Financialization and urban studies: cross-sectional views Europe and Latin America (Workshop)

São Carlos (SP, Brazil), May 15 and 16, 2018

Universidade de São Paulo - Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (IAU-USP)

The production of urban space has changed profoundly in the last thirty years in the face of neoliberal agendas in terms of economic development and public policies and the growing importance of transnational circuits of finance. In this process, the real estate market gained relevance in the structural transformation of contemporary capitalism, recognized by authors from various fields of knowledge, such as financialization. The intensification of real estate production and the expansion of infrastructure investments in Latin American countries have indicated an increasing articulation between economic sectors, imposing new challenges to the analysis of the production of urban space, with an increasing association of public and private agents. In Brazil, the strong increase of the real estate market supported by the opening of capital of large developers and builders as well as by the housing policy that boosted this sector, have nourished an academic field recently. If the question of the financialization of urban production is well established in the European debate, the identification of convergences and dissonances between Latin American studies and between them and the international debate still needs to be discussed in-depth. After all, it is a capitalist restructuration and a reconfiguration of cities on a world level.

In this sense, the Workshop "Financialization and urban studies: cross-sectional views Europe and Latin America" seeks to cross European and Latin American perspectives on the structural changes in real estate and urban infrastructure since the 1970s. It searches, therefore, to present works that have been gaining evidence in the urban studies and to discuss their articulations with the tendencies that are present in the debate on the financialization, focusing on the following issues:

• the actors (financial and non-financial) that produce the cities;
• circuis of capital in real estate and urban infrastructure;
• the role of the State and public policies;
• socio-spatial configurations, contradictions and urban conflicts;
• the strategies of production and financial valuation in construction and real estate firms.

The scientific relevance of this event lies on the the possibility of re-creating urban research, considering the real estate and the infrastructure jointly and articulating Sociology, Geography, Economy, Architecture and Urbanism. From the methodological point of view, the Seminar seeks to go beyond the product’s interpretation, encompassing the analysis of the production of the entire space. Urban society is already entering the 21st century and it is necessary to clearly establish what are the ways to better understanding real estate and infrastructures production.

Preliminary program

WORKSHOP FINANCIALIZATION AND URBAN STUDIES: cross-sectional views Europe and Latin America

May 15, 2018

9h00-9h15 Welcome

9h15-10h00 10h00-11h30

Conference 1:
Ludovic Halbert (Université Paris-Est – France)
Round table 1: Circuits of capital, actors and conflicts in the reconfiguration of cities
Beatriz Rufino (Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil)
Mariana Fix (Universidade Estadual de Campinas – Brazil)
Jeroen Klink (Universidade Federal do ABC– Brazil)
Raquel Rolnik (Universidade de São Paulo - Brasil)
Debate 1:
Chairperson: Adauto Cardoso (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – Brasil)

11h30-12h30 12h30-14h00 Lunch

14h00-16h00 16h00-16h15 Coffee

Working Session 1
Chairperson: Marcos Barcellos (Universidade Federal do ABC– Brasil)

16h15-18h15

9h00-9h45 9h45-11h30

Working Session 2
Chairperson: Everaldo Melazzo (Universidade Estadual Paulista - Brasil)

Conference 2:
Fabrice Bardet (Université de Lyon – France)
Round table 2: State, real estate development and financial valuation Alexandre Coulondre (Universidade Paris Dauphine – França)
Ivana Socollof (Conicet – Argentina)
Daniel Sanfelici (Universidade Federal Fluminense – Brasil)
Luciana Royer (Universidade de São Paulo - Brasil)
Debate 2:
Chairperson: Paulo Cesar Xavier Pereira (Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil)

May 16, 2018

11h30-12h30 12h30-14h00 Lunch

14h00-16h00 16h00-16h15 Coffee

Working Session 3
Chairperson: José Baravelli (Universidade de São Paulo - Brasil)

16h15-17h00 17h00-18h00

Conference 3:
Manuel Aalbers (University of Leuven – Belgium )
General discussion: synthesis of the issues and research agendas
Chairperson: Cibele Rizek and Lucia Shimbo (Universidade de São Paulo - Brazil)

Important dates

• Submission of proposals for Working Groups: December 11, 2017 to February 4, 2018. (containing: title, author, institutional affiliation, email and abstracts in English up to 300 words)

• Notification of approved proposals: February 09, 2018

• Submission of full papers in Portuguese or English (max. 8000 words): until April 04,

  2018

• Realization of the event: May 15 and 16, 2018.

 Coordination Committee

Beatriz Rufino (FAU-USP)
Cibele Rizek (IAU-USP)
Lucia Shimbo (IAU-USP)
Paulo Cesar Xavier Pereira (FAU-USP)

Organizing Committee

Beatriz Rufino (FAU-USP)
Camila Rocha (Mestrado IAU-USP) Guilherme Zaratine (Mestrado – IAU-USP) Lucia Shimbo (IAU-USP)

Financial support

CNPq USP