The talk examines the impacts of Chinese-led engagement in the construction sector in Kenya on city development, exploring which contested visions for the future of the city may emerge. It proposes that we venture beyond the level of the nation-state when asking questions of citizenship, governance, and sovereignty.
Registration is required for this event. Lunch will be provided.
Elisa Tamburo is a social anthropologist and UKRI-Marie Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard and the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford. She is also a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Her research project Negotiating the City focuses on urban planning and dwelling amidst China-built urban infrastructure in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work appeared in the JRAI, Focaal, and the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, and she is currently revising her first book manuscript, Exiled in the City, with Cornell University Press.
Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism and former Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). She also is the director of the Mexican Cities Initiative at the GSD, and faculty chair of the committee on Mexico at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.
As our planet becomes increasingly urban, this series seeks to expand our understanding of cities and urbanization across sites and scales. The Urban Conversations aim in particular to link humanistic approaches with spatial investigations. We host public talks, and provide a venue for researchers to share works-in-progress with an interdisciplinary community, in a conversational format. Urban Conversations is chaired by Bruno Carvalho and Daniel Agbiboa, and is co-sponsored with the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard.
LOCATION:Plimpton Room (Barker Center 133) STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20250311T160000Z DTEND:20250311T160000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR