Research Sub-themes

Four sub-themes have been identified (Click on the links below for sub-theme descriptions and a list of principal researchers for each theme):
Cities Re-visioned: Violence, Dignity and Interventions 

Questions pertaining to space, justice and belonging will animate all the themes, while the following questions have been raised: What are the distinctive characteristics of government capitals? How are sovereignty, the state, governance, justice and nationhood represented in capital cities? How are state projects imagined, built and transformed in government capitals? How is space translated into place in cities? How do people live, work and play in capital cities? How are diplomatic communities formed and reproduced, within our own capital city and across capital cities? How are capital cities represented in arts and popular culture? What are the implicit moral visions of society and selves implied in various practices within the city as social laboratory? Which metaphors do planners, academics, activists and civil workers deploy in their discourse about their city? How is the city envisioned by city planners? How does the vision of such planners coexist with those who live in the city? What does a comparison between the visions of city planners across continents and countries tell us about the capital city of Pretoria/ Tshwane? What is the relationship between social power complexes and political power complexes? How have geographies of power, of inclusion and exclusion, shaped the city? How can an understanding of the spatial economies of our city contribute to democratic forms of planning and governance?


Click here to download the Research Sub-themes in PDF format.







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