The world is no longer as it once was; it is neither given nor guaranteed. In an era of radical uncertainty, triggered by the colossal overlap of ongoing crises, our cities face a challenge akin to the art of the pharmakon: to become either poison or remedy.
Faced with the abyss of a diminished future, mistrust, frustration and fear threaten to privatise urban life. Lacking alternative frameworks for thinking about our territories, we rarely discuss the future, and thus we often live in a state of waiting, sometimes even without hope. In this unsettled world, shaped by the accumulation of crises occurring simultaneously, cities are increasingly imagined as hostile environments, condemned by the climate emergency and ruled by a logic of self-preservation.
However, contemporary crises and catastrophes also provide an opportunity to rethink, at their roots, the problems that run through our territories, particularly our cities. Beyond viewing them as adverse spaces depleted of energy and hope, we believe that the urban can be imagined in different terms: as an open, hopeful, vital and possible world.
At the same time, the uncertainties of our era invite us, as researchers, to experiment with the formats of academic encounter. Motivated by collaboration and collective, interdisciplinary—and even undisciplined—discussion, a group of geographers decided to create an in/formal space for meeting and study, where we might debate, outside conventional channels, some of the issues we consider most relevant: from the conflicts that shape our own city to the research undertaken by colleagues we may not yet know, even when it is conducted close to us. Urban approaches constitute our main thematic entry point.
We nevertheless value openness and heterogeneity. Accordingly, we believe that a wide range of ongoing contemporary research projects can find their place within this seminar. We also envisage this space of inquiry as a workshop for the collective care of our research: a device for listening to and discussing our work in an in/formal setting, close and supportive, and not subordinated to the imperatives of evaluation, competition or performance.
It is within this context that the Urban Futures Seminar was created: a collective initiative for inquiry promoted by geographers at the University of Santiago de Compostela, affiliated with the ANTE Research Group (Territorial Analysis).
On the one hand, the seminar seeks to foster a space for intellectual and scientific exchange between researchers in Geography and colleagues from other areas and disciplines. On the other, it aims to host and encourage open, urban-focused dialogues with other actors from civil society.