RC21 CONFERENCE 2024. “The politics and spaces of encounters: advancing dialogues between and within the Global North and the Global South”.

This conference aims to highlight the interconnected struggles within cities. We aim to foster debates about how power dynamics and urban spaces influence conflicts, solidarities, cohesion, corruption, violence, inequalities, and segregation from intersectional and gender perspectives as well as their broader implications for cities and urban life. This is an invitation to analyze intense socio-political global and local conflicts, such as social outbursts, populisms, economic crises, climate crises, and humanitarian and sanitary crises. Additionally, we hope to examine how urban processes in the Global North and Global South interact and influence each other, focusing on the politics and spaces of encounters. The conference seeks to encompass various scales (transnational, national-regional, street level) and approaches, opening room for diverse methodologies for empirical research and varied strands of thought (e.g., from radical ideas to current decolonial and feminist thinking in urban studies). Through these dialogues, we aim to bring forward less visible voices and narratives, providing new insights for both mainstream and critical urban theory.