ACCESS Seminar – Urban Maintenance as Compromise: Coming to Terms with the Multispecies City

In the context of climate change and extinction, the movement of diverse species into cities has become a globally important issue. Drawing on ethnographic research, the paper which will be talked about in this webinar, examines the growing presence of urban seabird colonies in Northern Europe and outlines what is at stake for urban politics. In underlining the complex motivations that shape infrastructural maintenance and repair, the paper reflects on the implications for urban futures, endeavours to ‘live in the world as well as possible’, and the problems with taking such works as a sign of shifting ethical terrains.

Held by University of Wollongong, this webinar will feature Asst Prof Helen Wilson – an Associate Professor in Human Geography at Durham University, and be held on 6 October 2021 at 05.00 PM AEST. Her research explores the politics of lived difference, and she has published widely on the geographies of encounter, multiculture, urban life and living, and contested forms of coexistence.