Dear colleagues,

Please find below a call for speakers for an innovative panel on urban 
governance in an age of compound crises at ESG 2021.

***


Call for speakers



2021 Earth System Governance Conference - Innovative Session (virtual): Urban 
governance in an age of compound crises

This innovative session aims to facilitate a transdisciplinary discussion on 
the urban governance challenges that arise from ‘compound crises’. Cities play 
a central role in navigating major global disruptions, from COVID-19, climate 
emergency, economic downturn, social inequality, institutional racism, and 
political polarization. These crises are commonly treated in isolation; 
however, it is increasingly clear that multiple crises co-occur and are 
fundamentally linked through systemic interactions, underlying drivers, and 
interdependent outcomes. This virtual session will bring together scholars, 
activists, and policy practitioners to debate the conceptual, methodological, 
practical, and ethical challenges generated by these interactions.

We invite contributions that focus on one of the following three challenges of 
compound urban crises:

1.     Unsettlement. The interaction of slow-moving crises and sudden shocks 
(resulting from pandemics, climate change, economic crises, etc.), result in 
systemic dysfunction and unsettlement of everyday life that persists over 
extended periods. How can decision makers and other actors deal with systemic 
drivers of shocks and enduring crises?



2.     Unevenness. Urban crises affect groups differently and uneven impacts 
are often linked with historical patterns of inequality and justice, such as 
those arising from the legacies of a postcolonial world order. How to deal with 
justice implications and develop intersectional approaches to address the 
uneven experiences, impacts, and responses of compound crises?



3.     Unbounding. Through the interaction of multiple forms of crises, 
traditional problem framings, response programs, and responsibilities may 
become inappropriate and ineffective. Cross-cutting crises challenge the 
fundamental structures of urban governance? How can authority and agency be 
reimagined to enable inclusive and democratic decision-making?

Speakers are invited to contribute a short intervention that speaks to one of 
these three urban governance challenges. The first half of the session will be 
organised thematically around these three challenges, with each speaker 
delivering a short presentation (approximately 6 minutes) followed by 
reflections by a discussant from academia and policy/practice. The second part 
of the session will allow for open interdisciplinary discussion across the 
thematic areas, synthesising identified challenges, strategies, and 
opportunities. This interactive component will be structured according to a 
‘virtual long-table discussion’ format, an approach developed especially to 
enable multiple participants to engage in dialogue around complex themes and 
topics.

Please submit a title and short abstract (100 words) by July 5 to Linda Westman 
([email protected]) or Rachel Macrorie ([email protected]) or Marielle 
Papin ([email protected]).

Confirmed speakers will be invited to submit a short intervention (1,000 words) 
by July 30.

The innovative session is hosted through the 2021 Earth System Governance 
Conference in Bratislava 
(https://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/2021bratislava/) on September 7-9, 2021. 
Date and time of the session TBC.



Preliminary list of discussants

Unsettlement

Julie Greenwalt: A climate change and urban specialist, formerly of the Cities 
Alliance<https://www.citiesalliance.org/>, who leads Go Green for 
Climate<https://www.gogreenforclimate.com/about>, an independent global 
consultancy focused on issues of climate change, sustainable cities and the 
natural environment.

Dr. Enora 
Robin<http://urbaninstitute.group.shef.ac.uk/who-we-are/dr-enora-robin/>: 
Leverhulme ECR Fellow, Urban Institute, University of Sheffield (UK), currently 
working on the project ‘Off-grid cities: the financial mediations of life off 
the grid in African cities’.

Unevenness

Ibinado Johnson: Journalist and activist at Chicoco Radio<https://chicoco.fm/>, 
a radio station built by young people from Port Harcourt’s (Nigeria) waterfront 
settlements.

Prof. Gina Ziervogel<http://www.egs.uct.ac.za/egs/staff/academic/ziervogel>: 
Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental & Geographical Science, 
Research Chair, African Climate and Development 
Initiative<http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/>, University of Cape Town (South Africa), 
lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth 
Assessment Report: Chapter Six (Cities), WG 2 (Adaptation).

Unbounding

Representative from: C40<https://www.c40.org/> Cities – a network of the 
world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change / Slum Dwellers 
International 
(SDI)<https://skoll.org/organization/slum-dwellers-international/> – TBC.

Prof. Jeroen van der Heijden<https://jeroenvanderheijden.net/>: Professor of 
Public Governance at the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), 
inaugural Chair in Regulatory Practice and co-editor of ‘Urban Climate 
Politics: Agency and Empowerment’ (2019).

***

Best,

Marielle


Marielle Papin, Ph. D.
Postdoctoral fellow
Department of Geography - McGill University


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