_Conference held under the initiative "Cities Are Us"


With almost half the world¹s population living in cities, questioning the urban dimension of social inclusion and exclusion is imperative. Urban
inclusion is increasingly influenced ­ and often constrained ­ by intertwined processes of economic globalization, state re-articulation,
polarization and diversification of (local) populations and the political practices they add to the city. Educational, health and environmental
inequalities, segregation, unemployment, lack of political participation, discrimination and the inability to deal with different forms of
participation are all phenomena of exclusion with a local dimension but a multi-scalar nature. At the same time, acting towards social inclusion is
developed around ideas, knowledge(s), experiences, resources and capacities which are (dis)located across an array of arenas and distributed among
different actors. While traditional concepts and practices of urban inclusion centered on institutions and top-down decision-making seem
inadequate to tackle this complexity, new ones are often in their infancy and may be in tension with more established policies. Contesting the
centrality of the state and market pervasiveness, a new variety of counter-hegemonic positions and projects, and alternative visions of urban
democracy and justice that inform bottom-up and participatory approaches to urban inclusion, have become popular in the Global South, while their
transposition to cities in the Global North have met resistance or hardly gone beyond theorization.

The Conference aims to understand and ultimately rethink social inclusion at the urban scale, as the product of broader dynamics and the interaction of
different actors and languages. How can we trace, define, and challenge the new subtle forms of social and territorial exclusion, trying to reinvent
urban inclusion as a meeting space between local governance efforts and bottom-up initiatives? Is it possible to think a novel approach to
understanding these changing cities, using as a "lever" images of "the power of powerlessness" and the struggles against/within established systems?

Within this perspective, the conference welcomes contributions balancing description, explanation, and prescription, with the aim to contribute to an
³ecology of knowledges² which could give visibility to new forms of collective action and community experimentation in reshaping cities in
different contexts, in order to set the preconditions for a more solid horizon of social and territorial justice at both urban and extra-urban
scales.

We invite participants to rethink urban inclusion along three intertwined axes:

Space. Social inclusion/exclusion gets inscribed and becomes visible in the organization of space. Consequently, urban planning policies influence
policies of inclusion and social justice in important ways. In the past few decades, spatial exclusion has become more and more evident in the case of
environmental (in)justice, that is, the production and unequal distribution of environmental costs, such as waste disposal or industrial pollution,
along lines of social/spatial differentiation. Urban policies of garbage disposal have become a threat to sub-urban and rural areas, both in the
city¹s hinterland and in its far away "periphery", through legal and illegal waste trade circuits. The increasing privatization of public goods, such as
water or open space, is also an important cause of spatial injustice and exclusion in the city. Marginal urban and peri-urban communities in
different contexts, North and South, have been struggling, sometimes successfully, to defend their access to clean air, water and soil as well as
their right to have a voice in decisions on how urban space should be used. Social practices such as urban farming or squatting have been recognized as
crucial expressions of such movements towards the re-appropriation of urban space as a Œfree¹ resource for community livelihood and resilience. Local
governments are constantly challenged to grant spatial inclusion and justice. Nevertheless, different definitions of Œinclusion¹ and Œjustice¹,
as well as different planning scales (i.e. urban vs. regional), may challenge and ultimately invalidate policies of spatial justice. How to make
sense of and challenge such contradictions in a time in which local and global processes constantly re-produce each other and blend up in the
transformation of urban space? How can we re-define spatial inclusion policies, and the concepts that inform them, in more comprehensive ways that
are able to articulate at different scales of the planning process? How can we help rethink the Œurban¹ experience as it relates to spatial and
environmental (in)justice?

Mobilizations. Individuals and groups that experience exclusion are increasingly also actors of inclusion. Social action redefines the public
significance and scope of squares, streets and parks. Social movements expose the interdependencies between the global and the local, suggesting
new approaches to urban inclusion that assume and expose the larger processes that generate exclusion. Identity politics has also been a major
source of innovation of urban inclusion: communities of women, LGBT people, migrants, ethnic and religious identities have operated as spaces of
inclusion and socialization for their members, so rendering ideas of inclusion more sensitive to difference, discrimination and recognition. The
young generations are designing new and often informal ways to make their voices heard in the virtual world, which often translate into new practices
and uses of the city. All these new forms of mobilization aim to overcome the shortcomings of established forms of public Œparticipation¹, which may
paradoxically strengthen the social capital of those who are more likely to participate into civil society organizations. However, social mobilization
may fail to respond to larger needs for inclusion and urban justice, especially when it stems from very particular and localized needs and
claims. The questions here are: Why and how do social actors translate urban issues into issues of social inclusion? What actions do social actors take
beyond the existing spectrum of possibilities? What value do these actions add to urban inclusion? And, equally importantly: What actions have been
made invisible by the dominant academic paradigms? Could the emerging pre-planning strength of the new insurgent citizenships converge onto a
shared horizon and represent a critical mass for re-conceiving and reestablishing the ways of participation in governing cities?

Interventions. The first two issues help to frame the last question that we want to explore: the current nature, scope and effectiveness of public
interventions. Governments at all levels have played and will arguably continue to play a major part in promoting social inclusion in its urban
dimension. In the neo-liberal era, the notion of a light regulatory state is suppressing that of an interventionist authority, which is causing
disinvestment in redistributive welfare and a Œcheap¹ commitment to formal equality. Local governments have been, at different times, both allies and
opponents of the state in this process, depending on the different issues at stake. In several regions of the world, bigger cities have put in place
local welfare that complements and sometimes replaces state interventions. In many instances, they have been creative and open to collaboration with
civil society, whose expertise and knowledge on issues of exclusion/inclusion is openly acknowledged. At the same time, the contextual
nature and limited impact of local interventions emerges, as well as the gap between the mobilization and institutionalization of new ideas of inclusion.
More generally, as local politics are occupied by a variety of actors and often conflicting interests, the overall will and capacity of local
governments to promote inclusion as opposed to competing agendas of development and security should not be taken for granted but questioned in
the analysis of inclusion policies. How can public policy promote urban inclusion in the current era? What kinds of "glocal" interdependencies
emerge from the analysis of state/local policy targeting (urban) inclusion? How can these interdependencies be addressed and effectively tackled? What
obstacles does action for urban inclusion meet inside and outside the (local) government?

We seek contributions that develop along one of the above thematic axes, coming from different disciplinary perspectives, both from the academic
community and the social activism domain. Paper proposals should be received by 4 February 2012 and consist of: title, abstract (200 words maximum) and
brief biography of author(s) (150 words). You will be notified about acceptance by 29 February 2012.

Please submit your proposal online at:
http://www.ces.uc.pt/eventos/citiesareus/pages/pt/call-for-papers_.php

Following the conference, authors will revise the papers presented to take into account public discussion at the conference. All revised papers
resubmitted by 30 July 2012 will be included in an Electronic Proceedings Book to be published on-line with an ISBN in September 2012. Among the
papers presented (and received for the e-publication), 20 will be selected by the Scientific Committee to be published in a printed book, which will
also include the papers of the keynote speakers and the conclusion of the project Library of Interesting Policies of Social Inclusion", coordinated
by CES and CISDP/UCLG.