Call for papers, with travel bursaries
The Data Politics of Housing and Planning
2nd – 3rd September, 2024
Maynooth University, Ireland
We are seeking participants for a two-day workshop that will explore the data politics of housing and planning. The workshop is organised as part of the ERC funded project, ‘Data Stories: Telling Stories about and with Planning and Property Data’ (https://datastories.maynoothuniversity.ie/). We are offering:
- 4 travel bursaries for speakers of either up to €800 with 3 night’s accommodation (for beyond-Europe travel) or up to €250 with 2 night’s accommodation (for within-Europe travel)*. The bursary is open to doctoral students, early career researchers and senior academics.
- 3 travel bursaries for doctoral students to attend the workshop of up to €250, plus 2 night’s accommodation.*
Speakers will be expected to contribute a full chapter to an edited book of the workshop proceedings.
Workshop focus
Planning and property data are the key evidence base for how cities are understood, planned and developed, informing public perception, guiding investments, and shaping policy. Administrative records, official statistics, commissioned surveys, spatial data, and industry information have long been used to facilitate these endeavours. More recently, there has been a proliferation of digital, data-driven systems and platforms for managing the planning system, construction and market activity, and property assets and tenants. Much of these planning and property data are proprietary and closed, used to drive competitive advantage, though data produced by city administrations are increasingly made openly available, enabling citizens to produce their own civic media and companies to create commercial apps and data products. In some cases, citizens create their own counter-data and enact forms of data activism to challenge housing and planning policies and market operations.
Despite the centrality and value of planning and property data for highly consequential decisions, little critical attention has been paid to them and their lifecycles, circulation, politics, power and use in policy and stakeholder decision-making. If attention is paid, it is usually concerned with the availability, coverage and veracity of datasets in a technical sense, rather than exposing the inherent politics and praxes in their generation and use. This workshop will address this lacuna by making data the central focus of analysis, exploring the data assemblages, data politics and data power of housing and planning. It is expected that papers will examine the nature of housing and planning data, the data governance and data politics of data-driven systems and evidence-informed policy and decision-making, issues of data justice and data sovereignty, and the enactment of data activism.
The workshop will have five sessions, with 30 minutes allocated for each paper (to include Q&A), plus panel discussion. It is anticipated that the sessions will cover the following topics, each focusing on their specific data politics.
- Land registries, planning, construction activity and supply
- Financialisation, housing, prop tech, residential/commercial real estate
- Renting, evictions, vacancy
- Homelessness and housing inequalities
- Data activism, counter-data, and housing and planning
The workshop will be held immediately after the International Geographic Congress, which is taking place in Dublin, Ireland, 24th-30th August, https://igc2024dublin.org/
Application process
To apply to present a paper and receive a travel bursary please submit a short cover letter explaining why you would like to attend, a title and a short abstract (100-150 words) to Rob.Kitchin@mu.ie (using the subject line ‘CFP data politics of housing and planning’) by February 2nd 2024.
To apply for a doctoral student travel bursary to attend the workshop please submit a cover letter explaining why you would like to attend to Rob.Kitchin@mu.ie (using the subject line ‘Bursary data politics of housing and planning’) by February 2nd 2024.
A decision on selection will be made by the end of February.
For any queries please email Rob.Kitchin@mu.ie
* Payments will be made on a receipts basis for the amount paid for travel up to the value of the bursaries and travel plans will have to be confirmed with workshop organisers in advance. Any costs beyond the bursary will need to be met by the attendee.
