Urban Institute members across the Faculty of Social Science in the University of Sheffield have curated an exciting programme of events this summer, starting on 15th May and running until 1st July. We have organised our programme into three themes which are presented below. You can register for any event by clicking the specific links or heading straight to our events page. Thanks to Vicky Simpson and Lindsey Farnsworth for all the help in organising!
1: Seeing the City: Urban-Natures and Creative Urban Epistemics
We are honoured to start the programme on Friday 15th May (1530 BST) with an online keynote lecture from Professor Roberto Monte-Mór at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, brought to us by Visiting Fellow Dr Junia Mortimer, who is visiting the Urban Institute/School of Geography and Planning thanks to the Urban Studies Foundation. This keynote, Reapproaching extended urbanisation in Brazilian Amazonia, will argue that urban-nature relations are as important as urban-industrial ones and should be prioritised as routes to develop new horizons for revolutionary praxis. It is organised jointly with the Global Development Institute/School of Environment, Education and Development at the University of Manchester, and will be chaired by Professor Beth Perry, with responses from Professor Tom Goodfellow and Dr Miguel Kanai.
Roberto Monte- Mór’s photos of the Brazilian Amazon in the 1980s will subsequently form part of an exhibition organised by Dr Olivia Casagrande (School of Geography and Planning), Junia Mortimer and Beth Perry called Urban Dreams/Future Cities which will take place in the Wave, University of Sheffield from 18th May to 11th June. The exhibition brings Roberto’s photography, curated by Junia, together with the works of Mapuche artists of the Epew Collective, with whom Olivia has been working as part of her ESRC project Set in Stone. A zine, Cut and Collage, produced by Gabs Leal at the University of Lisbon, has also been produced, which intends to provoke thought on alternative ways of seeing and knowing the city. You can come and see the exhibition during opening times (week days only).
We will have a formal opening of the exhibition on Thursday 21st May (1200-1300) in the Wave Foyer, University of Sheffield. Visitors will have the chance to hear from the artists and discuss their creative process with them. Light lunch and refreshments will be provided. The opening will be followed by a hybrid public talk (1330-1530) which will feature artists, academics and curators to discuss the value of creative urban imaginaries, artist-academic collaborations and what we can learn from different methods, like visual arts, archival work and digital installations. No registration is required for the exhibition opening or public talk.
On Friday 22 May (0930-1230) artists Junia Mortimer and Katy Quintulem are offering a creative workshop around storytelling, collage and alternative urban imaginations. It will be held in the Elmfield Building, University of Sheffield. The workshop is open to members of the public: places are limited so sign up soon. Coffee, tea and snacks are provided. In-person only.
2: Knowing the City: Learning and Urban Research as Social Action Amidst the Geopolitics of Urban Intelligence
This set of events starts with a full-day workshop on Thursday 28th May for postgraduate researchers and Early Career Researchers on Studying China in the Age of Polycrisis, which is organised by the Urban Institute’s PLURALIZE team, Dr Shizhi Zhang, Dr Yuting Yao, Dr Zhengli Huang and Dr Linda Westman. The workshop looks across concepts, language, methods, imaginaries and collective horizons to examine power, governance, infrastructure and everyday life in China. Keynote speakers include Dr Yimin Zhao (Durham University) and Dr Miriam Driessen (Oxford University).
As part of a new project on Community Learning and Urban Knowledge Infrastructures, a workshop will take place on Wednesday 10th June, 1000-1200 (in-person only) which looks at ‘Recognising Experience-Based Skills and Community Knowledge: Debates, Issues and Examples’. The workshop organised by members of the Urban Institute (Sam Burgum and Beth Perry), South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (Rob Marchand) and Women in Community Action in Arbourthorne (Georgie Mitchell, Annie Buxton and Amanda Batty) will launch a pilot project to explore the value of a skills passport for volunteers and those involved in neighbourhood social action in the city-region.
Further information to follow. Email samuel.burgum@sheffield.ac.uk to register interest.
Social action in the city-region is the theme of this year’s Sheffield Urbanism Showcase on Monday 15th June event, a day-long opportunity to share and discuss how urban research supports, and constitutes, social action (in-person only). The showcase, organised by Dr Beatrice de Carli in the School of Architecture and Landscape and Beth Perry, is a partnership with Voluntary Action Sheffield (VAS) who are celebrating 100 years of social action in the city-region. The stories will be collected and curated as part of VAS digital archive. An evening talk and reception is being organised (1700-1930).
