InfUr-
The Informal Urbanism Research Hub at the Melbourne School of Design
InfUr- is an assemblage of researchers and projects focused on the role of urban informality in the creative production of cities of both the Global South and North.
This includes the many ways urban informality intersects with formal urban systems, and a better understanding of the logic and resilient capacities embodied in self-organised urbanism. The Hub embodies a shared interest in how power is practised as a form of self-organisation, and in the struggles of marginalised populations to assert their right to the city.
The built environment disciplines and professions have traditionally focused on the formally authorised frameworks through which the city is planned, designed, constructed and governed. Yet all cities are produced by both formal and informal practices. Informal urbanism is not necessarily illegal, rather it is self-organised. It is not separate from but intersects with the formal structures of state regulation and control, often in reaction to practices of displacement, marginalisation and exclusion.
The InfUr- acronym evokes the ways informal urbanism infuses the formal city and often infuriates the state. Informal urbanism is the original or Ur-form of the city and of citizenship – it puts the Ur back into urbanism.
Co-Directors: Kim Dovey, Crystal Legacy, Patrick Cobbinah, and Ashraful Alam
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Abstract: Community engagement exists as a paradox. On one hand, participation is core to the creation of climate just and democratic cities. On the other hand, participation can also seed the production of social licences for infrastructure proponents seeking outcomes that are otherwise agnostic to the delivery of just places. This paradox has a politics […]
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This presentation took place on Thursday 17th October 2024 with Ohoud Kamal. Abstract: The seminar will outline Kamal’s work on understanding other forms of urbanisms in the global South and what that means in relation to policy and development. Ohoud Kamal is an assistant professor of Urban Studies at the American University of Madaba (AUM). […]
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Bangladesh in transition: A step forward for democracy? Date: Thursday 12 September, 4 to 5pm Description The recent student-led protest movement in Bangladesh, which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, marks a very significant political shift in the country’s recent history. The end of Hasina’s 15-year rule has left Bangladesh at a […]
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This presentation took place on Thursday 19th September 2024 with Professor Clifford Amoako. Abstract: In this presentation, I consolidate the view that informality is an instantiation of African urbanism, the multiple ‘beings’ of the urban, which offers a situated lens to start the discourse on African urbanism. With such framing, I call into question various […]
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This seminar took place on Thursday 5th September 2024 with Kelly Dombroski Abstract: Kelly will speak to her recent book, Caring for life. It tells the story of shifting hygiene assemblages in Minority and Majority World urban contexts, laying out the transformative possibilities of informal care practices for collective, widespread change. Kelly Dombroski is an […]
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This seminar took place on Thursday 8th August 2024 with Professor Michele Lancione Abstract: Conventionally, home is framed as a place of security and belonging, while its loss defines what it means to be homeless. On the basis of this binary, a whole industry of policy interventions, knowledge production, and organizing fails to provide solutions […]
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This seminar took place on Thursday 25th July 2024 with Dr. Hesam Kamalipour. Abstract: Forms of urban informality have become integral to how places are being made, unmade, and remade, particularly within the context of what is commonly referred to as the Global South. In this presentation, I discuss my research, which aims to explore […]
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This seminar took place on Thursday 13th June 2024 with professor Jennifer Robinson Abstract: Ideas about shared predicaments across the global South have framed thinking within concepts – such as informality and developmentalism – that hold potential, but also pitfalls in gaining traction in critical analyses of power. This talk will reflect on the possibility […]