from social mobilization. At the same time, many cities reduce their ambitions in welfare provision to citizens, in the context of the neoliberal dismantling of welfare states. Strategies labeled as green-washing, pink-washing or brown-washing have for instance been dismissed as attempts by cities to hijack campaigns for environmental protection or racial and gender equality. By presenting themselves as environmentally friendly and socially progressive pioneers, cities have thus turned struggles for social and climate justice into a marketing tool to boost tourism as well as domestic and foreign investment. This session seeks to scrutinize this narrative.

The objective of this session is to explore the complex and contested relationship between urban authorities on the one hand and the new social movements of the post-1970s on the other. We seek contributions that engage critically with the impact that social movements had on municipalities, how the latter responded to the movements’ claims and demands, and how they tried to ignore, co-opt or co-operate with the social movements around them. At the same time, we hope for contributions that study how the strategies by urban governments and public administration in turn influenced social movements, and how the latter were affected by processes of institutionalization and professionalization. While the temporal focus will be on, roughly, the last third of the twentieth century, there are no geographical restriction. Papers on non-Western cases are particularly welcome. All paper proposals (max. 300 words) must be submitted by 30 September 2023. Please follow the EAUH2024 submission guidelines carefully, and please include a short bio.

Main chair: Dr Tetiana Vodotyka, Institute of History of Ukraine National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
E-mail: vodotyka@mics.org.ua

1^st Co-chair: Dr Markian Prokopovych, Durham University
E-mail: markian.prokopovych@durham.ac.uk

Short abstract

This session will consider the challenges of urban recovery of cities most affected by the war in Ukraine situated on both sides of the war front. Ultimately, broader issues, such as the need for a redefinition of urban recovery and the meaning of the city and a home will also be addressed.

Keywords: urban planning, sites of memory, war zones, city as home, emotional contexts of recovery, refugees.

Topic(s)

Ukraine's recovery; comparative urban studies; definitions in urban history; memory; migration.

Session content

This session aims to bring together expertise on Ukrainian cities of historians and others working in urban studies. In particular, it will consider prospects and challenges of urban recovery of cities most affected by armed conflict as part of the war. What historical lessons from Ukraine's past and from cities that survived wars in other geographical regions might be useful for urban planners as they think ahead about urban recovery of cities of eastern and southern Ukraine? Asking this question inevitably leads to thinking about cities on both sides of the war front and the artificial and changing boundary that currently divides them. However, this also leads to broader issues, such as the need for a redefinition of what constitutes urban recovery and, ultimately, what constitutes a city and a home. While many cities were profoundly damaged by Russia's unprovoked and indiscriminate strikes on their civilian infrastructure, residential districts, and key cultural landmarks – and were also subject to massive population flows of refugees and temporarily displaced persons - there are also cities that were so destroyed that they can be considered as no longer existing, except perhaps for the remaining street grid. If anything, they are sites of mourning and grief, rather than sites of life. Nevertheless, they persist as memories, both as sites of their populations' resistance and resilience, and much less heroic ones, of fractured lives, lost homes and of their denizens' complex, conflicting, and changing attitudes towards their homeland and the aggressor. Such cases, unique as they are in twenty-first century Europe, are by no means unusual in history. What is a city, what is the limit beyond which its very existence is no more than memory, and what exactly is the meaning of recovery in such cases? Furthermore, survivors often speak of their cities as 'lost homes' and some among them have also found 'new homes' in other cities; what is the meaning of 'home' and where are its physical and psychological boundaries? Is home where one's historic homeland, is it rather where the immediate family and closest friends are, or is it where one recognises one's cultural markers, such as sites, smells or cultural practices? If the answer is the latter, should planners not begin to incorporate these aspects in their visions for future Ukrainian cities?

Main chair: Iason Jongepier, Prof. Dr., University of Antwerp / State Archives in Belgium
E-mail: iason.jongepier@uantwerpen.be

1^st Co-chair: Rogier van Kooten, Dr., Utrecht University (N.W. Posthumus Institute) / University of Antwerp
E-mail: r.vankooten@uu.nl

Short abstract

This session will explore urban HGIS infrastructures and their application as a „historical laboratory“; in which researchers can analyse, experiment, ask new questions and test hypotheses using „Big Data of the Past“.

Keywords: HGIS, Big Data, Spatial Analysis, Computational Methods

Topic(s)

Digital Humanities, Spatial Humanities, Urban History

Session content

In 2010, the leading book „The Spatial Humanities. GIS and the future of humanities scholarship“; highlighted the potential of digital spatial techniques - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - for historical research [1]. Large amounts of data of various kinds and origins can become comparable and analysable through location. This would result in new research questions and perspectives, as well as a new interpretation of spatial data. More generally, large amounts of historical data (spatial or otherwise), also known as “Big Data of the Past“ can make it possible to revive historiography using computational techniques. Partly prompted by these debates about the greatest potential of digital techniques, but also driven by smaller-scale projects based on smaller data sets, digital (spatial) techniques have seeped into the world of urban history. Within this, Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) have played an important, formative role. Through this technology, maps are digitally accessed and enriched with additional data, such as tax information or population registers allowing for a wide range of spatial analyses. In recent years, much time and energy has been spent on digitising and enriching huge amounts of historical map material, not in the least inspired by e.g. Time Machine Europe [2]. This has given scientists (as well as the wider public) access to this rich historical material, creating a historical laboratory in which the researcher can analyse, experiment, ask new questions and test hypotheses in a much faster way than before, in order to arrive at new scientific insights [3].

