The Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies, 6th edition, will take place at ICS-ULisboa next November (4th to 6th), titled You participate, they profit: collective action, power and urban change.

Organisation:
Urban Transitions Hub (Lisbon) (https://urbantransitionshub.org/)

Organising committee:
Roberto Falanga (ICS-ULisboa)
Marco Allegra (CES UCoimbra)
Andy Inch (University of Glasgow)

Keynote speakers:
Laura Saija (University of Catania, Italy)
Jonathan Davies (University of Birmingham, UK)
 

Call for proposal:
The focus of this year’s iteration of the workshop “you participate, they profi t: collective action,power and urban change” takes its title from the famous poster produced by French art studentsduring the uprisings of 1968. Its history speaks eloquently to long-standing debates about power,participation and urban political struggles.
By taking this image as a cue, the workshop aims to critically explore the forms of collective actionand democratic participation found in cities, and how they might be challenged and rethought inresponse to the crises of the historical present. Key questions include: how do people come togetherin pursuit of common goals? Whatforms does collective action assume today in diff erent latitudes?How does it relate to the changing physical, social, and economic fabric of urban space? What are itsimpact on urban governance and what is its contribution, if any, to more inclusive and justtransformations?
The call understands collective action and democratic participation in tight connection with multipleforms of urban governance, here framed as deliberately broad, relational, and de-centered (Griggs,Norval & Wagenaar 2014). As such, the notion of governance here encompasses the institutional andlogistical architecture of government, which manifests itself in the diff erent sets of institutions(parliaments, governmental agencies, courts, etc.) and rules (laws and regulations, contracts,partnership agreements, etc.) which govern society. However, it also includes a broader universe ofpractices: the disparate catalogue of daily actions performed by masses of people, as expressed in the“the experiences, the interactions, the uncertain rules that regulate everyday life”, and “the eff orts tobuild structures, to create a social order, to deal with authority, inequalities or incremental change,with the goal of keeping the city in line” (Le Galès & Vitale, 2015: 10). To paraphrase AbdoumaliqSimone (2004), these practices constitute a parallel set of infrastructures that contribute to thegovernance of our cities.

Application and registration:
Send an abstract for your presentation (max 500 words) and a short letter of motivation to:
roberto.falanga@ics.ulisboa.pt 
Andy.Inch@glasgow.ac.uk
and marco.allegra2010@gmail.com 
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Deadline for applications: April 15th, 2026.
Decisions will be sent by April 30th, 2026.
Registration by June 30, 2026.
Submission of long abstract or short paper (max 3,000 words, to be distributed amongparticipants) by September 15, 2026.
Registration fee: €200.
 

More information here