The exponential growth of tourism in Lisbon, Portugal, has turned the city into an attractive des... more The exponential growth of tourism in Lisbon, Portugal, has turned the city into an attractive destination also for other more or less mobile populations. Digital nomads, "expatriates", international students and a strong intra-European mobility are noticeable in Lisbon's urban landscape, especially in spaces that mix consumption and work practices, such as coffee shops, coworking and coliving spaces. Organized as various notes, this article focuses on these new urban infrastructures that allow the anchoring (albeit temporary) of mobile practices and lifestyles in Lisbon. In particular, it discusses how coffee shops facilitate the maintenance of these lifestyles, and how they are embedded in broader processes of transnational gentrification. The article results from a collective research project funded by the European Union and includes qualitative fieldwork with these spaces, their owners, and users.
This chapter provides an integrated understanding of the implications of the use of ICTs by migra... more This chapter provides an integrated understanding of the implications of the use of ICTs by migrant individuals as they explore the Mediterranean city. ICTs have proved crucial for the maintenance of long-distance familial arrangements, for the mobilisation of migrants’ social networks, and for managing remittances, but also for shaping migration decisions and the choice of destinations. Taking a different approach, we look at the ways migrants become aware of the city’s urban resources with the help of ICTs. To this end, we relied on a pilot study comprising in-depth encounters with middling migrants established in Lisbon between 2014 and 2019. Participants were also part of a four-week-long online focus group organised on WhatsApp where they shared ICT resources in “real time”, engaged in discussion among themselves, and responded to questions asked by the researchers. This chapter provides evidence that digital and urban resources are intertwined: that online navigation can actually shape the offline experience of using the city; and that the ways migrants portray the places they use – by posting, commenting, sharing, and leaving reviews online – add up to an ICT-supported imaginary of the city fed by residents, migrants, and other visitors alike.
Cities are complex and in constant flux. How can illustration address something as overwhelmingly... more Cities are complex and in constant flux. How can illustration address something as overwhelmingly cacophonous and vast as the urban environment? What role can illustration play when it seeks to intervene in the fabric of the city itself?
Humans are becoming city-dwellers in increasing numbers, with over half of us worldwide living in a city today. Cities offer many ecological, cultural, economic and social benefits. However, their shortcomings are also significant, such as pollution, cost of living, quality of life and imbalances of power. In our second issue of Colouring In we tackle the relationship between illustration and the city: from street art to urban mapping, representations of fictional cities to the visual dérive, we explore illustrative strategies to draw out urban histories, reveal city dwellers’ struggles for space and visibility, and present polyvocal narratives that uphold the vitality and richness of our urban environments.
The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors ... more The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors working on a particular topic on Mediterranean Migration, comprising of international and Mediterranean organizations, stakeholders, civil society organizations, policymakers and politicians at all levels of government.
Migration infrastructures have usually been identified with stable socio-material arrangements co... more Migration infrastructures have usually been identified with stable socio-material arrangements controlling migration (e.g. airports and detention camps), stressing highly stratified power geometries and hierarchies. Recent debates about arrival infrastructures, however, have highlighted the informal, ephemeral and improvisational character of ‘bottom-up’ infrastructures. Departing from a widened understanding of infrastructure, this paper looks at migrants’ businesses as urban infrastructures assembling various kinds of mobilities. In particular, we address small businesses established by Senegalese migrants in Brazil, and Brazilian-owned cafés in Portugal. We approach these businesses as urban infrastructures where different forms of mobilities overlap and interact, exposing various trajectories and scales of circulation. While the businesses in Brazil cater mainly for Senegalese and other migrants’ needs (money transfer, ICTs, and job offers), the Brazilian-owned coffee shops in Portugal function as sites of co-working and sociality of tourists, digital nomads, and other urban creatives. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in the cities of São Paulo and Caxias do Sul (Brazil) and in Lisbon (Portugal), this paper makes innovative connections between migration research, mobility studies and urban theory. We discuss the infrastructural production of transnational and local mobilities and how these businesses both result from and facilitate the existence of mobile lifestyles.
Besides a more general concern over transport infrastructure, its quality and availability, mobil... more Besides a more general concern over transport infrastructure, its quality and availability, mobility is also a precondition for city dwellers to access urban resources, facilities, employment, local services and leisure. Moreover, mobility allows urban inhabitants to uncover a city's potentialities and to fully participate in urban life. Migrants, nevertheless, face the issue of learning to do mobility in a new environment together with the urgency for settlement, finding work, making personal connections and attending to the mundane needs of everyday life that require one to move about. This article looks at migrants' urban mobilities in Lisbon, Portugal, from two perspectives. First, we look at migrants' urban knowledge and skills and at how they employ their abilities to use Lisbon's urban resources. Second, we address some of the ways place-specific urban resources of a religious nature sustain and are sustained by various (im)mobility practices. More specifically, we look to a suburban mosque run by Guinean migrants and to a Sikh Gurdwara. This mobile/place-based contrast points to the variegated (and often overlooked) forms of mobility (or lack of) that are put to practice by migrants and to how they shape the everyday of migration journeys and their capacities to enjoy city-living.
