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X-WR-CALNAME:African Centre for Cities
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for African Centre for Cities
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TZID:Africa/Johannesburg
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DTSTART:20230101T000000
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260618T130000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260618T140000
DTSTAMP:20260609T120803Z
CREATED:20260603T122755Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260609T120803Z
UID:10005648-1781787600-1781791200@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Thinking urban? Survey designers’ approaches to questions on sex\, gender\, and sexuality in South African social surveys
DESCRIPTION:Survey designers play a key role in producing social realities by defining categories and shaping how people are classified through the process of “making up people” and assigning them to specif-ic categories. In urban contexts\, surveys are especially important tools for generating knowledge about diverse populations to help inform urban policy\, planning\, and service delivery. In this sense\, sex\, gender\, and sexuality are not simply variables to be measured\, but social constructs that are actively produced through how survey questions are designed\, asked\, and interpreted\, which in turn may inform urban governance. \nSthembiso Pollen Mkhize\, a visiting scholar at the African Centre for Cities\, will present a brown bag seminar on his ongoing PhD research\, sharing emerging insights from the first phase of his data collection. This phase involved interviewing survey designers\, including principal investigators and fieldworkers\, to understand their roles in specific surveys. His talk explores how decisions are made about asking questions on sex\, gender\, and sexuality\, and the challenges of implementing these questions across diverse urban and rural contexts. \nSthembiso Pollen Mkhize is a PhD Student in Human Geography in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. He is also a Research Associate (formerly a Junior Researcher) at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory\, where he leads the ‘Queering Social Survey Research’ project. His recent work includes a forthcoming Occasional Paper titled ‘Balancing inclusivity and practicality: Should South African censuses and social surveys include measures beyond the gender binary?’ He has also published in journals including Progress in Human Geography and Social Science & Medicine.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/behind-the-questions/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Thinking-urban-e1780670888265.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260609T130000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260609T140000
DTSTAMP:20260527T114232Z
CREATED:20260527T112340Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260527T114232Z
UID:10005647-1781010000-1781013600@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Smart as a City: The Politics of Test-Bed Urbanism
DESCRIPTION:What does it mean for a city to be “smart”? Burcu Baykurt will present her latest book Smart as a City: The Politics of Test-Bed Urbanism. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Kansas City\, Missouri\, where Google piloted a citywide gigabit network and city officials launched several smart city projects in the 2010s. Through cases including public-housing residents’ quiet refusal of “free” gigabit internet\, the city’s turn to predictive analytics that largely confirmed the obvious\, and public–private strategies for managing failure without naming it\, the book reframes test-bed urbanism as a mode of local governance that works through civic aspiration\, deliberate ignorance\, and municipal politics. It argues that urban disparities are not an unintended consequence of the smart city; they are the foundation upon which it is built. \nBurcu Baykurt is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research explores how digital infrastructures reshape and perpetuate urban inequalities. She is the coeditor of Soft-Power Internationalism: Competing for Cultural Influence in the 21st-Century Global Order.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/smart-as-a-city-the-politics-of-test-bed-urbanism/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/smart-as-city_feat-e1779882050632.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260225T130000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20260225T143000
DTSTAMP:20260212T104303Z
CREATED:20260211T212837Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260212T104303Z
UID:10005638-1772024400-1772029800@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Global Platform Studies seminar
DESCRIPTION:From short-term rentals to digital dashboards\, in the last decade\, scholars have charted the wide-ranging impacts of platforms and platformization processes in contemporary society. While this is a global phenomenon\, platformization takes different forms – and has different stakes – across urban geographies. At the time\, the definition of platforms has differed in different disciplines\, for example\, between media studies\, mainstream economics\, heterodox economics\, and cultural studies. In this session\, the panel will explore some of these differences in both contexts and debates\, to make connections and flag disjunctures. \nModerator:\nNancy Odendaal is the current Basel Chair of Urban Studies at the African Centre for Cities. She has published extensively on smart urbanisms and everyday livelihoods\, with her book\, Disrupted Urbanism: Situated Smart Initiatives in African Cities\, published in 2023 by Bristol University Press\, examining the spatial changes that can emanate from endogenous platform initiatives.\n\n\n\n\nPanelists:\nAlicia Fortuin is a PhD candidate and researcher at the African Centre for Cities\, University of Cape Town. Her PhD examines youth\, work\, and inequality in Cape Town\, while her broader research has engaged public space\, digital platforms in ride-hailing and delivery platforms in the African context. Her research is interested in work and its changing forms\, intersecting with technology\, governance\, care and socio-spatial transformation in unequal cities.