CALL FOR APPLICATIONS – URBAN ACTION SCHOOL (UAS)

Theme: URBAN COMMONS AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITYDates: 10th November – 30th November 2018

Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Osmania University Campus, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 21ST OCTOBER 2018

Concept: The crisis of sustainability of the current pattern of urbanization has become the focus of the development discourse today, in the background of the growing urban demographic in relation to the rural, especially in the countries of the developing world. We are seeing the destruction of agrarian economies,and also migration due to poverty, conflict, or disasters, whether natural or manmade due to climate change and profit oriented urban ‘planning’. Cities represent avicious disparity in incomes and life styles.

Joblessness, economic and social disparity and the problem of access to essential and basic necessities and services, affect people in almost every country in the world. The need for a framework to ensure justice and dignity for all, is a major concern. Although there have been many debates on possible alternative paradigms, solutions continue to elude us, not because of ideas are not around us, but because there has been too little conviction from policy makers and ordinary citizens to imagine and insist upon moving away from an elitist, profit driven mode of urban

development, totally under the control of the ‘free market’ which is (ironically) controlled by big business.

The Right to the City, a framework a concept introduced by Lefebvre and developed into a framework for resistance by David Harvey, around which urban social movements have converged has become a byword for social movements, first in Latin America, but later in different parts of the world, to forge a new understanding of common collective entitlement and the relationship of people to their city.

The idea of a ‘commons’ refers to the resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a sustainable, habitable earth. While originally commons referred mainly to collective ownership of land, the concept has broadened, especially in an urban setting, to include all manner of natural, cultural and social needs of people. It has emerged as a possible framework for ensuring that everyone has access to affordable, good quality essential and basic necessities and services, irrespective of whether they have jobs or not, and whether they have the capacity to pay for it or not, which is critical given the high cost of many essential social needs, eg. housing, education and health, energy even water for many in many parts of the world.

Social commons mean shared ownership and control, forging new relations between people and the public realm. Commons go beyond markets and states, both of which will have to adopt a different logicin order to ensure its access.

The commons approach can help to build a new narrative to strengthen and broaden people’s movements as well as for political and legal action against the exploitative use of our resources. Commons are about power. Claiming and controlling social commons means building power together with others. The labour movement in particular, has to play an important role, countering the fragmentation and precarisation of work, taking into account the role of women and creating alternatives based on their abilities and skills.

This edition of the annual 3- week course of the Urban Action School will focus on the Commons, the framework and how it can be embedded in the Right to the City.

The course will break down the various aspects of the Commons: Physical commons, Social Commons, Ecological commons, Digital commons, and also touch upon the context of urbanization, ecology and Right to the City.

Note: Applications are invited from India and outside.

Who can applyOpen to all: Social workers, political activists, people working with community organizations, social movements, trade unions, urban local bodies, media persons, government officials, research students, elected peoples’ representatives working and dealing with the ‘Urban issues’ are eligible to apply for this course. Experienced professionals are preferred for this course as it is essentially designed to skill mid-career professionals. A minimum of five years of experience will be preferred.

Course ContentEach year the course curriculum is redesigned to reflect latest ideas, issues, and concerns. The intention is to make the course a credible and significant contribution to understanding of cities, citizens, and people-oriented sustainable planning with an attempt to deal with and find solutions to growing urban poverty, migration, alienation, exclusion, violence, and lack of regulation and planning. The following are some of the themes that will form part of the course:

Resource PersonsResource persons will be drawn from academia, policy advocacy, and grass roots activism, and are leaders in their fields. Some of the resource persons of the course will be (in alphabetical order):

Bhubaneswari Raman: is Associate Professor and Director, Centre for the Study of Urban Transformation, in O P Jindal Global University. Her research interests are in the areas of : transformation of urban land, urban politics, economic geography governance, and urban poverty. Currently, she is researching about the transformation of land in small towns and large urbanizing villages in South India and the role of new technologies in spatial governance.