This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study o... more This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study of migrants’ integration to urban space. The analysis of urban mobilities draws attention to the practical know-how that underlies mobility practices. I argue that migrants’ urban apprenticeship – that is, the ways migrants learn (to use) city spaces – shape their access to urban resources and their participation in urban life. Based on fieldwork conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, I explore how migrants’ urban knowledges play out in their everyday practices and resonate with broader concerns over migrant integration.
This paper explores the idea of migrant spatial integration through an approach focused on urban ... more This paper explores the idea of migrant spatial integration through an approach focused on urban praxis. Joining other contributions concerned with the continuing significance of place and locality for the study of migrant settlement, this paper examines migrants’ urban apprenticeship and how it shapes their usage of city space. Departing from the idea that to ‘integrate’ urban space involves being able to navigate it and being aware of its resources, I introduce an exploratory tool, which brings together processes normally kept apart in social scientific research, namely urban experience and migrant integration. Drawing from ethnographic interviews carried with migrants in Lisbon, Portugal, I argue that looking at migrants as skilful agents in the practice of city life may capture how the mechanics of migrant emplacement work in the context of urban diversity.
Research project about migrant spatial integration conducted at IGOT (University of Lisbon, Portu... more Research project about migrant spatial integration conducted at IGOT (University of Lisbon, Portugal) as part of the INTEGRIM-Marie Curie programme
The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors ... more The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors working on a particular topic on Mediterranean Migration, comprising of international and Mediterranean organizations, stakeholders, civil society organizations, policymakers and politicians at all levels of government.
The exponential growth of tourism in Lisbon, Portugal, has turned the city into an attractive des... more The exponential growth of tourism in Lisbon, Portugal, has turned the city into an attractive destination also for other more or less mobile populations. Digital nomads, "expatriates", international students and a strong intra-European mobility are noticeable in Lisbon's urban landscape, especially in spaces that mix consumption and work practices, such as coffee shops, coworking and coliving spaces. Organized as various notes, this article focuses on these new urban infrastructures that allow the anchoring (albeit temporary) of mobile practices and lifestyles in Lisbon. In particular, it discusses how coffee shops facilitate the maintenance of these lifestyles, and how they are embedded in broader processes of transnational gentrification. The article results from a collective research project funded by the European Union and includes qualitative fieldwork with these spaces, their owners, and users.
This chapter provides an integrated understanding of the implications of the use of ICTs by migra... more This chapter provides an integrated understanding of the implications of the use of ICTs by migrant individuals as they explore the Mediterranean city. ICTs have proved crucial for the maintenance of long-distance familial arrangements, for the mobilisation of migrants’ social networks, and for managing remittances, but also for shaping migration decisions and the choice of destinations. Taking a different approach, we look at the ways migrants become aware of the city’s urban resources with the help of ICTs. To this end, we relied on a pilot study comprising in-depth encounters with middling migrants established in Lisbon between 2014 and 2019. Participants were also part of a four-week-long online focus group organised on WhatsApp where they shared ICT resources in “real time”, engaged in discussion among themselves, and responded to questions asked by the researchers. This chapter provides evidence that digital and urban resources are intertwined: that online navigation can actually shape the offline experience of using the city; and that the ways migrants portray the places they use – by posting, commenting, sharing, and leaving reviews online – add up to an ICT-supported imaginary of the city fed by residents, migrants, and other visitors alike.
Cities are complex and in constant flux. How can illustration address something as overwhelmingly... more Cities are complex and in constant flux. How can illustration address something as overwhelmingly cacophonous and vast as the urban environment? What role can illustration play when it seeks to intervene in the fabric of the city itself?
Humans are becoming city-dwellers in increasing numbers, with over half of us worldwide living in a city today. Cities offer many ecological, cultural, economic and social benefits. However, their shortcomings are also significant, such as pollution, cost of living, quality of life and imbalances of power. In our second issue of Colouring In we tackle the relationship between illustration and the city: from street art to urban mapping, representations of fictional cities to the visual dérive, we explore illustrative strategies to draw out urban histories, reveal city dwellers’ struggles for space and visibility, and present polyvocal narratives that uphold the vitality and richness of our urban environments.
The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors ... more The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors working on a particular topic on Mediterranean Migration, comprising of international and Mediterranean organizations, stakeholders, civil society organizations, policymakers and politicians at all levels of government.
