Invisible Citizens: Experiences of Exclusion In the Contemporary City

Cities are places of complex coexistence, where people from different social, cultural, and cognitive backgrounds come together in shared public spaces (Fincher and Iveson 2008, Gehl 2010). Unfortunately, these spaces are not always adapted to the needs of all city residents. Many people experience forms of exclusion that remain invisible to policymakers, urban planners, and researchers (Soja 2010, Wilson and Tewdwr-Jones 2021). These 'hidden inequalities' can manifest in various ways, including cognitive or sensory exclusion (Imrie 2011), as well as more visible economic, social, or spatial barriers (Lefebvre 1991, Young 1990).

Some urban citizens are more prone to become ‘invisible’ – this includes neuroatypical individuals, people with disabilities or mental health issues, women, elderly, members of LGBTQ+ community, migrants, unhoused people and other minorities and equity-seeking groups (Hamraie 2017, Kitchin 1998). Their exclusion is not always overt or intentional, yet it often becomes embedded in the infrastructure, services, and discourses that shape the city (Fainstein 2010, Harvey 2008). This can lead to subtle but profound limitations in navigating public space, accessing city services, participating in policymaking and feeling a sense of belonging (Mitchell 2003).

This session invites interdisciplinary dialogue on how hidden urban inequalities are produced, experienced, resisted, and reconfigured. We welcome contributions from diverse geographical, political, and ethnic contexts, especially those rarely represented in mainstream academic discourse, drawing on frameworks such as spatial justice, the right to the city, social construction of disability, postcolonial and decolonial theory, and methodological innovations that make 'hidden' experiences legible.