Papers for the Session (Post)communist Urbanism: Reassessing Ideologies in the Contemporary City organized within the 13th International Conference on Urban History which will take place in Helsinki from the 24th to the 27th of August 2016. Researchers from a wide range of fields, form architecture and urban studies, to political studies, anthropology or sociology with interests in the theme of the (post)communist city are invited to submit.
To submit a paper proposal, please visit the website1. Upload your abstract (max. 300 words) using the Conference system to Session S35.2
The socio-economic and political condition in the communist and post-communist countries changes constantly and has a deep impact on the urban transformations. Various dominant sovereignties and levels of openness mediate now the political discourse in these contexts, claiming to overcome antagonistic political stances and witnessing an emancipation of the radical state-ideologies. The Ukraine crisis and the recent opening of the diplomatic relations between Cuba and the US have brought once again into discussion the dynamic of political sovereignties. In this contemporary condition it is therefore necessary a deeper understanding to be had of the ways in which urban structures and spatial praxis constitute setting and background for such metamorphoses.
The session attempts to understand the way radical transformations within former and actual communist countries translate in the form of the city, as well as the role played by the urban fabric and infrastructure in the process of mediating collective identities. It aims to gather presentations addressing various contexts and diverse ideological manifestations, with a special interest in countries of the former USSR and the Americas (Cuba). Mapping transformations in these spaces it attempts to investigate various projections of the notions and phenomena of ideology and post-ideology as manifested in the urban structure and the way they are metabolized by the contemporary condition of the cities.
The session purposes to provide an academic framework for the discussions of these peculiar cases aiming to investigate the question of urbanism’s significance in the contemporary context of changing ideologies and political stances. It proposes to address one main question: How do such political transformations, generate forms of social and urban praxis able to negotiate the collective or contested identities that the city supports?
More specific themes might include:
- Re-appropriation of ideological urban structures in the contemporary (post)communist city
- Political sovereignties, contested spaces and the urban discourse
- Urban identities and collective memory in the (post)communism