The current sense of advancing global crisis, and the heightened discourse around notions of poly- and permacrisis, are indicative of a new political conjuncture. Although compelling, much contemporary debate on crisis lacks a grounding in places and a way to think through issues such as the relationship between the micro and macro. In this lunch seminar, Ross Beveridge will ground crisis in the 'urban', as integral to economic and climatic conditions and the dominant form of social life.
The seminar develops four overlapping modalities for theorising how multiple and deepening crises are entwined with urbanism and are generative of a conjuncture we approach as crisis urbanism:
- Chrono-politics of crisis urbanism
- Spatial-politics of crisis urbanism
- Statal-politics of crisis urbanism
- Epistemological politics of crisis urbanism
The theoretical framing of these modalities sheds light on the interlinking and enduring character of crisis urbanism and offers a better understanding of poly- and perma-crises associated with the urban way of life and the political geographies these are generating, including, dialectically, the turn to reparative urbanism to address harms within the city. Crisis is understood as not (yet) enveloping urbanism but rather as an ever-present process within urbanisation. Crisis urbanism is, then, the name we give to this process, but it is also a method: a means of analysing an always politically constructed and dialectically composed process, one that is relational and ongoing. In conclusion, the seminar reflects on the prospects of transformative reparative politics within and beyond the current urban conjuncture.
About the speaker
Ross Beveridge is a visiting scholar at the Urban Studies Institute from March to June 2026. He is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. His research is in the broad area of urban politics and governance. He is the author of How Cities Can Transform Democracy (2022) and he writes about the political potential of the local state and urban activism. Other interests include infrastructures, urban vacancy and co-production. The lunch seminar is based on this article by Ross Beveridge, Roger Keil, and Maryam Lashkari (Dec 2025).
Practical info
Wednesday 25 March 2026, 12.30 - 2 p.m.
UAntwerpen Stadscampus, Room M.101
Sint-Jacobstraat 2, 2000 Antwerpen