Staff signup to attend here

This PhD conference will bring together doctoral research students at the University of Sheffield to forge an interdisciplinary community around emerging urban inequalities.

All PhDs will be welcome regardless of their school/department or Faculty. We encourage participation from those working on inequalities in general and those working on specific ‘urban’ inequalities in, on and with city stakeholders, neighbourhoods and communities. Attendance is also welcomed by supervisors and Faculty members at all stages of career to generate cross-cohort peer support and learning.

The conference involves open sessions organized around the interests of attending PhD students, and contributions from across the Faculty of Social Sciences, including Tanzil Shafique, Nabeela Ahmed, Melanie Lombard, SJ Cooper-Knock, Vanesa Castán Broto, Hannah Lewis, Tom Goodfellow, Gwilym Price, Rowland Atkinson and Beth Perry.

[This conference is only available to PhD students and staff of The University of Sheffield].  

About the conference

With more than half of humanity living in cities, our global-urban condition is increasingly diagnosed by the social sciences as a generator of deepening inequalities, poverty, social injustice and intersecting forms of exclusion. These challenges are nested within significant questions of urban governance, the relationship of cities to wider environments and to infrastructural risks. Recent urban super-heating events, the current energy crisis and significant fracture lines around race and gender highlight these challenges. Meanwhile a complex constellation of social, economic, political and health conditions have also been heavily impacted by COVID-19 in urban settings. The pandemic has appeared to distil a range of inequalities into even more toxic forms as social problems and stresses take hold in many cities. The resulting challenges include patterns of forced migration and refuge, housing overcrowding or loss, diverse environmental challenges, gendered vulnerabilities, compromised mental health outcomes, intergenerational tensions, discrimination and hate. These issues and many others are the intensifying signatures of our contemporary and forward urban condition.

The structure of the conference involves ‘anchor’ interventions during the day (lunchtime talks and a panel discussion) and open conference sessions which will reflect the interests and work of those participating.

If you are a PhD student and would like to present, organise a workshop or host a discussion, please complete the Google Form here by Thursday 23rd May. You are welcome to participate in more than one way (i.e. a paper and a workshop).

If you would like to sign up to attend only (all staff), please click here by Friday 31st May.

Any questions, contact b.perry@sheffield.ac.uk.

The Organising Committee (Beth Perry, Rowland Atkinson, Emma Mahoney, Catherine Malpass, Xinyu Jin, Sophie de Val, Monica Martin Grau, Mateus Lira da Matta Machado)