Call for Contributions: Urban Pamphleteer #6 Global Education for Urban Futures

Proposal deadline: 12pm GMT, Wednesday 25 March 2015

Established in 2013, each issue of Urban Pamphleteer collates and presents expert voices across disciplines, professions, and community groups around one pressing contemporary urban challenge or debate. The intention is to draw out and confront the complexities of each subject from diverse perspectives, in a direct and accessible–but not reductive or didactic–tone. In the tradition of radical pamphleteering, the broader aim is to empower citizens and inform professionals, organisations, institutions and policy-makers, with a view to actively influencing urban debate and positively shaping change. The pamphlets are economically produced, carefully designed and widely circulated, both as hard copy and digitally.

The first four issues have been published:

Urban Pamphleteer #1 Future & Smart Cities (April 2013)
Urban Pamphleteer #2 Regeneration Realities (December 2013)
Urban Pamphleteer #3 Design & Trust (October 2014)
Urban Pamphleteer #4 Heritage & Renewal in Doha (November 2014)
Urban Pamphleteer #5 Open Source Housing Crisis (forthcoming 2015)

We are now soliciting contributions of 400-800 words and/or images/visual essays forUrban Pamphleteer #6: Education for Urban Futures

This issue aims to stimulate a critical discussion about the future of higher education focused on cities and urbanization. In a world that is both rapidly urbanising and globalising, it is widely acknowledged that it is crucial to facilitate urban education that is cross-, inter- or trans-disciplinary; based on global knowledge addressed towards international issues; and engaged with live projects or taught through approaches defined as practice-oriented or laboratorial. Yet it is not always clear how these ambitions can best be achieved, especially to ensure urban education plays a constitutive role in addressing issues of urban exclusion or inequality, and global disparities in the production of urban knowledge and application of expertise.

What challenges do trends in global urban theory, policy and development pose for contemporary educational practice? What are the origins, institutional contexts and futures of international approaches to urban higher education? What are the challenges and opportunities of internationalising urban pedagogy today? What good models exist that best facilitate working across different geographical contexts?

New perspectives on these themes might include, for example, projects that document, contextualise and comment on existing pedagogies and teaching, as well as critiques of existing models, and suggestions of future challenges and opportunities. We are interested in featuring innovative, critical and speculative pedagogies that are cross-/ inter- and trans-disciplinary, practice-oriented, and/or comparative; and/or which help to facilitate international collaboration/comparison through visual methods and/or digital platforms. We are keen to feature work by educators, academics, students, policy makers, built environment practitioners, NGOs or others with relevant views and expertise.

Submissions to Urban Pamphleteer are peer reviewed and edited by a small team of series and guest editors. We are looking to select approximately 15 contributions that directly address one or more of the questions or issues above, and which represent a variety of approaches. 

In making the final selection, we will be looking to feature the widest possible range of perspectives, through high quality writing and images, with ideas presented rigorously and accessibly. Space is limited by our budget–so we encourage concise and incisive texts and even single-image contributions. Potential contributors are strongly advised to look at Urban Pamphleteer #1, #2, #3 and #4 to get an idea of the overall format. 

Submission

If you would like to propose a text or image or visual project please send us a 150 word proposal by 25 March at 12pm GMT within the body of an email to urbanlaboratory@ucl.ac.uk. Contributors will need to be in a position to submit final copy by 1 June. You must own the copyright for any text or material submitted (which you will retain). The issue will be launched at the Urban Lab+ London Symposium in London on 16 September 2015

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