“Sensing and Shaping the City” is the main topic of this years’ annual conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 21 on Urban and Regional Development.
Taking place in Antwerp, Belgium, RC21 focuses on how citizens experience the fragmentary, unequal and contradictory realities of global urbanity.Debates focus on (1) how urban inequalities are affected by and result in unequal access to varieties of sensory experiences, (2) the policing of urban populations through the governing of sensory interventions, and (3) the ways in which large-scale organizations shape urban spaces as sensory experiences of visuals, sounds, smells and tastes in modalities that bring matters of place, people and power in dialogue with each other.
Franziska Schreiber contributed to the session “Making Sense of the City: a pedagogical encounter” on Wednesday, 14th July. Based on her insights from the project “Sense the City” she discussed the possibilities and challenges to arrive at a more sensory-informed approach to urban policy, planning and design. Based on the recognition that the “sensory revolution” in critical urban research has not yet sufficiently entered urban practice, she stressed the importance of finding new ways to translate and communicate the multisensory experience to planners, designers and decision makers, and offered suggestions on how to do so.
For further information on the RC21 Conference in Antwerp please visit:
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-conference-2021/