Further details to follow. Email b.perry@sheffield.ac.uk to register interest.
On 18-19th June, the Urban Institute with our associates and visitors across and beyond Sheffield University will curate a set of discussions about the geopolitics of urban intelligence. How is urban intelligence weaponised in the current era of geopolitical competition? How are geopolitical dynamics impacting the ability of cities to generate intelligence locally? What role and value is attributed to community expertise compared with artificial intelligence? How are efforts to generate urban intelligence embroiled and entangled in geopolitical relations? How do efforts to generate, own and use data locally relate to wider geopolitical infrastructures? What tactics and strategies are cities developing to challenge and counteract these trends?
Further information to follow. Email b.perry@sheffield.ac.uk to register interest.
3: Urban Relations: Capital, Kinships, Entanglements
Professor Rowland Atkinson from the Urban Riches team (a collaboration between the Urban Institute, School of Geography and Planning and School of Management), has organised two seminars which explore how privilege, philanthropy and wealth inequalities relate to capitalist relations. On Thursday 21st May (1300-1400) Dr Sarah Kunz from the University of Essex will give an online talk ‘Expatriate Nairobi’ which discusses migration categories and the making of urban privilege.
On Wednesday 24th June (1230-1330) Dr Saskia Warren from the University of Manchester will give an in-person only talk on ‘Evangelical Philanthrocapitalism’ and urban restructuring in North-East England.
On 11th June (1000-1700) a one-day scholarly gathering will take place organised by the School of Architecture and Landscape, involving Urban Institute members Beatrice de Carli and Tanzil Shafique to recognise the contributions of Doina Petrescu to feminist spatial practice, experimental pedagogies and the commons. Kinships is organised around three thematic conversations which connect to the School’s ongoing commitment to lived, embodied practice; to collective, situated and actionable knowledge; and to architectural practices which resist extraction and foreground reciprocity.
Our summer programme concludes with a one-day conference on 1st July for PhD students and Early Career Researchers to present and discuss their work on Entangled Urban Inequalities. This is organised by a cross-Faculty team from the Urban Institute, School of Information, School of Geography and Planning including staff and PGRs.
Building on the success of the 2025 conference, applications are welcome from researchers which examine how inequalities are produced, experienced and contested across different urban contexts, scales and sites. Areas of interest include but are not limited to hierarchical relations and dominant epistemes, technologies and regimes of control and sites and modes of resistance. We also encourage contributions that think across these themes, reflecting on how urban inequalities are interconnected, relational and unevenly lived. Keynote speakers will be announced later.
SUMMARY
Date / Time | Event | Location |
15th May / 1530-1700 | Keynote lecture: Roberto Monte Mór | |
18th May-11th June | Exhibition: ‘Urban Dreams/Urban Futures’ | Wave Foyer, University of Sheffield. In-person only. |
21st May / 1200-1530 | Opening and Public Talk: ‘Urban Dreams/Urban Futures’ | Wave Foyer and Wave Seminar Room 4, University of Sheffield Online (from 1330) - https://meet.google.com/zyc-seac-sag |
21st May / 1300-1400 | Urban Riches seminar: Sarah Kunz | Online - Meet – Sarah Kunz - Urban riches, Nairobi seminar ONLINE |
22nd May / 0930-1230 | Workshop: ‘Urban Dreams/Urban Futures’ | Classroom 8, Elmfield, University of Sheffield. In-person only. |
28th May / all day | Workshop: Studying China in an Age of Polycrisis | Wave, Seminar Room 5. University of Sheffield. |
10th June / 1000-1200 | Workshop: Recognising Experience-Based Skills and Community Knowledge | University of Sheffield. In-person only |
11th June / 1000-1700 | Gathering: Kinships - Thinking With Doina Petrescu | In-person only. |
15th June / 0900-1700 (plus evening talk) | Showcase: Urban Research as Social Action | Diamond, University of Sheffield. In-person only. |
18-19 June (all day) | Workshop: The Geopolitics of Urban Intelligence | Seminar Room 11, the Wave, University of Sheffield |
24th June | Urban Riches seminar: Saskia Warren | Geography and Planning Building. In-person only. |
1st July | PGR/ECR Conference: Entangled Urban Inequalities | 38 Mappin Street, University of Sheffield. Hybrid elements. |