Call for Papers: "Activism and Urban Planning"

The traces from past decades of urban and environmental activism are visible in our surroundings, for example, in green spaces preserved from development, buildings saved from demolition, and traffic arrangements driven by residents’ initiatives. Activism is also present today, with buildings once again being occupied, and streets serving as stages for civil disobedience. The environmental crisis and other crises have sparked grassroots citizen actions, alongside which both the weakening and defence of democracy manifest in direct actions and activism globally.

In Finland, however, activism or prominent civic engagement has not typically been associated with urban planning or shaping the shared environment. An exception has been the small-scale, somewhat narrowly defined urban activism, which has thrived in cities during recent years. Social policies that favor routine citizen participation and experimentation, along with social media that promotes self-organization (while also creating social bubbles), have together supported the current form of urban activism.

How can we understand activism, or the broader concept of civic engagement, when political polarization and challenges to parliamentary democracy are becoming more visible? What kind of concepts are needed to understand these phenomena? How has activism changed and is changing, and how is it meaningful to define this change in the context of urban planning? Since activism cannot be solely linked to politically radical or imagined liberal movements, and considering that the forms of nature and urban activism cannot be separated from each other, how can research shed light on the current situation?

The topics for this special issue may include, for example:

• Citizen engagement and participation, as well as the general definition of activism
• The historical developments of alternative cultures and activism
• Macroeconomic dimensions, such as regional or income policies
• Activist groups and governance
• Other conceptual and comparative initiatives

There are likely to be many empirical topics, such as:

• Mobility
• Urban planning
• Building or space occupations
• Financialization as a trigger for activism
• Lobbying as activism
• Energy transition, digitalization
• Preservation of shared heritage
• Placemaking, i.e., local environment shaping through grassroots efforts

Editors of the special issue:

Eeva Berglund
Pasi Mäenpää

We kindly ask that you submit your article abstract (approx. 300 words) and contact information via email to Eeva Berglund at eeva.berglund@aalto.fi. The deadline for abstracts is November 30, 2024. You can submit a brief proposal for a review, book review, or other idea to Pasi Mäenpää at pasi.maenpaa@helsinki.fi.

Authors will be informed about the acceptance of their article proposals by the end of the year.