Projects
Migration and the Politics of Urban Citizenship: a Comparative Analysis of Four Belgian Cities (1974-2012). University of Antwerp
The politics of love: urban development, intimacy and the future in the northern Kunene Region, Namibia KU Leuven
The most recent UN Habitat report (2010) has drawn attention to the fact that Africa is urbanizing at an incredible speed, and to the fact that the process of urbanization is exacerbating the already high levels of inequality on the continent. At the same time, Africa has caught the attention of global investors and speculators: one speaks of a “new scramble for Africa” (Carmody 2011) that involves both the old and emerging world powers. Made ...
From Sociobiology to Urban Metabolism. The Interaction of Urbanism, Science and Politics in Brussels (1900-1978) KU Leuven
Today, urbanism and urban design are engaging in a productive alliance with the natural sciences, leading to the international rise of ecological forms of urbanism. In the Brussels region, socio-ecological approaches are rethinking the urban landscape, and the turn towards landscape design as well as metabolic schemes and circular economy goals show that the region has become a telling manifestation of these evolutions. Still, the ...
Conflictual Democracy: Urban politics, gender and local governance in post-revolution Tunisia Ghent University
The Arab Spring in 2011 refers to a series of pro-democracy uprisings spread across several largely Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The EU-funded ConflictualDemocracy project will take stock of today’s situation. Focusing on Tunisia, it will study how conflictual democracy is consolidated locally, where the state meets the street, the space of contestation. The project will explore post-revolution Tunisia through urban ...
Just Air? The Spatial Politics of Urban Air Pollution. KU Leuven
Air pollution is the largest environmental health hazard in the Western world. Especially cities are often ‘hotspots’ of air pollution. However, we are not all equally exposed to bad air. Due to the increasing role of traffic as one of the most important causes of air pollution, mainly people living near major roads suffer from its detrimental health effects. This project develops two case studies in Antwerp and London, where this unequal ...
Understanding land, land use rights and land policies through the land-labour-urbanization nexus. Mechanisms of urbanization in Flanders, Greece and Italy. University of Antwerp
Retrofitting Cities, Making Places - Policies for building energy efficiency KU Leuven
Retrofitting cities, making places - Policies for building energy efficiency (working title) is a doctoral research project whose aim is to develop a design-oriented investigation into the critical factors that can support, or hinder, the retrofit of urban places.
Within the framework of the Incubators of Public Spaces, a funded JPI Urban Europe project aiming at the development of a co-creative platform for the ...
Sport Policies in Active Cities - An international comparative governance perspective KU Leuven
Although there is an increasing amount of literature on public sport policies, most of this research concentrates on high performance and elite sport, national sport systems and sport organizations. Even with the significant changes and challenges that the urbanization process brings to planners, administrators and policy-makers and the emergent use of the term 'active cities' by local governments and organizations, most of the investigations ...
"Migrant Squatting and 'City-zenship': Comparative Analysis of Municipal Migration Policies and Bottom-Up Processes of Integration in Paris and Rome" Ghent University
Scholars in citizenship studies have sought out more inclusive terminology for the growing population of illegalized migrants in the EU. This research project examines how squats allow for alternative articulations and practices of citizenship in European cities. The project will conduct a systematic comparative analysis of urban migration governance in Paris and Rome through ethnographic fieldwork in migrant squats.