Leo Saldanha: is Coordinator of Environmental Support Group. He has gained wide-ranging experience in the areas of Environmental Law and Policy, Decentralisation, Urban Planning and a variety of Human Rights and Development related issues, working across many sectors for over a

decade. He is a keen campaigner on critical environmental and social justice issues and has guided several campaigns demanding evolution of progressive laws and effective action.

Prasad Shetty: is an urbanist based in Mumbai and working and works as an Associate Professor in School of Environment and Architecture. His work involves research and teaching on contemporary Indian urbanism including architectural practices, studies of post-industrial landscapes, housing, archiving post liberalization developments, entrepreneurial practices and urban property.

RanabirSamaddar :is the Director of the Calcutta Research Group, and belongs to the school of critical thinking. He has pioneered along with others peace studies programmes in South Asia. He has worked extensively on issues of justice and rights in the context of conflicts in South Asia. His particular researches have been on migration and refugee studies, the theory and practices of dialogue, nationalism and post-colonial statehood in South Asia, and new regimes of technological restructuring and labour control. 

Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay: is Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. He is an historical anthropologist by training and explores themes in informality, infrastructure technologies and governmentality studies in late-colonial and post-colonial India. He has taught courses on urban history, property, infrastructure studies and social policy.

Rajni Bakshi: is a Journalist and Author. She writes about social and political movements in contemporary India. She writes about social and political movements in contemporary India and currently works as the senior Gandhi Peace Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture.

Shrawan Acharya:is a Professor of the Center of Regional Development at JNU. His research interest involves the historical, social, economic, environmental, and political contexts of urban and regional planning. Besides teaching and research, he is actively engaged in capacity building initiatives for various government and nongovernmental organizations.

A detailed course plan along with other names of all the resource persons will be shared later.

How will it be usefulThe Urban Action School will bring together activists/ practitioners working on a range of issues relating to urban poverty, exclusion, livelihood, and urbanization from a wide range of disciplines. The UAS hopes to establish, over time, communities of practice and activist knowledge in various disciplines by creating a forum for cross-sectoral learning. The UAS also facilitate cross-pollination of ideas and experiences between different activists/ practitioners. It will provide an opportunity for a critical take-aways.

Methodology adoptedThe course will employ multiple methods of teaching over and above the regular classroom pedagogy. Methods such as field visits, group discussions, multimedia, theater, video conferencing etc. will be used. There will be simultaneous translation facility to bridge the language gap, depending on the number of people opting for it.

Host organizationsMain organizers: Citizens Rights Collective (CiRiC), i.e., ActionAid India’s Urban Poverty Knowledge Activist Hub, and South Institute for Public Policy and Action (SIPPA), in collaboration with Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), an autonomous institution based in the Osmania University campus, Hyderabad.

Selection processThe host organizations will constitute a group of panelists to go through the applications and choose 30 participants. Selection will be broadly based on representation from different regions and sectors of practice. Care will be taken to see that there is adequate diversity, based on caste, gender and minorities. The decision of the selection committee will be final.

Terms of the Residential Course Accommodation. The course and the accommodation will be arranged at IPE. This will be on twin sharing basis. Food. Simple food will be provided. Course-related Costs. Boarding and lodging as well as course materials will be taken care of by the host organizations, as also overhead costs

pertaining to the course related activities such as field visits, stationery, reading materials etc. Travel to IPE, Osmania University. Participants are expected to take care of their travel from their respective locations to and from the venue. A few travel scholarships are available for this course. If you wish to avail of it, please state your reasons clearly the reasons in the application form or let us know. However, we cannot guarantee this scholarship for all applicants.

PLEASE NOTE: The course is strictly residential. Participants are expected to stay at the venue even if they are from Hyderabad or nearby through the entire course and not leave halfway unless there are compelling reasons, subject to approval by the organizers. Applicants must remember that leaving midway without sufficiently valid reason is likely to affect the prospects of others from their organization who might apply for other courses at UAS in the future. These restrictions are designed to ensure equity and inclusiveness for all participants.

