Call for Papers
The conference will take place from October 23 to October 26 and will be hosted by the School of Architecture and Planning on Wits University’s East Campus, Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
conference timeline
- Closing date for abstract submissions: April 21, 2024
- Information on the acceptance of individual submissions: May 24, 2024
- Conference: October 23-26, 2024
The call for papers is now closed. If you have any questions, please contact Africanurbanisms.soap@wits.ac.za.
To submit a proposal for a presentation, please use the template provided. You can download the template here. Abstracts can be submitted using the upload links provided for each session. Please note that one individual can only present one paper at the conference. However, you can present one paper and be a non-presenting co-author on multiple papers. The conference will, in the first instance, be in-person and participation will be free of charge. Sessions and plenary sessions will be held in English. The conference will not be able to cover travel costs of the participants.
Proposals for presentations should include the following information:
- a title for your presentation
- a short abstract (up to 300 characters)
- a long abstract (up to 250 words)
- three to five keywords that capture the topic of your presentation
- full name(s), email addresse(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s)
- please include the number of the session and the last name of the author(s) at the beginning of the document's name
List of Accepted Sessions
The sessions are organised according to the conference's three thematic tracks: Critical Engagements, Transformative Practices, and Alternative Futures. Please click on the title of a session to be redirected to the full session description. Each session will be 90 minutes long and will include time for presentations and discussion. All sessions will take place on Thursday October 24 and Friday October 25.
Please submit your abstracts using the upload links you will find on the subpages for each session. You can submit your proposals until April 21 2024.
Critical Engagements
- Session 1: African Cities and Urban Migration: Seeking Social Cohesion in an Era of Climate, Economic, and Political Change
- Session 2: Translocality and transformation of urban spaces through internal migration
- Session 3: Diverse Economies in African Cities
- Session 4: Contemporary Critical Perspectives on Actors and Relationality in African Urban Property Development
- Session 5: Public Participation and Participatory Action Research in the Imagining and Development of African Urbanisms
- Session 6: African Urban Planning and its Contribution to the Global South Dialogue
- Session 7: National Government Actors in Urban Development: Beyond "City" Rhetoric
Transformative Practices
- Session 8: Knowing the City: Transformative Theoretical Practices of African Urban Scholarship
- Session 9: Transforming African City-making Through an Ethics of Co-production
- Session 10: African Urbanisms Through Feminist Lenses: Critical Praxis and South-South Dialogues
- Session 11: African Displacement Urbanism: Beyond Violence, Towards Repair
- Session 12: Between Visions of the Grand Transition and Informal Solar Panel Businesses: Exploring the Role of Renewables in the Making of African cities
- Session 13: Informal Rental Housing in Urban Africa
- Session 14: Who Owns the African City?
- Session 15: Re-imaging African Cities: Promoting Urban Justice by Integrating African Identities and Cultures into the Institutional Transformation of Housing and Land
- Session 16: Material Matters: Transitions and New Material Practices towards Regenerativity
- Session 17: Housing Economies in Urban Africa
- Session 18: Material Practices that Liberate Self-Builders
Alternative Futures
- Session 19: The Global in Africa: Shaping Territory at the Intersection of Sovereign, National and Local Agency
- Session 20: Planning from the Margins? Towards the Transformative Pathways in Planning
- Session 21: Pragmatic Cohabitation in Realms of Urban Change. Critical Perspectives from Southern Africa
- Session 22: Unlearning the Known: Developing Future Capacities for Informal Settlement Upgrading
- Session 23: Disrupting Digital Doom and Delusion: Emergent Urban Futures in Africa
- Session 24: Youth and Digital Cultures in Urban Africa
- Session 25: Researching With “Urban” Communities: Practising Plurality in Urban Knowledge Co-production
- Session 26: Unravelling the Fallacy of Informal Urbanism: A Critical Examination of Theories and Methods
- Session 27: Transformative Approaches to Addressing Climate Change and Environmental Challenges in Urban Areas: Leveraging Innovative Technologies
- Session 28: Urban Vacancy, Occupation and Commoning
- Session 29: Private finance in African urban development: speculation, value, territories
- Session 30: Revisiting good governance in urban Africa: Implications of (de)centralisation, (re)centralisation, or hybrid governance on service delivery
- Session 31: Youth and African Cities: Work, Housing & Urban Futures
