Exploring the role of cities in overcoming community differences
Posted on 29 January 2010
Professor Ash Amin will argue that, although worthy, attempts to breakdown community barriers through various urban initiatives to bring people from different backgrounds together can only have a limited effect since most people interact only fleetingly or rarely with strangers.
We are delighted to be organising this lecture with our partners the University of York, and with such a high calibre speaker
Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
He will use the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Lecture to make the case for a far broader approach based around building on the shared experiences of people living in urban environments, enhanced through interventions in a city’s public infrastructure and its cultures of shared concerns and attachments.
However, Professor Amin will warn that little progress will be made unless “a new public aversion in the West towards the Muslim body” in public culture, which is evolving into a broader sentiment of suspicion about difference, can be overcome.
Professor Amin, a geographer at Durham University who also runs its Institute of Advanced Study, has been an advisor to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on race and ethnicity.
His lecture, on Wednesday 3 February, will be responded to by Professor Ziauddin Sardar, a scholar, journalist and prolific author on subjects including Islam and society, postmodernism and scientific policy.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation Lecture is an annual event organised by the Foundation in association with the University's School of Politics, Economics and Philosophy. It is the third in the series following contributions by Sir Tony Atkinson and Professor Phillippe van Parijs.
Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “We are delighted to be organising this lecture with our partners the University of York, and with such a high calibre speaker.
“This year’s topic is core to the work of the Foundation and I hope that as many people as possible will be able to attend.”
The lecture starts at 6pm in room A/TB/056-7 in the Seebohm Rowntree Building. Admission is by free ticket available by calling (01904) 432622 or email publiclectures@york.ac.uk.
Notes to editors:
- The Joseph Rowntree Foundation seeks to understand the root causes of social problems, to identify ways of overcoming them, and to show how social needs can be met in practice. More information is available at www.jrf.org.uk.
- More information about the School of Politics, Economics and Philosophy can be found at http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/pep/.
- The University hosts a series of public lectures covering a wide variety of subjects every year. A complete list is available at www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/.
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