About

Hosted by the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, the 2nd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS Conference) and the 1st RC33 Regional Conference “Latin America: Brazil” in cooperation with ESA RN21 “Quantitative Methods” are going to take place online from Thursday September 8th to Saturday September 10th, 2022. The SMUS Conference Brazil 2022 aims at furthering the global dialogue on methods by scholars and researchers from all over the world and all social and spatial sciences (e. g. anthropology, area studies, architecture, communication studies, computational sciences, digital humanities, educational sciences, geography, historical sciences, humanities, landscape planning, philosophy, psychology, sociology, urban design, urban planning, traffic planning and environmental planning) by focusing especially on the following issues:

• • spatial and temporal research
    • • Session 01. Ethnography as Spatial-Temporal Method
      • Session 02. Historical Methods in Grappling with the Global South Challenges in the 21st Century
      • Session 03. Political Ecology of the ‘Urban’: Historical and Situated Perspectives

• • decolonizing (social-scientific) knowledge
    • • Session 04. Decolonizing Social Science Methodology
      • Session 05. Co-Production (of Knowledge) as Pathway to Decolonization of Knowledge in the Global South
      • Session 06. From Living Labs to Sites of Unity: Decolonizing Urban Experiments with Planetary Futures

• • mapping
    • • Session 07. Hybrid Mapping and Critical Cartography as Research Methodologies for Cities

• • informatics
    • • Session 08. Sense-making with (Unconventional) Large Digital Datasets in Social and Cultural Research – Methodological Challenges and Approaches

• • spatial/cognitive crossroads
    • • Session 09. Migration, Mobilities, and Displacement in the ‘Global South’
      • Session 10. Mobile Methods and Sociospatial Inequalities
      • Session 11. Spatial Methods in Transdisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity for Urban Sustainability
      • Session 12. Collaborative Research and Mutual Learning in Urban Sustainability Projects

• • intersections in urban planning
    • • Session 13. Studying Urban Planning and Governance Through Qualitative Approaches: Perspectives from Various Spatial Contexts
      • Session 14. Urban Planning and Design Contribution to Understanding the Socio-Spatial Dynamic of Place and Memory

• • housing
    • • Session 15. Methodological Weaknesses in Approaching Affordable Housing in the Global South – Need for Context-Responsive Approaches
      • Session 16. Dialogues on Social Housing
      • Session 17. Applying Spatial Methods in Homelessness Studies: Methodological and Ethical Challenges

• • violence
    • • Session 18. Spatial Dynamics of Violence: Qualitative Methodologies and Discussions

• • healthcare
    • • Session 19. Spatial Methods in Healthcare Research

• • food
    • • Session 20. Methods in Food Studies Research

Each subject is more or less directly addressed by the five Actions that underpin the Global Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (GCSMUS). In order to implement these Actions at USP this University and Technische Universität Berlin have signed a five-year cooperation agreement.
The GCSMUS lead partner institution at USP is the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and more specifically its Department of Sociology.

Team

The organization of the SMUS Conference Brazil 2022 is a joint initiative of professors, (ex-)students and members of the administration staff of both the USP Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences and the USP School of Architecture and Urbanism. Moreover, it is enriched by the collaboration of the GCSMUS Berlin team and of one GCSMUS partner at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. 

Steering Committee: 

Prof. Dr. Fraya Frehse  (GCSMUS Lead Partner and Action Speaker; Conference Coordinator; Professor at the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. Marcos César Alvarez  (Head of the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. André Vereta Nahoum (Vice-Head of the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. Bianca Freire-Medeiros (Professor at the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. Inês Martina Lersch (GCSMUS Advanced Researcher; Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) 

Prof. Dr. Márcia Lima (Professor at the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. Paula Marcelino (Professor at the Department of Sociology, USP)

Prof. Dr. Fábio Mariz Gonçalves (Professor at the School of Architecture and Urbanism, USP)

Dr. Marcelo Batista Nery (Coordinator of Technology Transfer of the USP Center for the Study of Violence)

Prof. Dr. Eugenio Queiroga (Dean of the School of Architecture and Urbanism, USP)

SMUS Brazil Conference Manager: 

Camilo Flamarion – Social Scientist and Event Manager

SMUS Brazil Conference Secretary: 

Ana Maria Pereira Machado – Social Scientist and Event Producer

SMUS Brazil Conference Team: 

Beatriz dos Santos Alves Ventura Fernandes – MA student in Architecture

Amanda Freitas – MA student in Political Science

Dante Chiavareto Pezzin – PhD student in Geography

Martha Hitner dos Santos – MA student in Sociology 

Paula Costa Nunes de Carvalho – PhD student in Sociology

Yasmin Anefalos de Oliveira – PhD student in Architecture

Henrique Assi Hernandes – Undergraduate student in Social Sciences (events intern at the USP Department of Sociology)