\n\n\n\nMarc Steinberg is Professor of Cinema and director of The Platform Lab at Concordia University\, Montréal. He researches the impacts of digital platforms on management practices\, media industries\, and cultural life in East Asia. He is the author ofThe Platform Economy: How Japan Transformed the Commercial Internet (University of Minnesota Press\, 2019) and Media and Management (2021)\, among other books\, and has recently co-edited In/Convenience: Inhabiting the Logistical Surround(Institute of Network Cultures\, 2024). \n\n\nAnanya is a PhD student in the Film & Moving Image studies program at Concordia University. Her current research examines how digital platforms are attaching themselves to everyday urban life in India. She focuses in particular on the gendered interface between youth culture\, gig labour\, the creator economy\, and platformed domesticities. Her proposed dissertation project studies the digital infolding of the city and its aspirational horizons. \n\n\nArmin Beverungen is Profess for the Sociology of Organisation and Economy and affiliated with the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He recently completed a 4-year research project on logistical platform urbanism and currently researches digital (urban and port) twins and their promises of wealth and co-leads a research initiative on climate futures in digital cultures. \nDETAILS: \n\nDATE | Wednesday\, 25 February 2026 \nTIME | 13H00 – 14H30 \nVENUE | Seminar 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, UCT Upper Campus. \nPlease RSVP to africancentreforcities@uct.ac.za
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/global-platform-studies/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Seminar Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Platforms-seminar-e1770843657918.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20250313T123000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20250313T140000
DTSTAMP:20250430T071535Z
CREATED:20250303T153738Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250430T071535Z
UID:10005621-1741869000-1741874400@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Sustainable Fashion & Textiles in Africa: A brownbag seminar by Lauren England
DESCRIPTION:Dr Lauren England will be presenting initial reflections from an ongoing pilot research project on sustainable fashion and textile manufacturing in Kenya and South Africa. The project is a collaboration with Dr Ogake Mosomi (University of Nairobi) and Prof Jen Snowball (Rhodes University). The session will be moderated by Laura Nkula-Wenz. \nThe project aims to develop initial insights into the ‘maker-manufacturing nexus’ in the fashion and textiles industry in Kenya and South Africa – connections between small-scale makers (local creative producers and fashion designers) and large scale (industrial textiles and garment producers) manufacturers. A focus is on exploring the potential for innovations in sustainable manufacturing and identifying enabling and hindering factors to greater collaboration between creative economy actors and local manufacturing infrastructure. The pilot project aims to support the development of a larger research collaboration addressing the needs of creative businesses\, industry and policy and supporting sustainable development in the fashion and textile industry. \nDr Lauren England is a Lecturer in Creative Economies in the Department of Culture\, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London\, UK. Her research focuses on sustainable development in creative economies. Lauren is particularly interested in the application of craft knowledge and skills in manufacturing and sustainable production\, evolutionary trajectories and spatial dynamics of craft and design economies\, and the organisational strategies of small arts organisations and creative entrepreneurs. Lauren’s work has been funded by the AHRC\, British Academy and the Urban Studies Foundation. Her research is communicated through traditional academic publications\, public reports and creative outputs including podcasts and short films.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/sustainable-fashion-textiles-in-africa-a-brownbag-seminar-by-lauren-england/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Brownbag-SFT-e1741016190583.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240801T123000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240801T140000
DTSTAMP:20240918T150120Z
CREATED:20240722T080225Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240918T150120Z
UID:10005612-1722515400-1722520800@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Brownbag seminar_ACCRETION THROUGH FRICTION: examining garbage flows in Dakar’s Baie de Hann
DESCRIPTION:Once the second most beautiful to the bay of Rio de Janeiro\, Dakar’s Baie de Hann is now known for its pollution. A largely EU-funded infrastructure project (2017-2021) promised to resolve the bay’s challenges. Jonas Le Thierry d’Ennequin challenges this modernist project from an Urban Political Ecology perspective. By examining how the bay’s infrastructure flows accrete (Anand\, 2015) since the 1980s\, he argues for the generative potential of “friction” in infrastructural development. \nDetails: \nDate: Thursday\, 01 August 2024 \nTime: 12h30 –14h00 \nVenue: Studio 1\, Level 5\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building \nJonas is a UKRI-funded PhD candidate at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit\, University College London. He holds an MSc Urban Development Planning from UCL and a BA Global Challenges from Leiden University & Universidad de Chile. Prior to his doctoral research he worked as a strategic communications consultant in different sectors.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/examining-garbage-flows-in-dakars-baie-de-hann/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Brown-bag-seminar_accretion-through-friction-e1721635141212.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240722T123000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240722T140000
