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The Informal Nocturnal City (INF_NIGHT): Towards a new generation of research and policy agenda about urban informality and nightlife in the 21st century South Europe

Project description

Marginalised people's nocturnal movement - impact on urban cities

Transnational undocumented migrants are among the most vulnerable urban poor in Southern European cities. They struggle with informality and the application of national migration laws, surveillance and securitisation measures and local policies based on 'zero tolerance' models. In this context, the EU-funded INF NIGHT project will study how and why the night has become a space-time escape for many. As informal street vendors, sex workers and petty dealers, they spend their nights avoiding police in order to work, play, move or rest. But public panic is used to justify spatial displacement of undesirable actors. Focussing on Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, the project will assess how these nightly practices affect urban change.

Objective

Urban poor and marginalised communities have suffered the impact of austerity policies, structural re-adjustment and increased precariousness since the 2008 financial crash; a problematic situation aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic (ILO, 2020). Irregular, low-income employment have become daily survival strategies for many ordinary people. In this sense, transnational un-regulated migrants, and more generally racialised bodies, are the most vulnerable actors suffering in Southern European cities from informality and the application of national migration laws, surveillance and securitisation measures and local policies based on 'zero tolerance' models. Interestingly, the night has become to many of them a space-time to escape or transgress surveillance: taking advantage of under-regulated local spaces, many (racialised) precarious actors - such as street informal vendors, sex workers and petty dealers - spend their nights avoiding police patrols in order to work, play, move or rest. However, the demonisation of this (Informal) Nocturnal City through moral panics reproduced in media and public discourse is used to justify spatial displacement of undesirable (precarious) actors from central areas in post-industrial Southern European cities and their exclusion from policy-making.

The proposed training programme will enhance debates in both the academic and urban policy and planning literatures concerning the informal night, through a transnational, policy-oriented study undertaken in Lisbon, Madrid and Rome. Through a novel combination of conceptual frameworks based on three fundamental pillars (informality, nocturnal life and urban security), and articulating these three with debates on urban governance, I aim to address the ways in which informal practices conducted during night are imagined, negotiated and (re)produced and how these fundamentally affect urban change in post-industrial Southern European cities.

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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

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Coordinator

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 224 933,76
Address
FIRTH COURT WESTERN BANK
S10 2TN SHEFFIELD
United Kingdom

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Region
Yorkshire and the Humber South Yorkshire Sheffield
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 224 933,76

Participants (1)

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