What do we know about the urban impoverished areas of the world and the living environment of its inhabitants? When looking at research reports available so far the answer to this question is relatively sobering. The world of the people at the bottom of society appears to be widely homogeneous. According to the common belief it consists of drugs, violence and a very strong religiousness. Queries beyond this are rarely found so that Markus Schroer correctly speaks of "a reproduction of always the same images" in respect of ghettos, favelas
and banlieues.
When applying this perspective we do not conceive the inhabitants of slum districts as individuals, as actively engaged people who shape the social conditions around themselves in a process of a purposeful adoption. How did the participants of that society cope with their surroundings? How did they interpret and adopt urban space in order to fight individually and jointly against their position at the periphery of society? The conference wants to take up these questions and investigate how far approaches of cultural sciences can contribute to overcome the "exotification of the ghetto" (Loic Wacquant) and to look instead at the heterogeneity and individuality behind the facades.
The concept of this conference is based on the assumption that an interdisciplinary dialog will be able to deal with this topic as extensive and promising as possible. At the same time it is intended to examine the results of theoretical and methodical approaches on the basis of specific historical examples. The focus of the conference will lie on the socially deprived areas of European and American towns of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It will be compared what we know about the lives of those people so far and how cultural science can provide deeper insights into the respective inner structures. In this way we hope to come to new perspectives for the research of poverty and inequalities that do not stop at collective categories.
Information on participating / attending:
Date:
03/30/2012 15:00 - 04/01/2012 13:30
Event venue:
Old Faculty Hall, Philosophicum, Jakob-Welder-Weg 18
55128 Mainz
Rheinland-Pfalz
Germany
Target group:
Scientists and scholars, all interested persons
Email address:
Relevance:
transregional, national
Subject areas:
Cultural sciences, Social studies
Types of events:
Conference / symposium / (annual) conference
Entry:
03/22/2012
Sender/author:
Petra Giegerich
Department:
Kommunikation und Presse
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event39079
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