Neighbourhoods and the City (ICAS11 panel)

This is a call for papers for a panel (or two) on 'Neighbourhoods and Cities' during the 11th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS11),  Leiden, Netherland, 16-19 July 2019.

The special focus of ICAS11 is Asia and Europe. Our panel can fit in any of the following ICAS themes: Citizen Participation, Connectivity, Political Economy.

Conveners:
Paul Rabe, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, the Netherlands: p.e.rabe@iias.nl
Rita Padawangi, Singapore University of Social Sciences: ritapadawangi@suss.edu.sg 
K.C. Ho, National University of Singapore: sochokc@nus.edu.sg

Deadline for paper abstracts
If you are interested in participating in this panel, please send a title and 250 words abstract by email to Paul, Rita or KC by 3 October 2018.  (We will submit the panel for ICAS by its official deadline of 10 October 2018). 

About the Neighbourhoods and Cities pane(s)
We invite papers that examine the relationship between the city and its neighbourhoods, and, in particular, show the ways in which neighbourhood actions can and have an impact on the city. This topic spans many aspects of the urban experience, including ways of life and livelihoods, heritage preservation, organising for local amenities like schools, libraries and parks and keeping local areas safe. Neighbourhood activists are often part of a larger city learning network and other cooperative networks that work to support community gardens and food security, housing rights and a number of other critical issues central to the city.

The panel’s objectives are to:

1. Conceptualize the ways in which neighbourhood-based local action shape urban culture and city building;
2. Understand the contributions of various disciplines in approaching the study of neighbourhoods; and
3. See how the issues and dynamics identified in a particular paper can be better understood and elaborated in a comparative perspective provided by examples from other papers in the panel(s).

Neighbourhoods may be 'high rise' or 'low rise', in residential or mixed-use environments, populated largely by locals or as foreign enclaves; as long as the area is within the jurisdiction of the city’s government, we do not use any specific defining criteria. By working with a wide variety of neighbourhoods, a wider range of relevant topics may emerge.

The ecology of local action is also a crucial dimension to consider. The porosity of neighbourhoods means that external relations often determine the nature of neighbourhood activism.  Are such forms of action made possible by the local government through financing and legislation or are they a protest against perceived inaction or injustices of the local state? Some forms of local action, such as social enterprises, can also be undertaken in partnership with other civil society organisations, ignoring local government altogether.

Depending on interest, we can form 2-3 panels. We hope the invited papers will add breadth and depth to an already existing set of six papers from the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network (SEANNET) of IIAS.

The SEANNET programe of IIAS seeks to re-discover the diverse human ecology of cities from the bottom up, as lived by neighbourhood residents and city users — e.g. local shopkeepers, vendors, migrants, young people, artists, artisans, slum dwellers and ordinary families. In so doing, the program seeks to rehabilitate human-scale contextualised participatory research as already performed not only by various human geographers, local historians and cultural anthropologists but also fiction writers or performing and visual artists. Papers in these panels share SEANNET aspirations to humanise and localise urban knowledge, even in its overtly functional, instrumental applications.​ 

We are looking forward to receiving proposals. Please send a title and 250 words abstract to Paul, Rita or KC by 3 October 2018.