The Right to Housing in COVID-19 Lockdown Times

Webinar

 ‘Stay Home Without a Home’.

The Right to Housing in COVID-19 Lockdown Times

 

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2020

 Time: 11 a.m (EDT, New York City); 12 a.m. (UTC-3, Rio de Janeiro); 4 p.m (WEST, Lisbon); 5 p.m (CEST, Barcelona and Turin); 6 p.m. (EEST, Beirut)

 Duration: 1h15

 Event in partnership with the project HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggle (FCT, PTDC/GES-URB/28826/2017), and the CIES-ISCTE-IUL Monthly Seminar on Social Movements and Political Action

 Zoom:

https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/vJcvcOipqzMiDdltmn3EEp5KC2kuCEorNg

Contacts: guya.accornero@iscte-iul.pt or simone.tulumello@ics.ulisboa.pt

 Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown measures of many sorts have been adopted by authorities throughout the world. Framed in different legal regulations according to the country, and with varying extent, these measures have instructed citizens to ‘stay home’ in order to protect public health. While the importance of such restrictions is undeniable, they have simultaneously exacerbated our societies’ inequalities and made them even more evident . With the sudden suspension of the flux of social and economic activities – which ordinarily distracts us from these unequal conditions – the reality has brutally appeared. Housing is one of the sectors in which inequalities have been most evident. How can people stay home when they do not have a home? How can people pay their rent – and thereby secure their homes – when many have suddenly lost their incomes, because they have been fired or because they are not earning when they are not working?

Tourists have abandoned cities, leaving luxury hotels empty, while families are being evicted from the houses they are ‘illegally’ occupying because they do not have any alternative. While more disadvantaged people are, not surprisingly, the most affected by the situation in terms of health and security, social movements and their struggles to defend basic rights are also being dramatically affected. By definition, social movements need to move, to appear in the streets, to meet and gather people in collective events. Social movements are collective entities. So how can they act in a context of lockdown and social distancing or even isolation? Against this background, the case of housing movements in many cities has shown the capacity of activists to reinvent the repertoire and content of their contention and effectively adapt it to the current conditions. Many innovations have been introduced – such as protests from balconies and rental payment strikes – while digital tools have been shown to be essential to supply the impossibility of face-to-face activism. The public recommendation – or even order – to ‘stay home’ has been framed through the contentious claim: ‘how can you stay home without a home?’. Due to its sheer simplicity, this claim has had a strong public impact and pushed some governments to adopt measures to address the situation of people who, lacking shelter, cannot stay home, or others who are no longer able to pay their rent.

In this webinar, we will deal with these situations, drawing on recent urban experiences of housing activism in the context of Covid-19 in different cities around the world (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Lebanon, Brazil and United States). We are aware that events are still new and ongoing, so it is difficult to draw out any tendency or generalizations. For this reason, our aim will be more to report and witness what is happening around the ‘right to housing’ at this crucial time ‘in the heat of the moment’, and to try to understand what room there is for maneuver – in terms of constraints and opportunities – in this specific situation, with an eye on the future.

 Moderator:

 Simone Tulumello (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon)

 Speakers:

 Guya Accornero (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Lisbon University Institute)

Felipe G. Santos (Department of Politics – University of Manchester)

Giovanni Semi (Department of Cultures, Politics and Society – University of Turin)

Mona Harb (Department of Architecture and Design – American University of Beirut)

Alex Magalhães (Institute of Urban and Regional Planning and Research – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

Sam Stein (Graduate Center – City University of New York)

 

M.A. in Spanish and Hispanic Studies – Northern Illinois University

More information about the M.A. in Spanish and Hispanic Studies at NIU can be found here.

To apply, you will need to do the following:

1) fill out the online form

2) write a statement of purpose

3) send transcripts

4) ask two former professors to send letters of recommendation

5) take the GRE

6) send a 12-16 page writing sample in Spanish (an analysis of a novel, short story, poem, etc.)

The application deadline for Fall 2020 is April 1. If you are interested in being a Graduate Teaching Assistant, the deadline is March 1.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Stephen Vilaseca, Director of Graduate Studies, at svilaseca@niu.edu.

