Tuesday 5 June 2012

Metrópolis. Urban crisis, peripheries and activist research. Public activities.

Type of activity: lectures and debates Dates: May 5, 17, 18, 19, 31, June 1, 2, 14, 15, 16, 2012 Place: Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200 and Traficantes de Sueños Admission: free of charge, limited seating Organized by: MuseoReina Sofía with the collaboration of Fundación Banco Santander

Metrópolis. Urban crisis, peripheries and activist research looks at some of the social, political and economic processes that global metropolises are experiencing and that seem to be leading to an irremediable urban crisis of unknown proportions. The seminar analyses the slowly accumulating effects of a dominant political regime that has been in place for the last thirty years. This point of departure refers not only to a new form of governmentality that has gradually adapted the "urban" and "social" to market conditions, but it also refers to a class system that has, on the one hand, turned the urban government into a mere board of directors that protects its own interests, and that, furthermore, has taken advantage of the new global framework as a form of pressure and discipline in opposition to any other urban alternative. The consequences are the processes, now thoroughly analysed by critical geography and sociology, of social polarization, the dismantling of the welfare state, increasing precarity and also financial and fiscal crisis. In addition, this seminar rejects the concept of periphery (understanding this term in both geographical and social terms), as a negative - yet also ambivalent - projection of neoliberal governing practices. Naturally, the hypothesis explored here is that the territory of the so-called peripheries is precisely where the future of cities will be played out. These crisis territories par excellence (in terms of exclusion, marginalization, expropriation and politics of control) are also places with remarkable potential (in terms of novelty and other possible cities).

Metrópolis. Urban crisis, peripheries and activist research is part of the Program for Advanced Studies in Critical Practices, which is intended to serve as a catalyst, with the hope of bringing about critical mass and articulating lines of thought capable of addressing the complexities of contemporary art and culture.





Jordi Bonet y Observatorio Metropolitano
Crisis: Madrid / Barcelona
Debate. May 5, 6:30 p.m.
Traficantes de Sueños



Raquel Gutiérrez
Mestizo cities. Indigenism and the recovery of the commons against neoliberalism
Lecture. May 17, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200



Silvia Federici
Witch hunts - the past and present of an ongoing war against women
Lecture. May 18, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200



Silvia Federici and Raquel Gutiérrez
In defence of the commons. The eternal return of primitive accumulation
Debate. May 19, 6 p.m.
Traficantes de Sueños



Mogniss H. Abdallah
The fallacies of the Republic: from imposed integration to the explosion of the French banlieues
Lecture. May 31, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
*Due to circunstamces beyond our control, this conference has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause



Darcus Howe
After the Empire: the riots of 2011 and the design of the failure of multiculturalism
Lecture. June 1, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200



Darcus Howe y Mogniss H. Abdallah
Republic vs. Multiculturalism
Debate. June 2, 6 p.m.
Traficantes de Sueños
*Due to circunstamces beyond our control, this conference has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause



Jan Breman
The labour regime and poor workers in Asian cities
Lecture. June 14, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200



Richard Pithouse
South African peripheries and the struggle of the inhabitants of the Durban periphery
Lecture. June 15, 7 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200



Jan Breman y Richard Pithouse
Crisis and emerging territories
Debate. June 16, 5 p.m.
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200