Making White Cities (Part I)

Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: SJES002 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
RC21 Regional and Urban Development (host committee)
RC05 Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity

Language: English

Numerous studies have revealed how politics are imprinted in cities and how spatial configurations produce symbolic boundaries, shaping people’s sense of belonging and social interactions. Not only politics but also everyday practices and interactions can transform city spaces into spaces of encounter or, sometimes, conflict. Processes of racialization and othering often materialise in public spaces in multicultural cities which receive international or internal migrations. We propose a session taking further critical studies of Whiteness and the processes by which spaces and places get made or become white. While Whiteness studies have examined topics such as gentrification and urban displacement in North America and Europe, examining European subjectivity and its relationship to power, and the hierarchies and differences it constructs we are looking to expand the register via the growing literature that explores the materiality of Whiteness in the Global South, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We invite papers on critical studies of Whiteness that explore the ways in which cities provide a space that constructs, enables, and challenges configurations of Whiteness. We especially welcome contributions of cities and scholars of the Global South and the intersections and crossovers between cities in the North and the South. We welcome analyses that examine the privileges of Whiteness and forms of White domination that centre the intersections of race, space, and class.
Session Organizers:
Macarena BONHOMME, Universidad Autonoma de Chile, Chile and Karim MURJI, University of West London, United Kingdom
Oral Presentations
Mestizo Urbanism: Dinsentangling Whiteness in Latin American Cities
Giulia TORINO, King's College London, United Kingdom
Making the Non-City and Casting out the Unwanted: The Cases of Conakry (Republic of Guinea) and Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire)
Fassou David CONDE, Université de Montreal, Canada; Leslie TOURÉ KAPO, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Canada
Making and Remaking Whitespaces: Comparing Mexico City and Boston
Miguel MONTALVA BARBA, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA