Cities in the “Buffer Zone” Reading the Genesis of the World System from Its Void

INURA konferansları kapsamında düzenlenen "Cities in the 'Buffer Zone' Reading the Genesis of the World System from Its Void" başlıklı panel; 5 Haziran'da, SALT Galata'da gerçekleşecek.

The 32nd INURA conference’s public session asks whether the urban histories of the belt stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean / the Persian Gulf can be approached on their own terms, rather than as a mere transition zone in narratives written from the West. In modern world-historical imagination, this region has often been cast as an instrumental space through which the West defined its own opposites or projected “elsewheres.”

Against this external gaze, the first panel with Kacper, Gruia and Orhan will revisit the region’s historical urbanism as a field of ideas and positions, asking what conceptual framework might emerge from within. A re-reading of the region’s urban histories from within, beyond the usual narratives of colonial power and global accumulation. Rather than treating these cities as peripheral, bridging or transitional, it asks how they might illuminate a different geography of modernity—one shaped by empires, local states, and urban actors whose trajectories do not fit the dominant world-system story.

The second panel with Dimitra, Justyna and Ileana brings the discussion to the ground, with reports from cities across the region. INURA members who hosted past conferences will share current urban struggles, civic practices, and grassroots agendas, offering a living map of how cities are responding to change, conflict, and possibility.

In this way, the public session will create a space for mutual learning across cities, to better understand how they are being confronted, negotiated, and transformed.

As INURA has limited capacity for the Public Panel, registration is required to reserve your place.

Please fill out the form: https://forms.gle/bu5sZ7p24D2GrNci9