Work in progress seminar: Agamben and architecture

IMPORTANT UPDATE: This event is cancelled because University College London is taking part in the University and College Union strike action on 22 February. Apologies for the late notice.

In this Work in Progress seminar, Camillo Boano, Professor at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, will present his recent book in conversation with CENDEP’s Cathrine Brun. The book titled The Ethics of Potential Urbanism. Critical encounters between Giorgio Agamben and Architecture is a unique engagement with the philosopher Giorgio Agamben from a position of architecture and urban planning. Professor Boano will present an outline and the main argument of the book. This is followed by a conversation between Boano and Brun about how, by engaging with Agamben, we can promote a radically new architecture. Within Agamben’s philosophy lies a social critique and analysis that enables a potentiality – the ability to act – or not to act, the possibility to resist and a hopeful architecture. Agamben’s exceptionalism is perhaps most known in our field for the contribution to the ways in which we can approach humanitarian action and human rights. While the camp is the most prominent and most discussed spatiality of Agamben’s work, we aim to discuss how that spatiality can be applied in shelter, housing and home. The conversation will consider the meaning of the material and the social in understanding how practice inform theory but also how Agamben’s philosophy can inform practice.

For the whole seminar series programme, check this blog post.

Work in Progress seminars - all welcome

This coming semester will see a new series of Work in Progress seminars at CENDEP, held at 4.30 every Thursday afternoon. We initiated the seminars last semester to provide a showcase for new research from CENDEP, as well as from our friends and collaborators. As the name implies, these are not necessarily completed research projects, but may be work that is still being developed, where the to-and-fro of an informal seminar discussion may be of help in taking it forwards.

The schedule is below – and includes a couple of films shown in collaboration with the Oxford Brookes Documentary Club and the Human Rights Festival. More news on the festival in coming weeks.

Disasters journal 40th anniversary conference

Disasters journal has been providing a rigorous analysis of relief work for 40 years and has been instrumental in changing attitudes to disasters and their response, based on good evidence and research. Charles Parrack represented CENDEP at the journal's prestigious 40th anniversary conference and writes that it was great to see former CENDEP staff and associates presenting:

Professor Ian Davis at the Disasters conference

CENDEP visiting professor Ian Davis gave the keynote address. Ian published a paper in the first issue of Disasters and is still writing and publishing on shelter after disaster today. Ian also continues to teach at CENDEP in the Shelter after Disaster module.

John Twigg, CENDEP external examiner, is currently one of the editors of Disasters, and chaired a panel discussion on what has changed in policy and practice of disaster risk management.

Dr Hugo Slim, former CENDEP director, now Head of Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, presented on the policy landscape in conflict.

Yasemin Aysan presented on the development of humanitarian practice. Yasemin was formerly director of the Oxford Disaster Management Centre (a precursor to CENDEP). She went on to join the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and became Under Secretary General for Disaster Response and Recovery.

Ian Davis reviewed what had changed in 40 years of disasters. He mentioned that urbanisation is colossal and the large numbers of migrants are contributing to the complexity and scale of disasters. Climate change has had a significant influence. Mobile phones have had a significant impact in less developed countries in tracking people and providing warnings of impending disasters, which has contributed to significantly fewer deaths from tropical storms in South Asia. Mega events are more common, even in developed countries such as Japan and the USA.

Ian commented on how some concepts and the words we use to describe them have changed over 40 years. Disaster prevention was a term that was first used in discussing disaster response, then mitigation and then disaster risk reduction, then adaptation. Now the discussion is more framed in terms of resilience, a term taken from the engineering sector, which is useful because it can mean different things to different groups. Even this concept of resilience is under discussion with commentators now talking about  'building a safety culture'.

There is still much donor-driven work in housing, which is poured into areas of emergency shelter and transitional housing, but little focus is placed on the important aspect of permanent housing. Urban risk is growing at a phenomenal rate and it is a complex area. Cultural barriers to progress remain an issue.

Yasemin Aysan discussed pilot work and how there are great pilots that are not scaled up. In disaster risk reduction work there is only a short time scale, of 3-4 years, but building up institutions to have the capacity to scale up these initiatives would take a much longer time, more related to developmental approaches.

Hugo Slim reflected that Disasters journal had a great influence on conflict studies, placing a much greater emphasis on conflict economy and conflict analysis. One of the changes Hugo has seen over time is how the humanitarian community of practice has embraced rights-based programmes and protection approaches. The second change is the politicisation of humanitarian action and the affected population. In terms of ICRC, the change Hugo has seen is the rise of urban warfare and there is much work to be done on urban protection and rights in conflict. Hugo concluded by saying that recent research has been more biased towards political theorists, and he would like to see more of an emphasis on research practice-oriented issues.