The Portuguese/Global Urban Studies conference takes as its starting point recent debates on the possibility of global urban studies. Portuguese—considered an international language—serves as a lever to map the past, present and future of critical urban research in and about countries that use Portuguese as an official language (Portuguese-speaking countries).

The conference’s theoretical grounding rests on two complementary aims:

• to identify the main threads, connections, differences and relations within critical/radical urban studies in Portuguese-speaking countries;

• to create a forum for debate in order to build new collaborations around Portuguese/Global Urban Studies.

Taking Portuguese as an international language, and recognising/exploring the potential inherent in that condition, is not a task free of difficulties. Like any international language, the transnational “sharing” of Portuguese—as a first language spoken by approximately 250 million people worldwide—rests on a long history of circulations, often violent, though not limited to violence. The dark roots of this history lie in the Portuguese colonial enterprise and the global slave trade. To the colonial legacy—which continues to shape contemporary societies—are added cultural, social and economic connections developed over time, with profound implications for urban forms and dynamics, as well as for the production of knowledge about those very forms and dynamics.

We invite papers that address a wide range of topics linked to building a global field of urban studies in Portuguese, including but not limited to:

• the state of urban studies in Portugal and in Portuguese-speaking countries;

• theoretical debates and problematisations of the global, seen from (critical) urban studies in Portuguese;

• circulations, connections and relations of urban trends across Portugal, Portuguese-speaking countries and beyond;

• colonial, post-colonial and decolonial trajectories in urbanisation processes in Portuguese-speaking countries;

• engagements with Portuguese-speaking urban contexts beyond North/South dichotomies.

Organising and Scientific Committee

Local team
Simone Tulumello – University of Lisbon (Portugal)
Rita Cachado – Iscte (Portugal)
Francesco Biagi – University of Lisbon (Portugal)
Patrícia Pereira – Polytechnic of Leiria (Portugal)

International team
Giacomo Pozzi – IULM, Milan (Italy)
Rachel Almeida – PUC Minas Gerais (Brazil)
Redy Wilson Lima – Higher Institute of Legal and Social Sciences, Praia (Cabo Verde) and University of Lisbon (Portugal)
Virgílio Borges Pereira – University of Porto (Portugal)

Submissions and Registration (until October 15)
Please submit your abstract via email to pgusconference@gmail.com

CALL FOR PAPERS