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Nov 28, 2024: Presentation by Ria-Maria Adams at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

The conference Zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement & Stadterneuerung will take place at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany, on November 28 – 29, 2024.

Katrin Großmann (Forschungskollektiv Peripherie und Zentrum, FH Erfurt) and InfraNorth researcher Ria-Maria Adams will be presenting at the conference Zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement & Stadterneuerung (in English: Civic Engagement & Urban Regeneration) organized by the Institute for European Urban Studies (IfEU) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany (November 28 – 29, 2024).

On Thursday, November 28, at 11:00 CET, they will be part of a panel providing a theoretical overview. Their presentation, titled Peripherisierung und Zivilgesellschaft: zwischen Selbstresponsibilisierung, Austerität und Ermächtigung (in English: “Peripheralisation and civil society: between self-responsibilization, austerity, and empowerment”) is related to a joint chapter they are working on for the book series Jahrbuch Stadterneuerung. Also on this topic, they have previously published together with others in journals such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Cities.

Civil society actors in peripheralized regions face a complex dilemma: while voluntary work is often seen as a key strength and a resource for development, these actors operate under challenging conditions shaped by socio-spatial inequalities, such as emigration, aging populations, and dependence on external funding. In this conference, Großmann and Adams will present the results of their joint research on peripheral(-ized) communities in Germany, Finland, and Norway, which revealed that civil society initiatives and their actors defy stereotypes, balancing empowerment and autonomy with constraints like (self-)responsibilization and scarce resources. Their German-Finnish comparison emphasizes the decisive role of state support: austerity is not a normal and inevitable fate of peripheral places, because with the appropriate political will the state can redistribute resources from the center to the periphery.

The full conference program is available via this link (only in German).

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