Antwerp Urban Studies Institute

26/05/2025

It is almost inconceivable that cars once drove down Meir, Antwerp's main shopping street. The pedestrianisation of Antwerp's city centre is the theme of the USI Lunch Seminar on 24 June 2025.

Kelly Gregg was a USI visiting scholar in 2023. She now returns with her colleague Conrad Kickert for this lunch seminar, in which they will investigate how:

- pedestrianization as an urban design concept and image first arrived in Antwerp
- how it evolved over time
- and how it contributed to the implementation of pedestrian projects across the urban core.

Book your seat: https://uantwerpen.be/seminar-pedestrian

20/05/2025

Come join us for two workshops focusing on the social dimension of urban studies:

🔹 28 May - The social value of social infrastructure

This workshop for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers will facilitate knowledge exchange on how social infrastructure fosters community resilience, social cohesion, and urban transformation. Patricia Aelbrecht (Cardiff University) will give the opening talk.

🔹 10 June - Reimagining Otherness through Critical Ethnography

This postgraduate and PhD workshop hosted by USI visiting scholar Raktim Ray (UCL) plans to unsettle our understandings of vocabularies and visual metaphors from a Eurocentric perspective and unpacks how otherness is imparted to non-European and Southern/Eastern contexts in the normative discourse of development.

Register: https://uantwerpen.be/usi-workshops

15/05/2025

Everyday acts of care can symbolise resistance and also directly counter the state. Raktim Ray will demonstrate this through the work of two solidarity networks, in India and Brazil.

Come listen to the USI lunch seminar on Thursday 22 May: Caring for resistance, caring as resistance- understanding solidarity networks in postcolonial contexts

Register here: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/urban-studies-institute/research/seminars-workshops/ray/

12/05/2025

At the CityLAB Summer School, we investigate how contemporary cities transform into sustainable cities. Taking an integrated perspective on sustainability, the summer school bridges natural sciences, urban technology, social sciences and humanities and offers insights from both academic and non-academic expertise.

The deadline for CityLAB XI: The Sustainable City is extended until 30 May 2025. Apply here: https://uantwerpen.be/citylab

24/04/2025

There's lots of talk about making cities more sustainable, but what actions are really making a difference? In the summer school CityLAB XI: The Sustainable City in Antwerp, you learn about projects that are already making an impact and research that pushes change.

CityLAB is aimed at Master students (postgraduates), PhD students and professionals in urban studies and related fields that focus on sustainability.

Apply before 16 May 2025: https://uantwerpen.be/citylab

02/04/2025

Lagos’ evolving car economy reflects broader socio-political transformations, where powerful guilds and autonomous urban governance reshape labor and economic structures.

Come have lunch with us at the 𝗨𝗦𝗜 𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝗯𝘆 𝗖𝗼̂𝗺𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝟮𝟱 𝗔𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗹: Guilds, used tires, and the remaking of an urban politics in Lagos, Nigeria

Sign up:

Guilds, used tires, and the remaking of an urban politics in Lagos, Nigeria Côme Salvaire, USI visiting scholarIn 1970s Lagos, the promotion of private car ownership by military regimes played an important role in the formation of the Nigerian state and its assertion of control over the country’s...

18/03/2025

Come for a research stay at the University of Antwerp: apply now for the USI visiting scholar call 2025-2026

All details: https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/jobs/vacatures/ap/?q=3879&descr=Visiting-scholars

18/02/2025

"Essential for anyone concerned about ways to protect cultural pluralism in our society."

On Friday 21 February, Yaron Matras will talk about his book Speech and the City, as part of the Faculty of Arts's Mother Language Day celebrations. Drawing on his research in Manchester, Matras examines the 'multilingual utopia', looking at multilingual spaces across sectors in the city that support access, heritage, skills and celebration.

🔹 Details & registration: https://uantwerpen.be/speech-city

10/12/2024

Applications are open for the Summer Institute in Urban Studies 2025!
takes place in Belgium, from 7 to 11 July 2025.

International speakers: Wangui Kimari (University of Cape Town), Gavin Shatkin (Northeastern University), Desiree Fields (University of California, Berkeley), Ayona Datta (UCL) & Katherine Hankins (Georgia State University)

Organisation: LUSI / Brussels Centre for Urban Studies / Stadsacademie / USI / Manchester Urban Institute

Apply by 15 January 2025:

The sixth Summer Institute in Urban Studies will take place in Belgium, between 7 and 11 July 2025. It is jointly organized by the Urban Studies Institute (University of Antwerp), Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Stadsacademie (Ghent University), KU Leuven Urban...

18/09/2024

Op donderdag 10 oktober 2024 presenteert het Soligionteam de belangrijkste bevindingen uit vier jaar onderzoek op het Soligion slotevent.

👉 Krijg zicht op de diversiteit in het levensbeschouwelijk en religieus geïnspireerde solidariteitslandschap in Vlaanderen en Brussel.

👉 Leer over de moeilijke maar inspirerende dynamieken die de onderzoekers tegenkwamen tussen religieuze en niet-religieuze sociale actoren.

👉 Krijg handvatten en beleidsaanbevelingen voor vlottere samenwerkingen tussen religieuze en niet-religieuze actoren in het welzijnsveld.

Programma & inschrijven: https://www.soligion.be/activiteiten/soligion-eindevent/

27/05/2024

Last call! Become a visiting scholar at the Urban Studies Institute in the academic year of 2024-2025. Deadline = 30 May

Vacancy: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vacancies/academic-staff/?q=3339&descr=Visiting-scholars

22/05/2024

Cities in which we care for each other: find out how it's achieved in these two talks hosted by Bilge Serin (University of Glasgow / USI visiting scholar):

💬 24 May: Workshop on Urban Commons and Solidarity (collab with Metropolitan Legal Lab)

💬 7 June: Lunch lecture: "From mutual aid groups to city-wide sharing: urban solidarity in the UK and Turkey"

Sign up for the activities:

The Urban Studies Institute is a platform and laboratory for the development of interdisciplinary research and education on cities, urban development and urban challenges.