Back to selection
60670-01 - Studio: Coloniality, Infrastucture and Ecology (10 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2025 |
| Course frequency | Irregular |
| Lecturers |
Kenny R. Cupers (kenny.cupers@unibas.ch, Assessor)
Francesca Romana Dell'Aglio (francescaromana.dellaglio@unibas.ch) Maren Larsen (maren.larsen@unibas.ch) |
| Content | This course forms the thematic core of the Urbanism across Geographies module. This module explores how cities and landscapes are produced through translocal processes that cross global divides and geographical categories such as Global North and Global South. Building on postcolonial scholarship, it addresses how global systems of circulation, accumulation, and displacement produce unequal yet interconnected urban and rural conditions. This includes understanding how material infrastructures and unequal mobility patterns are shaped by enduring colonial relations of power. The aim of the module is to advance an approach to urban research that extends the study of urban lifeworlds to include the politics of mobility and resource extraction well as the spatial and environmental dimensions of political conflict. Drawing from architecture, political science, and anthropology in addition to urban studies, the module prepares students for site-based urban research, while opening up the possible geographies from which that knowledge is produced, circulated, and applied. Within this module, the studio course provides students with both theoretical foundations as well as practical sensibilities. The studio is a unique teaching format at the University of Basel, and one of the central elements of the MA in Critical Urbanisms. The studio combines conventional formats such as lectures, reading seminars, and tutorials, but most importantly, it allows students to work together in a shared space. Jointly taught by core faculty, with visits by external instructors, the studio takes place in a dedicated space, which acts as a laboratory in which small teams of students from different disciplinary backgrounds work closely together. Students work on a range of different and complementary outputs, ranging from essays to illustrated booklets, maps and diagrams, photographic projects, videos, and installations. This work will be assembled and edited to be made public as a collective outcome of the research studio. The theoretical framework for the course is grounded in four pillars. The first pillar draws from (post-)/(de)colonial approaches in critical urban studies to develop a working notion of what we mean by urbanism across geographies. We are particularly interested in how processes of urbanization, colonialism, and racial capitalism intertwine, and how such macro-analytical concepts, inspired by radical and anti-colonial thinkers, can help us understand concrete places, such as the port city of Lamu. We will pay close attention to changing maritime and land-based networks of production and trade, and use borders and oceans as methodological lenses for understanding urbanization. The second pillar centers on infrastructure, which we approach both as an empirical object and an analytical approach. Building on the recent infrastructural turn in the social sciences, we will explore infrastructure as a lens to explore the endurance and transformation of colonial and capitalist relations of power. We are interested in the historical legacies that shape current infrastructure mega-projects, as well as the often-mundane role of infrastructure in supporting urban life. As such we will address both the promise of infrastructure to achieve progress and its relationship to violence and neglect. The third pillar is ecology, and here we will primarily draw from two scholarly debates—urban political ecology and the environmental humanities, particularly scholarship on environmental racism and decolonial ecology. Rather than seeing nature as an external or passive context for urbanization, these allow us to understand the sociomaterial construction of urban environments across multiple scales—with concrete processes such as water provision, food production, waste management, and pollution. The fourth pillar starts from a focus on land and built heritage as objects of investigation and as sites of intervention. This leads us to explore different methods of research (particularly from architecture and landscape studies) that allow us to understand how built environments are linked to broader political and economic processes. Class format: The classes are based on close critical readings and group discussions. For each session, we will focus on 2-3 largely theoretical texts in relation to one another according to the key themes of the course. The format of the classes will be discussion-led. The instructors will begin the class with a lecture or overview and will then proceed to asking leading questions so that we can collectively extract the key contributions in the assigned readings for that week. Site immersion: The theoretical frameworks will be explored not only in the classroom, through the seminar discussions in weeks 1-4, but also through site immersion in weeks 6-11, in exchange with a range of urban actors, local organizers, and collaborators. While separate in administrative terms, this course is thus integrally linked to in the progression of the studio and is thus mandatory. |
| Learning objectives | This course provides the theoretical framework as well as practical skills for urban research across geographies. By the end of the course, we hope you will be able to: - Engage with foundational literature on global and postcolonial urbanism, allowing you to conceptualize and pursue site-based urban research that attends to translocal dynamics of capital, mobility, extraction, and conflict - Reflect independently on the ways in which global systems of circulation, accumulation, and displacement produce unequal yet interconnected urban and rural conditions, and understand how concrete spaces and local practices are linked to broader societal dynamics and geopolitical forces - Confidently analyze and write about urban scholarship from multiple disciplinary positions, including geography, history, architecture, and political science - Work collaboratively on locally engaged public presentation of research outcomes |
| Comments | The University of Basel provides a contribution to help cover the costs of the travel and logistics of the field course. Full details will be provided via email to all UAG-Track registered students. |
| Admission requirements | This course is exclusively available to *first-year (*or students who have postponed their track module) MA students in Critical Urbanisms upon securing a spot in this track module. **Additionally, two spots are available for Changing Societies students, pending availability after allocation among Critical Urbanisms students. ***Those from the MSG Changing Societies' program who wish to register with this course should do so only AFTER having secured a spot within the 'Urbanism Across Geographies' - Track. If you have been allocated a spot, please do register for both: 60670 and 60714. ****Changing Societies Students: Please apply via the Field course leaders/instructors/assessors, subject to changes (All spots taken for Spring 25) |
| Course application | Anmelden: Belegen Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 10.00-12.00 | Petersplatz 14/ Hebelstrasse 3, Kleiner Hörsaal E014 |
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 14.00-16.00 | Petersplatz 14/ Hebelstrasse 3, Kleiner Hörsaal E014 |
| wöchentlich | Thursday | 10.00-12.00 | Petersplatz 14/ Hebelstrasse 3, Kleiner Hörsaal E014 |
| wöchentlich | Thursday | 14.00-16.00 | Petersplatz 14/ Hebelstrasse 3, Kleiner Hörsaal E014 |
| Block | See individual dates | ||
Dates
| Modules |
Module: Changing Societies Lab (Master's degree program: Changing Societies: Migration – Conflicts – Resources) Module: Urbanism across Geographies (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Pass/Fail NB: A seminar paper is a mandatory component of this course. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Urban Studies |