Migration infrastructures have usually been identified with stable socio-material arrangements co... more Migration infrastructures have usually been identified with stable socio-material arrangements controlling migration (e.g. airports and detention camps), stressing highly stratified power geometries and hierarchies. Recent debates about arrival infrastructures, however, have highlighted the informal, ephemeral and improvisational character of ‘bottom-up’ infrastructures. Departing from a widened understanding of infrastructure, this paper looks at migrants’ businesses as urban infrastructures assembling various kinds of mobilities. In particular, we address small businesses established by Senegalese migrants in Brazil, and Brazilian-owned cafés in Portugal. We approach these businesses as urban infrastructures where different forms of mobilities overlap and interact, exposing various trajectories and scales of circulation. While the businesses in Brazil cater mainly for Senegalese and other migrants’ needs (money transfer, ICTs, and job offers), the Brazilian-owned coffee shops in Portugal function as sites of co-working and sociality of tourists, digital nomads, and other urban creatives. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in the cities of São Paulo and Caxias do Sul (Brazil) and in Lisbon (Portugal), this paper makes innovative connections between migration research, mobility studies and urban theory. We discuss the infrastructural production of transnational and local mobilities and how these businesses both result from and facilitate the existence of mobile lifestyles.
Besides a more general concern over transport infrastructure, its quality and availability, mobil... more Besides a more general concern over transport infrastructure, its quality and availability, mobility is also a precondition for city dwellers to access urban resources, facilities, employment, local services and leisure. Moreover, mobility allows urban inhabitants to uncover a city's potentialities and to fully participate in urban life. Migrants, nevertheless, face the issue of learning to do mobility in a new environment together with the urgency for settlement, finding work, making personal connections and attending to the mundane needs of everyday life that require one to move about. This article looks at migrants' urban mobilities in Lisbon, Portugal, from two perspectives. First, we look at migrants' urban knowledge and skills and at how they employ their abilities to use Lisbon's urban resources. Second, we address some of the ways place-specific urban resources of a religious nature sustain and are sustained by various (im)mobility practices. More specifically, we look to a suburban mosque run by Guinean migrants and to a Sikh Gurdwara. This mobile/place-based contrast points to the variegated (and often overlooked) forms of mobility (or lack of) that are put to practice by migrants and to how they shape the everyday of migration journeys and their capacities to enjoy city-living.
This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study o... more This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study of migrants’ integration to urban space. The analysis of urban mobilities draws attention to the practical know-how that underlies mobility practices. I argue that migrants’ urban apprenticeship – that is, the ways migrants learn (to use) city spaces – shape their access to urban resources and their participation in urban life. Based on fieldwork conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, I explore how migrants’ urban knowledges play out in their everyday practices and resonate with broader concerns over migrant integration.
This paper explores the idea of migrant spatial integration through an approach focused on urban ... more This paper explores the idea of migrant spatial integration through an approach focused on urban praxis. Joining other contributions concerned with the continuing significance of place and locality for the study of migrant settlement, this paper examines migrants’ urban apprenticeship and how it shapes their usage of city space. Departing from the idea that to ‘integrate’ urban space involves being able to navigate it and being aware of its resources, I introduce an exploratory tool, which brings together processes normally kept apart in social scientific research, namely urban experience and migrant integration. Drawing from ethnographic interviews carried with migrants in Lisbon, Portugal, I argue that looking at migrants as skilful agents in the practice of city life may capture how the mechanics of migrant emplacement work in the context of urban diversity.
Research project about migrant spatial integration conducted at IGOT (University of Lisbon, Portu... more Research project about migrant spatial integration conducted at IGOT (University of Lisbon, Portugal) as part of the INTEGRIM-Marie Curie programme
The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors ... more The EuroMedMig Policy Papers Series aims to promote knowledge exchange and dialogue among actors working on a particular topic on Mediterranean Migration, comprising of international and Mediterranean organizations, stakeholders, civil society organizations, policymakers and politicians at all levels of government.
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Papers by Franz Buhr
Humans are becoming city-dwellers in increasing numbers, with over half of us worldwide living in a city today. Cities offer many ecological, cultural, economic and social benefits. However, their shortcomings are also significant, such as pollution, cost of living, quality of life and imbalances of power. In our second issue of Colouring In we tackle the relationship between illustration and the city: from street art to urban mapping, representations of fictional cities to the visual dérive, we explore illustrative strategies to draw out urban histories, reveal city dwellers’ struggles for space and visibility, and present polyvocal narratives that uphold the vitality and richness of our urban environments.
Talks by Franz Buhr
Conference Presentations by Franz Buhr
Humans are becoming city-dwellers in increasing numbers, with over half of us worldwide living in a city today. Cities offer many ecological, cultural, economic and social benefits. However, their shortcomings are also significant, such as pollution, cost of living, quality of life and imbalances of power. In our second issue of Colouring In we tackle the relationship between illustration and the city: from street art to urban mapping, representations of fictional cities to the visual dérive, we explore illustrative strategies to draw out urban histories, reveal city dwellers’ struggles for space and visibility, and present polyvocal narratives that uphold the vitality and richness of our urban environments.