1) Organization of two Conference sessions:
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Session 11 – Spatial Methods in Transdisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity for Urban Sustainability
Organizers:
Fraya Frehse (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Ariane Sept (Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung, Germany), Ignacio Castillo Ulloa (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany), Nina Baur (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany), Angela Million (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
Session Abstract:
Since the publication of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, transdisciplinarity has been accentually gaining traction among scholars concerned with the issue of urban sustainability. Given that it betokens a kind of knowledge production that is innately forged in research-practice collaborations between scientific researchers and local practitioners (based in NGOs, private firms or local government agencies) as well as independent policy-makers or artists, transdisciplinarity research for urban sustainability, on the one hand, makes evident that this kind of research is not only action-bent but also of transformative nature. On the other hand, transdisciplinarity for urban sustainability confronts both social scientists and urban planners with the epistemological and methodological dilemmas implicit in working together in interdisciplinary research-practice projects. After all, the disciplinary knowledge traditions and methodological understandings are different: social scientists might not accept a SWOT analysis as a method since it is normative per se or criticise the casual application of quantitative standardized methods for activating surveys in community development; planners, on the other hand, might find some spatial-sociological research pointless because it lacks applicability, and they may devalue theory building as a pure intellectual thought exercise that does not help to improve spatial conditions. In light of this state of affairs, this session aims to get to the bottom of these different trans- and interdisciplinary approaches to methods regarding spatial research on urban sustainability, and strengthen the dialogue between the social sciences and planning. We particularly welcome papers that critically address any of the following issues: (i) the theoretical, or methodological role of spatial methods in a transdisciplinary or interdisciplinarity research-practice agenda of urban sustainability, whether or not jointly led by social scientists and urban planners; (ii) incremental, evolutionary, and social learning approach in transdisciplinary research and practice; (iii) the appropriateness of spatial methods to the diverse trans- or interdisciplinary partners, issues and contexts, especially those comprising the cooperation between social scientists and urban planners; (iv) any common lines of discussion between trans- or interdisciplinary and participatory research that make use of spatial methods.
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Session 17 – Applying Spatial Methods in Homelessness Studies: Methodological and Ethical Challenge
Organizers:
Fraya Frehse (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Natalia Martini (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
Session Abstract:
Homeless urban lives are characterized by spatial fluidity amidst fixity. Their spatial patterns are significantly shaped by geographies of inclusion/exclusion – service provision, resource acquisition, policing, expulsion amidst solidary interactions with peers and non-homeless people. Homeless geographies reflect how socially marginalized urbanites navigate the urban environment, i.e., how they deploy their spatial knowledge and practical skills to manoeuvre through various social boundaries and material barriers and hence get by in the city. More generally, daily paths of homeless urbanites or, from an alternative theoretical stance, their bodily uses of public places illuminate how social and material orderings of urban spaces enable or constrain (non-)belonging in the city. By taking into consideration that the spatial dimension of homelessness has become increasingly important in recent homelessness studies, given that homelessness has turned into a global social issue, this session addresses the methodological and ethical challenges implicit in the application of spatial methods in empirical research on urban homelessness. It aims at discussing the limits and possibilities of qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches that are sensitive to the social and relational dimensions of space. In this session, we invite scholars interested in sharing especially their methodological experiences with empirical research on homeless’ mobilities, on the homeless’ daily paths, on their bodily uses of space, on the activity spaces of homeless people, on the spatial patterns of their (non-)belonging to the city, on the homeless’ geographies of inclusion/exclusion, on their perceptions and experiences of space, or the spatial knowledge of homeless urbanites. On the one hand, we particularly welcome submissions that address the difficulties and advantages of spatial methods such as GPS tracking, mental mapping, walking interviews and spatial ethnography. On the other hand, we encourage reflection on ethical issues related to obtaining and using spatial information regarding locations of homeless’ activities due to their often non-normative and sometimes illegal status.