This specialist session will explore urban HGIS infrastructures and the (innovative) new research in urban history that they have facilitated. The session welcomes papers on any urban HGIS and on any topic in (spatial) urban history but asks explicitly to reflect on questions as:

To what extent have the promises and possibilities surrounding these digital (often spatial) methods actually been realised? Have new research methods and scenarios presented themselves according to the (newly) available technology and „Big Data“?

Has urban HGIS been able to present results that would not have been found without turning to (large) spatial datasets?

When envisioning a well-filled and diverse session we hope to inspire researchers and highlight new potentialresearch avenues, to reflect critically on what has (or has not) been enabled by the time consuming task of building HGIS infrastructures and to sketch a way forward towards an urban history that embraces the possibilities of a high-tech exploration of the "Big Data of the Past".

[1] D.J. Bodenhamer, J. Corrigan en T.M. Harris (red.), The Spatial Humanities. GIS and the future of humanities scholarship (Bloomington, 2010); [2] www.timemachine.eu [3] Dossier: „Digitale stadsgeschiedenis, de belofte ingelost“; (Stadsgeschiedenis 17/2, 2022)

Main chair: Dr Justin Colson, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
E-mail: justin.colson@sas.ac.uk

1^st Co-chair: Dr Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, University of Amsterdam
E-mail: J.J.Wubs-Mrozewicz@uva.nl

Short abstract

This session is designed to encompass the state of the art in social and economic scholarship of late medieval and early modern European cities. The incredibly rich urban archives of this period offer rich possibilities, but also methodological challenges. Papers in this session will showcase innovative methods and frameworks to explore economic lives and inequality.

Keywords: Medieval; Early Modern; Economic History; Social History; Inequality; Trade; Poverty; Merchants; Charity; Real estate

Topic(s)

Late medieval and early modern cities; social and economic history; North Sea region; merchants and trade

Session content

The cities of Europe offer incredibly rich sources for the lives of a broad range of late medieval and early modern people, and have long been fertile territory for social and economic historians studying inequality and economic lives. Characteristic sources such as the records of citizenship, apprenticeship, urban taxation, property deeds and registers, urban courts and records of conflict, and testaments give historians the opportunity to investigate the economically diverse lives of urban dwellers in ways that are seldom possible for other sectors of pre-modern society. The major benefit of these sources – their often vast extent and relatively broad social range – can also create challenges for the historian.

New approaches both in terms of theoretical frameworks, and new digital techniques, have helped this field to prosper in recent years. Historians are conceiving of urban inequality in new ways – not only through axes of wealth and status, but in terms of gender, nationality, race, housing, literacy, and space. New access to digitised sources, and techniques from Geographical Information Systems to Social Network Analysis, have unlocked new perspectives on urban economies. Significant recent studies just within the last year have, for example, used digital approaches to examine the interrelationship of economic and spatial marginality (Berry, 2022); micro- and cultural examination of individual merchant careers (Soly, 2022); and the social mechanisms of industrial production (Stabel, 2022). Ongoing work continues to examine economic lives from ever more diverse and broadly framed perspectives, from inequality & social mobility, to social dimensions of artistic patronage, and the interplay of urban growth and gentrification.

This session is designed to encompass the state of the art in social and economic scholarship of late medieval and early modern cities. Drawing upon the success of the online Belgian-British Late Medieval seminar series, we are particularly keen to consider the cities of North Western Europe and the North Sea World, as well as broader comparisons across the continent. These seminars have been convened by experts at Queen Mary University of London and Ghent University to offer a supportive and inclusive online space to discuss the latest research in medieval urban history. We are particularly keen to receive papers addressing novel social and economic themes, or bringing new perspectives to established questions. We are also particularly keen to receive papers from early career researchers.

Main chair: Professor Miri Rubin, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
E-mail: m.e.rubin@qmul.ac.uk

1^st Co-chair: Professor Jan Dumolyn, University of Ghent
E-mail jan.dumolyn@ugent.be

Short abstract

Keywords: Medieval; Early Modern; Religion; Social History; Minorities; Parishes, Synagogues; Chapels

Topic(s)

Late medieval and early modern cities; minorities and diversity; architecture; migration.

Session content

This session draws on new research into the spaces inhabited by groups marked by difference in premodern cities. It will attract research from two rich fields of current research in urban history: the interest in spaces and places (who built them, what they looked like, who used them and for what purposes, and more) and the interest in the diversity of identities and life styles which co-existed in urban centres. In both areas recent research has shown that official boundaries/distinctions set out in law were meaningful but not all defining of the experiences of townspoeple. Groups marked by religious, ethnic, linguistic, occupational or status distinction both belonged to the city, but also laboured to create spaces and places where their heritage could be expressed and passed on to further generations. This could take the shape of a place of worship (synagogue, confraternity chapel, merchants' residential zone like the Steelyard in London). Building required substantial investment, planning and design, and a sense of how bricks, stone and the spaces they defined, could convey a cherished sense of identity.

The papers in the session will arise from the research of early career research who reflect the collaborative and interdisciplinary thrust of fine contemporary urban history. It will draw on historians of religious practice, of architecture, of rituals, and of urban management, of trade and of migration. E aim to attract research that deals with different parts of Europe, but which is also alert to the global setting of European lives. We are confident of the interest of this session thanks to the work we have done (with Marc Boone and Stefan Meysman, both of U of Ghent) for close to three years now, through the British-Belgian seminar in Late Medieval (and Early Modern) urban history. This group emerged with the aim of supporting and mentoring researchers in urban history during the Covid years, a period of enforced separation and paucity of occasions for presentation of new research. The tens of excellent presentations by doctoral, postdoctoral, and early career scholars in the course of the seminar have inspired us to offer this session and to open its opportunities to all those interested.