Join us for an online public lecture on Friday organised by Rusli Cahyadi from BRIN Indonesia (UQ Graduate). Three researchers will be presenting their work on informal settlements in Pontianak (Yustina Octifanny), Islamic values and urban planning in Banda Aceh (Sylvia Agustina), and the use of public space in kampung in Semarang (Wakhidah Kurniawati). The work is … Continue reading
Incumbent governments commonly increase public expenditures prior to elections in order to curry favor with voters and boost their chances of retaining office. This study, set in Albania, focuses on a non-fiscal approach to winning votes: condoning, or at least tolerating, informal construction activities in the residential sector prior to elections. We term this approach … Continue reading
This chapter analyzes the urban form of informal settlements in the Western Balkans. Informal housing is now a permanent fixture of the urban landscape in this region. Given the widespread and increasing scale of informal settlements, it is important to record their spatial qualities and compare them to informal settlements elsewhere. A five-point framework is … Continue reading
This article analyzes media representations of squatters and their settlements in five case studies in the Western Balkans: the capitals of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, and Serbia, drawing on a database of 300 newspaper articles, dating from 1990 to 2015. The analysis reveals eight themes. The press has: (1) questioned the state’s legitimacy to … Continue reading
A new publication about how gendered space is informally managed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The article is titled ‘The politics of gendered space: Social norms and purdah affecting female informal work in Dhaka, Bangladesh’ and is co-authored by Dr Luftun Lata, Dr Peter Walters (School of Social Science, UQ) and Dr Sonia Roitman (UQ|UP). In Bangladesh, … Continue reading
New Publication: ‘Mobility notes and economic spaces: Links, tensions and planning implications’, by Redento Recio (The University of Melbourne), Sonia Roitman (The University of Queensland) and Iderlina Mateo-Babiano (The University of Melbourne). Published in The Journal of Transport and Land Use (Vol 12, No1). The paper examines how informal trading has become embedded in the … Continue reading
RC21-IJURR Doctoral School (coordinated by Claire Colomb (UCL), Sonia Roitman (UQ|UP) and Liza Weinstein (Northeastern University): On Saturday, we were invited into three “bastis” (communities) across Delhi that have been struggling against their eviction and displacement. Thank you to housing rights activist Shakeel Abdul, who made our visits possible and introduced us to these inspiring … Continue reading