Urban Research and Practice from the South

This brown bag seminar presents an overview of the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies (IEUT) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC), one of the leading urban studies institutions in Latin America, focusing on its trajectory in research, teaching, public engagement, and interdisciplinary urban practice.

Professors Macarena Ibarra, María Luisa Méndez, and Javier Ruiz-Tagle will briefly discuss their individual research agendas, teaching experiences, recent books, and ongoing Fondecyt projects. The seminar will also introduce three newly awarded Millennium Nuclei in Social Sciences: NUPATS (heritages and social uses, led by Dr. Ibarra), NUMIC (urban insecurity and social cohesion, led by Dr. Mendez), and NUVIV (multidimensional housing studies, led by Dr. Ruiz-Tagle). Across these initiatives, the presentation explores shared concerns around inequality, urban transformation, housing, heritage, conflict, and critical urban theory in Latin American and Global South contexts.

MARÍA LUISA MÉNDEZ is a Professor at the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She is the Former Director of the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES), principal investigator in the Geographies of Conflict research line at the same center, and author of the books Upper Middle Class Social Reproduction (Palgrave, 2019), The Politics of the Elite (Routledge, 2023) and The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Global Elites (Oxford University Press, 2026), among others. Currently, she is member of the National Council for Science, Technology, Innovation and Knowledge (CTCI). She is Director of the Nucleus Millenium Insecurity and Urban Cohesion (NUMIC), and the Fondecyt Project “The Changing Geographies of Privilege in Contemporary Santiago”. Her research interests include subjective aspects of mobility and class; urban belonging, insecurities and social conflict.

MACARENA IBARRA is a Professor at the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She was the principal investigator of the Fondecyt regular project (1161669) 2016–2019, “The City That Never Was: A Critical Review of City Transformation Plans in the Emergence of Urbanism in Chile (1872–1929)”, the Fondecyt regular project (1201861) 2020-2023, “Housing and Urbanism. A critical review of the emergence and development of the ‘planned city’ in Chile (1936-1973),” and the ANID competition for research projects on Coronavirus (COVID-19) 2020-2021, “Housing, neighborhood and city in the control of epidemics. Social and urban considerations for the formulation of public policies of isolation and social distancing in Chile.” She is currently the principal investigator of the Fondecyt regular project (1241635) 2024-2027, “The city under dictatorship. Institutionality, authoritarian modernization and urban planning in Chile (1973-1990)”. She is Director of the Nucleus Millenium Heritages (NUPATS).

JAVIER RUIZ -TAGLE is Associate Professor at the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He specializes in residential segregation, housing policy, neighborhood effects, urban marginality, self-managed housing, urban sociology, and comparative studies. He has published, presented, and won awards for his work in Chile, the United States, and Europe. He was Section Editor of the Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), and co-editor of the books Companion to Urban and Regional Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) and Urban Marginality and Institutional Effects (RIL, 2020). He has taught at undergraduate level (Sociology of Large Cities; Housing and Urban Form; Advisory on Residential Self-Management), master’s level (Urban Political Economy; Socio-spatial Transformation of Neighborhoods; Housing and Neighborhood; Research Methods), and doctoral level (Current Problems in Architecture and Urban Studies). He is also the Head of the Diploma Program in Housing and Neighborhood. Currently, he is involved in three research projects: (1) principal investigator of a Fondecyt Regular Project (2025-2028) on housing policy and social subjectivation, (2) adjunct researcher at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS, 2025-2030), and (3) director of the Millenium Nucleus NUVIV on critical challenges of housing.