Speaker: Prof. Oren Yiftachel Professor of Urban Studies and Political Geography at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Visiting Leverhulme Professor, Department of Geography, UCL

When? 16.00 to 17.30pm, Wednesday 20 November 2019

Where?  Arts Tower, 16th Floor, The Well

Urban displacement has become a central topic in the social sciences. This welcome development, however, appears to focus on the act of  displacement rather than the condition of displaceability. The literature on the subject is dominated by a ‘traditional-critical’ approach, concentrating almost solely on the impact of capitalism, neoliberalism and gentrification in the global ‘northwest’. The suggests that displacement and displaceability denote wider phenomena, often stemming from different spatial logics of power. It thus highlights the need to use ‘southeastern’ approaches, which focus on urban dynamics and concepts emerging from non-western societies or populations.

These ‘views from the periphery’ highlight a pluriversal nature of the urbanization process during which several structural logics, such as (but not limited to) nationalism, statism, identity regimes and struggles for human and urban rights, interact with the exigencies of globalizing capitalism to generate new types of urban coloniality and citizenship. Within these settings, a shift to a prevailing condition of displaceability and to new assemblages of urban coloniality typifies the rapidly expanding southeastern metropolis.

The lecture draws on comparative urban examples, with special focus on Israel/Palestine, in order to map a continuum of ‘displaceabilities’ as an important analytical tool for the understanding urban citizenship in majority of world’s urban regions.

All Welcome! Drinks reception will follow the seminar.