The conference has ended, and it was a great success!
Congratulations to our 2024 Winners!
Advanced Research Category:
- Best Paper Award: Elham Akhbari, PhD student in Environmental Studies, for their outstanding paper “Abandoning Skylines: Conceptualizing the Rise and Fall of Toronto High-Rises,” which provides original and theoretically informed insights into the process of rental stock abandonment and deterioration in Toronto amidst the rise of luxury financialized condominiums. The Awards Committee commended Elham for “a beautifully written paper, very conceptual and analytical” with great scholarly promise for a peer-reviewed publication.
- Special Mention: Ian Weir and Madison Stirling, MES Planning students, for their “What is Tall? Density and Urban Form” paper. The Awards Committee praised the authors for “their rigorous data analysis and exceptional job of transforming a seemingly simple concept (building heights) into a nuanced analysis.”
- Best Presentation Award: Farida Rady, PhD Student in Geography, for her presentation of the paper “Visions of Governance, Citizenship, and Order: A Discourse Analysis of Toronto’s Encampment Evictions,” which offered a compelling case of how the practice of evicting the unhoused residents of encampments in 2021 was premeditated and planned by municipal staff and relied on practices of deception.
Research in Motion Category:
- Best Presentation Award: Christopher C. Sorio, MA student in Geography, for his presentation titled “Best Before Date: 2nd Feb 2024 – The Breakdown of Protections for Precarious Workers in the GTA: The story of Del Monte in Oshawa”, whose engaging presentation on the stories of workers involved in the Del Monte dispute captured the audience’s attention.
Special Mention: Lawrenz Decano, MA student in Geography, for his presentation titled “The Viewfrom the Driver’s Seat: Urban Stories of App-based Delivery Drivers Navigating Precarity in the City of Lethbridge” for a clear, well-delivered and engaging presentation on migrant perceptions of precarity in app-based delivery jobs, the impacts on their households, and the ways these workers navigate labour precarity.
Special thanks go to CITY’s 2024 Graduate Conference Organizing Committee and other amazing volunteers for their dedication and enthusiasm:
Yuly Chan, PhD Candidate, Sociology
Leonardo Furtado, PhD student, Human Geography
Sophia Ilyniak, PhD Candidate, Human Geography
Mantha Katsikana, PhD Candidate, Human Geography
Dr. Maryam Lashkari, Human Geography Alumna
Viktoriya Vinik, PhD Candidate in Political Science
Brian Waters, PhD Student, Geography
Ushieja De Zoysa, Coordinator, CITY
Luisa SOtomayor, Director, CITY
We have succesfully completed the 2024 CITY Institute’s upcoming graduate student conference, "Urban Breakdowns: Crises, Control, and Repair," which was held on October 25, 2024, at York University. This interdisciplinary event seeks to examine the complex dynamics of urban breakdowns—moments when the social, infrastructural, and political systems of cities falter or collapse—and the varied responses to these crises. From the failure of essential infrastructures such as transit, housing, and utilities, to humanitarian emergencies, governance breakdowns, the financialization and commoditization of housing (and everything), public health crises, and populist unrest, cities across the globe are increasingly defined by their struggles to confront, mitigate, and manage a range of overlapping crises.
This conference will foster dialogue on how cities and people resist, adapt, and repair in response to these challenges. The theme, "Crises, Control, and Repair," encourages critical reflections on the root causes of urban breakdowns and the mechanisms of control that arise in times of instability. It also invites inquiry into the collective and creative processes of repair, care, and rebuilding that emerge in the wake of crises. We welcome submissions from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives, including but not limited to sociology, geography, political science, public policy, health, cultural studies, anthropology, urban planning, and environmental studies.
Key Themes and Topics of 2024:
- Urban Infrastructure and Systemic Failure: How do physical infrastructures—such as housing, transportation, water, energy, and telecommunications—break down materially and figuratively? What are the political, social, and economic implications of such failures? How are these breakdowns managed and repaired? How do people interact with these failures in their every day?
- Social and Political Crises in Cities: How do urban populations experience and respond to social unrest, public health crises, or governance failures? What role do state and non-state actors play in controlling or exacerbating urban crises?
- Governance and the Politics of Control: How do mechanisms of control emerge in response to urban breakdowns? How are crises used to justify increased surveillance, militarization, or authoritarian measures in urban spaces?
- Care, Repair and Rebuilding: How do cities and communities rebuild during and after periods of crisis? What are the forms of resistance, care and resilience that emerge in post-crisis scenarios, and how do they reshape urban environments?
- Global Perspectives on Urban Breakdowns: How do urban crises manifest differently across global contexts? What can we learn from comparative studies or research across cities in the Global North, South and East?
Conference Organizers:
Yuly Chan, PhD Candidate in Sociology, LA&PS and Graduate Representative, City Institute’s Executive Committee
Sophia Ilyniak, PhD Candidate in Human Geography, EUC
Mantha Katsikana, PhD Candidate in Human Geography and GenUrb Representative, City Institute’s Executive Committee
Dr. Maryam Lashkari, Human Geography, EUC (recent alumna)
Brian Waters, PhD Student in Geography, EUC
Luisa Sotomayor, Director, the CITY Institute
Ushieja De Zoysa, Coordinator, The CITY Institute