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Newsletter March 2019
Centre for Urban Studies
NEWS
Open Call: ACHI and CUS Joint Seed Grant
A new call for Joint Seed Grant applications is now open. In this call grants will be awarded of between €2.500 and €5.000 per grant, up to a total call budget of €20.000. With a well-developed argument grants higher than €5.000 can be also considered. The deadline for this round is 25th of March 2019 17.00.
> Find the full call online
NWO Open Competition for Digitalisation
As announced on 8 January 2019, NWO will make 6 million euros available for SSH research into the societal and scientific challenges of digitalisation. The deadline for the call NWO Open Competition for Digitalisation - SSH has been postponed to 9 April 2019.
> More information
UPCOMING EVENTS
Masterstudio 2019
28-29 March: Urban Scene Investigation Workshop
On the proliferation of amenities and middle-class cultural consumption, and their interrelationship with identities, life styles and the urban commons.

You are invited to the two-day workshop ‘Urban Scene Investigation’ to discuss the proliferation of urban scenes, membership and more broadly the maintenance and enhancement of urban commons together with international specialists.

Registration is open to PhD students, RMUS students, and fellow urban colleagues. Registration is required as spaces are limited.

28-29 March 09:00 to 17:00
Location: REC B.3.02
Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, Amsterdam

This workshop is part of a joint program of action by various international scholars (Prof. Süheyla Schroeder (BAU International Berlin), Dr. Barış Ülker (Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technical University Berlin), Prof. Bülent Bilmez (Bilgi University Istanbul), and Prof. Jan Rath (Center for Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam) that seeks to showcase the variety of ways in which the proliferation of middle class life styles and its concomitant cultural consumption affects the urban commons.
> For more information and registration
28 March: Public Seminar Omgevingswet
At first it seemed something obscure to people in plannig, but now there is really no way around it. From 26 separate laws for a.o. construction, the environment, water and urban planning, to one single 'Omgevingswet' (the Environment and Planning Act) in 2021. The idea of this act is to make planning more flexible, simple, integral and proximate to society. However, opinions on the practical consequences of this act are highly varied. 

Before exploring the impacts of the Omgevingswet, we first take a look at its origin. How did the Omgevingswet come into being? What is the ideological background of this paradigm shift in Dutch planning? Thereafter, we provide you with a crash course on the Omgevingswet, and we will explore the impacts of the 'Omgevingswet' on the collaboration between citizens, businesses and governments. Who will get more or less influence? And what does the new institutional setting mean for the future of our physical environment?

Everybody who is interested in law, cities and society is welcome!

Speakers

Hein Pieper is a former CDA member of parliament. He will take us back to 2009, the year in which he submitted the Motion Pieper: one of the main reasons for the induction of the Omgevingswet.

Daan Hollemans is a consultant at Antea Group and is currently also researching the Omgevingswet at the Open University. He will provide you with a crash course on the Omgevingswet and discuss its practical implications. 

Anne Langenesch is programme manager Omgevingswet at the municipality of Zaanstad.

Amma Asante is a social domain advisor at BMC, and will moderate the programme.

28 March, 20.00, IJzaal @ Pakhuis de Zwijger

> More information and registration
WORKING PAPER SERIES
Material politics: utility documents, claims-making and construction of the ‘deserving citizen’ in Rio de Janeiro
This working paper by Francesca Pilo' argues for developing a relational and materialist approach to citizenship through an ethnographic study of the electricity bill. It analyzes the uses and meaning of this document for favela residents, the state and the private electricity provider, within projects to regularize illegal connections and the so-called ‘pacification’ program, a state-security policy to re-establish state territorial control. As such, this article expands analysis of documents as material mediators of social and political relations, and proposes an understanding of citizenship as a negotiated process involving people, state and non-state actors and objects.
> Read the paper
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For more information, please contact urbanstudies@uva.nl