 

 

 

 

CFP Encounters: the coincidence of space, time, and subjectivity

An interdisciplinary conference
16th-18th September 2019
St John’s College, Cambridge

Paper proposals are invited for an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Encounters: the coincidence of space, time, and subjectivity’. This conference will bring into dialogue a range of disciplines to explore ways in which space and time interact, how they are socially formed or experienced, how they are culturally represented, and what this may say about subjectivity and perceptions of identity.

The conference offers an exciting opportunity for encounters between geographers, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, and literary and cultural critics, among others, to discuss questions relating to mobility, migration, globalisation, identity perception and performance, and the transmission of experience in culture and memory, both collectively and individually.

All human experience is situated in time and space but considering what this actually means for each of us subjectively is a far harder task and one that has occupied thinkers for millennia. It is possible to talk of clock time and of physical spaces, both of which give us a sense of measurability. But how does it actually feel to locate ourselves in a spatial and temporal world? How do spaces change over time (or indeed sense of time over space)? How can one space or one time have such different meanings for different people? What does this say about identity and subjectivity? How are subjective meanings constructed in word and image? How are time and space conceptualised from different disciplinary perspectives? And in what ways may differing theoretical approaches be fruitfully brought into dialogue?

Possible topics might include but are not limited to discussions of the following from any disciplinary perspective:

–       Transport and mobility
–       Social media
–       Border crossings
–       Migration
–       Encounters between word and image
–       Departures and arrivals
–       Public and private spaces
–       Past and present
–       Good times, bad times
–       History and memory
–       Gender identity

Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Prof Mark Currie (Contemporary Literature, Queen Mary University of London)
Prof Anne Fuchs (German Literature and Culture, University College Dublin)
Prof Stephen Kern (Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State)
Prof Gillian Rose (Geography, Oxford)

Please send abstracts of 150-200 words and biographies of up to 100 words to Erica Wickerson by 30th April: ehf20@cam.ac.uk

CFP – Urban Struggles in Mediterranean Cities

 

CFP_Urban-Struggles-in-Mediterranean-Cities

Literary Atlas

Here is a reposting of a flyer about an upcoming seminar on digital mapping.

A Literary Atlas for Wales

With Dr. Kieron Smith

Chair: Mike Duggan

Venue: The Nash Lecture Theatre, Kings College, The Strand, London, WC2R 2LS (Note: Entrance on the Strand – A member of the team will be waiting to sign you in at reception)

Date: Wednesday 10th January 2018

Time: 18:00 – 20:00

In this seminar Kieron Smith will introduce the Literary Atlas project to discuss how digital mapping technologies and deep mapping techniques may be used to develop a socio-spatial understanding of Welsh literature.

Literary Atlas is an interdisciplinary digital intervention in the emerging field of Literary Geography. Its primary aim is to build an innovative online atlas providing digital deep maps of twelve English-language novels set in Wales. It hopes to provide insights into the complex relationships between people, places, and literary culture. It asks: what role does literature play in the construction of places? What role does place play in the production of literature? How does literature impact on the ways individuals and communities inhabit places? Can digital deep maps play a role in strengthening community identity? For more information visit: http://literaryatlas.wales/

Introducing NIU Iberian Studies Group

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY IBERIAN STUDIES GROUP ROUND TABLE:

“IBERIAN CITIES IN CONTEXT: FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE 21ST CENTURY”

Damián Fernández (History)
“The End of the Ancient City in Iberia”

Timothy Crowley (English)
“Feliciano de Silva and Salamanca in the Early Sixteenth Century”

Brian Sandberg (History)
“Barcelona and the French Mediterranean in the Early Modern Period”

Stephen Vilaseca (Foreign Languages and Literatures)
“The Intersection of Technology, Poetic Expansion, and Visual Culture in Iberian Cities”

Monday, September 12
Noon—1:00 pm
Center for Latino and Latin American Studies

The Iberian Studies Group is an interdisciplinary community of Northern Illinois University faculty and students interested in the history, culture, and politics of Iberian societies from Antiquity to the Modern Era. The Group also explores cross-cultural and transnational approaches to Iberian societies, which includes the impact of Iberia on other regions (such as Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries) as well as the relationship between other cultures and regions and the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian Studies Group focuses on ‘big questions’ that transcend any particular period or individual discipline and analyze Iberian societies from multiple perspectives.