DTSTAMP:20240716T123921Z
CREATED:20240716T123921Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240716T123921Z
UID:10005611-1721651400-1721656800@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:Brown bag seminar: The visible hand of a transport mafia in Lagos (Nigeria)
DESCRIPTION:The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) is a recognized union\, an unofficial section of a political party\, and a ‘parastatal’ organization transporting millions of passengers in Nigeria. These multiple functions are seen by academics and the public as a problem. Many researchers consider NURTW as a mafia because of its collusions with political parties\, the police and civil servants\, an increasingly dominant interpretation characterizing popular transport organizations in the African continent. This project is aimed at understanding divergent views of ‘informal’ transport organization in Lagos\, the economic capital of Nigeria. \nTo do this\, historian and political scientist Laurent Fourchard works with photographer Andrew Esiebo to engage in a common fieldwork based on visual ethnography methods. By associating photography and ethnography\, they would like to explore the visible hand of an organization whose main functions are unseen\, hidden\, difficult to grasp or stigmatized. \nBio: Laurent Fourchard is a research professor at the National Foundation for Political Science (CERI) and teaching faculty at Sciences Po’s Urban School. He was Director of the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA) in Nigeria from 2000 to 2003 and visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town in 2008 and 2009. Before joining CERI in 2016 he was a research fellow at the research institute\, Les Afrique dans le monde at Sciences Po Bordeaux.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/the-visible-hand-of-a-transport-mafia-in-lagos-nigeria/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Brownbag-seminar-by-Laurent-Fourchard_the-unmakings-of-cliches-a5-e1721130953132.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240411T153000
DTEND;TZID=Africa/Johannesburg:20240411T163000
DTSTAMP:20240409T121414Z
CREATED:20240409T121414Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240409T121414Z
UID:10002790-1712849400-1712853000@www.africancentreforcities.net
SUMMARY:ACC Brown Bag - Living Off-Grid: Reflections from Ghana and Zimbabwe
DESCRIPTION:Speakers: Percy Toriro – University of Zimbabwe and Issahaka Fuseini – University of Ghana \nJoin this discussion between Percy Toriro and Issahaka Fuseini\, who will share findings from their work as city partners in the LOGIC (off-grid) project. Percy will engage the theme of ‘Electricity visits us’: the challenges of living with poor infrastructure and services in an off-grid settlement\, with a focus on Dzivarasekwa\, Zimbabwe. Issahaka will speak to the realities of off-griddedness and various assemblages to adapt to water scarcity and sanitation challenges in Tamale\, Ghana. \nThese inputs will be followed by reflections by Hayley MacGregor (IDS) locating these discussions within the overlooked intersections between urban studies\, the “infrastructure turn” and emerging urban food\, nutrition and wider wellbeing debates. \nThis brownbag will build on the earlier conversations by Mercy Brown Luthango and Iromi Perera and the LOGIC (off grid) project\, speaking to research in two additional project cities. \nWHEN: Thursday\, 11 April 2024\nTIME: 15h30 – 16h30\nVENUE: Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building\, Upper Campus\, University of Cape Town \nABOUT THE SPEAKERS \nPercy Toriro has over 20 years’ experience as a city planner\, having been the Chief Planner for the City of Harare for 10 years. Dr Toriro also leads the Urban Planning Program at the Municipal Development Partnership (MDP) a network spanning 15 Southern African countries\, engaging in urban development challenges. Percy holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research has covered urban infrastructure\, urban housing\, urban informality\, housing\, governance\, food systems and environment. Percy’s work sees him interacting with national\, regional and local governments in different countries and cities. Percy served four terms as President of the Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners (ZIRUP). Percy holds an adjunct lectureship position at the University of Zimbabwe. \nIssahaka Fuseini is a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana\, Ghana. Issahaka holds a PhD from Stellenbosch University. Issahaka’s research interest spans food systems governance\, collaborative local-level governance\, and inclusive urban development. Issahaka previously worked at the African Centre for Cities\, University of Cape Town\, during which time he was involved in multi-country\, interdisciplinary projects aimed at improving urban food systems governance and nutrition security in nine cities in Kenya\, Zambia\, Zimbabwe\, Namibia\, and South Africa. Presently\, Issahaka is a co-investigator responsible for the Ghanaian component of a UKRI-sponsored multi-country research project (under the Global Challenges Research Fund’s Off-Grid Cities call) that is being implemented in five cities in Ghana\, South Africa\, Zimbabwe\, India\, and Sri Lanka. This project seeks to understand how access to or the lack of infrastructure\, broadly defined\, impacts the food and nutrition security of marginalised populations in cities in the Global South. Issahaka is also a lead partner in a city dialogue\, facilitated by RUAF/FAO\, that is aimed at developing a city-level food systems governance agenda for his home city of Tamale\, Ghana.
URL:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/tribe-events/acc-brown-bag-living-off-grid-reflections-from-ghana-and-zimbabwe/
LOCATION:Studio 1\, Environmental and Geographical Science Building\, Upper Campus\, UCT
CATEGORIES:Brownbags
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.africancentreforcities.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Samantha-Reinders_Zwelentemba_056-scaled.jpg
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