A “Certificate of Participation” will be awarded to all participants upon completion of the course Logistics Boarding and lodging as well as course materials will be taken care of by the host organizations. Overhead costs pertaining to the course related activities such as field visits, stationery, reading materials etc. will be borne by the hosts. This is made possible with a grant from the European commission.

All that the participants have to spend on is their travel from their respective locations to and from the venue. A few travel scholarships are available for this course. If you wish to avail of it, please state your reasons clearly the reasons in the application form or let us know. However, we cannot guarantee this scholarship for all applicants.

PLEASE NOTE: The course is strictly residential. Participants are expected to stay at the venue even if they are from Hyderabad or nearby. All participants are expected to stay through the entire course and not leave halfway unless there are compelling reasons like a sudden family emergency. Applicants must remember that leaving midway without sufficiently valid reason is likely to affect the prospects of others from their organization who might apply for other courses at UAS in the future. These restrictions are designed to ensure equity and inclusiveness.

How to applyFill the application form below and email it to the following email id: urbanactionschool@gmail.com such that it reaches us before 21stOctober 2018 (midnight IST). You can also print the application form and send it by post or courier to the address below.Mail and contact:Dr. Pritha Chatterjee, Course Coordinator, Urban Action SchoolR 7, Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi - 110016Ph: +91-11-40640506/ +91-11-40640536PLEASE APPLY EARLY!Closing date for applications is 21stOctober 2018 (midnight IST)

For organizers:K T Suresh-Urban Action School; Anjaneyulu Madduluri – ActionAid Hyderabad Office ;R K Mishra, Institute of Public Enterprise; Ramchandra Murthy-South Institute for Public Policy and Action.

APPLICATION FORM – URBAN COMMONS AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY URBAN ACTION SCHOOL 2018

Date ________ Number :_______________( for admin use)(You may send this by email or fill out and post to the address given at the bottom of the form. Only applications that reach us by 21stOctober 2018, midnight IST will be eligible for selection process)

First Name ………………………… Second Name ……………………………………….Date of birth: ………………………………………… Gender Male/Female/other……………………..Contact details:Phone…………………………………..Email:……………………………………Address…………………………………………………………………………………………..Country………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Organization/Institution/urban local body/elected body/company etc …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Website URL………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Office contact details: Phone ……………………………………………………Email …………………………………………………………………………….. (Please write ‘individual’ if not linked to any organization. And mentioning organization does not mean that you are representing the organization formally in the course )Language proficiency:Language (pl add languages below)

Fluent Speak but do not read

Read but do not speak

Do not understand

EnglishHindi

Education: Highest level achieved………………………………….

Other courses attended………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Work experience: Sector/profession…………………………………………………………Years of experience: ………………. years

Organizations/institutions/peoples’ movement/companies in which worked- pl mention dates and time period as well1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………..3. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Areas of interest: eglabour, poverty, economics, politics, alternatives, social work, political activism, research methodology, social media, etc ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(This is to help us to integrate your interests during the course if possible)What do you rate as your biggest success you achieved in the course of your work? If you do not feel that you have had success you may write that too and why you feel there has been no success (Please answer in one or two sentences, i.e. 40 words max)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Why do you wish to participate in this course? (50 words maximum) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Are you member of a social group which has special status? If so pl specify: …………………………..Do you suffer from any disability? (pl give details - this is to make you comfortable and improve your participation) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Contact for emergency:Name ………………………………………………………..Phone (with ISD/STD code) ……………………………………….Email…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Any other information you wish to share……………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

For questions and queries pls write to Dr. Pritha Chatterjee, Course Coordinator, Urban Action School Email: urbanactionschool@gmail.com.Phone: 011-40640506; 011-40640536