Call for Participation

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“Cities are mobile spaces and places of mobility” and “mobility has been built into the infrastructures of cities,” Sheller and Urry write (1). Conceived as “places not just of human surface transportation but also vast movements of energy through pipelines and cables, long-distance travel of freight by air and rail, and communication networks that reach into aerial and orbital space,” contemporary cities can be considered “nodes in transnational networks of critical infrastructures” (Sheller 101) that substantially constitute cities and enable our urban civilizations. The transnational constellation of urban mobilities and infrastructures has encouraged scholars to attend to ‘planetary urbanization,’ in which spaces that transcend the conventional division between city cores and suburbs “have become integral parts of the worldwide urban fabric” (Brenner and Schmid 162), on the one hand, and, on the other, to “various aspects of Southern urbanism” that cannot be adequately explained through models of urbanization derived from Northern experiences (Schindler 48). Earlier discussions of urban social infrastructures, especially in Southern urbanism, have shown how people, their relations, and their improvised practices themselves operate as infrastructure where formal provision is partial or precarious (see Simone). Recent interventions have extended this attention further, for instance, mapping the affective, elemental, and other-than-human infrastructures of cities (see Marvin, McFarlane, and Rutherford). Work on Cairo’s overpasses, urban air, and art has likewise drawn attention to the aerial and material textures of infrastructure—kites, billboards, and bridges (see Nassar). Urban mobilities and infrastructures have thus long been central concerns for mobilities studies, serving as key sites for speculating on just futures (see Jensen et al.; Wiig et al.).

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In coping with the worsening climate emergency, mobility scholars have attended to sustainable urban mobilities, or alternative mobilities, including walking, cycling, electric mobility, and rail transit; they are actively responding to public initiatives for just urban mobilities (see the launch of the EIT Urban Mobility in 2019). Yet this emphasis on advanced or sustainable urban mobilities should not obscure the persistence of blockages, breakdowns, and congestion that continue to shape much of urban mobile life, particularly—though not only—in historical and Global South contexts (see Gopakumar). In this vein, mobility scholars have also discussed mobility ethics by asking how to better reorganize urban mobilities and infrastructures (see, for example, Epting; Jensen; and the Transfers June 2025 special section on “Ethical Transitions?”). Urban inequalities, both conditioned by and reinforcing current mobilities and infrastructures policies (see McFarlane and Rutherford; Enright), have been addressed in relation to gender, race, and class, as well as to urban migrants, urban delivery workers, urban segregation (see Rink and Gamedze), public transport use, and even supply chains, sometimes materializing in the forms of ‘ghost cities’ (Shepard) and diverse types of smart cities and new cities. Equally, small, shrinking, peripheral, and marginal cities, as well as urban settlements in remote regions, equally demand attention. Furthermore, the radical advance of physical AI technologies has increasingly drawn scholars’ particular attention to the hybrid mobile urbanities of human and other-than-human beings, giving rise to new research fields such as anticipatory mobilities and infrastructures (see Phan and Pink; Pink et al.).

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Along these lines, the conference engages with the empirical, ethical, and affective dimensions of urban mobilities and infrastructures, experienced, practiced, and felt by people in their day-to-day lives, in which just futures should be envisioned, negotiated, and materialized. It also addresses myriad scenarios of urban futures, whether the utopian, mostly disseminated globally by leading mobility companies, or the dystopian, often represented in countless science fictional works (see, for example, ch. 13 in Urry’s Mobilities; ch. 2 in Urry’s What Is the Future?), both of which may encourage us to (re)consider the future in a more constructive manner, critically intervening in current, as well as planned or anticipated, urbanity. Beyond such speculative narratives, literary and artistic practices more broadly offer privileged sites for engaging urban (im)mobilities and imagining their just transformation, including through forms of ‘artivism’ that destabilise everyday urban interactions and practices (see García and Toivanen). At the same time, “how techno‐futures, or technology‐defined future imaginaries, are imagined in the context of major transformation” (Koch 2) is explored in relation to the mobility and infrastructure policies of, for instance, the so-called emerging ‘techno-developmental states’ (He). In this light, the conference seeks to intervene in reorganizing current planetary urbanism more justly, not only through revisiting past and present mobilities and infrastructures but also through questioning them and speculating on their alternatives.

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This conference invites proposals from different disciplines within and beyond mobilities and infrastructure

studies, including, but not limited to: literary and cultural studies, philosophy, history, art and design studies,

anthropology, geography, media and communication, architecture, urban planning, technology, tourism,

transportation, education, Black and Indigenous studies, gender and sexuality studies, and others. While

the conference welcomes the breadth of urban studies, it asks contributors to foreground mobilities and

infrastructures as the conference’s shared lenses. We particularly encourage contributions on cities and

urban regions less often in the limelight, alongside the more familiar metropolitan centres of East Asia,

Europe, and North America. We accept proposals for papers, sessions, and artworks on one or more of the

following topics/areas:

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• Aesthetics and experiences of urban mobilities and infrastructures

• Mobilities design and everyday mobile practices: walking, cycling, commuting, waiting

• Urban mobilities and infrastructures in literary, cultural, and art works

• Infrastructural extensions: elemental, affective, care-full, and other-than-human infrastructures of the city

• Philosophical thought on the urban, urbanity, and urbanism

• Ethics and morality of urban mobilities

• Mobilities research on urban living in the past: histories of urban (im)mobilities and infrastructures

• Inequalities and injustices in urban design, planning, and engineering

• Tourism, migration, and digital nomads in urban futures

• Blockages, breakdowns, congestion, and the rhythms of urban (im)mobility

• Mobilities and infrastructures from a Southern urbanism perspective

• Urban social infrastructures

• Small, shrinking, marginal, and remote cities and understudied urban geographies

• Hybrid urbanity, physical AI, and data justice

• Utopian and dystopian imaginations of urban futures

• Anticipatory mobilities and infrastructures

• Sustainable urban mobilities and infrastructures in response to the climate emergency

• Ghost cities, smart cities, and new cities under construction

• Transport activism

• Other related issues

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Beyond scholars, we welcome professionals, policymakers and practitioners in the mobility, infrastructure, and urbanity field, as well as artists and creative professionals, designers, engineers and educationalists in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

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The conference language is English.

The conference is organised in an on-site format.

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Key Dates

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31 May 2027          Deadline for the submission of abstracts and session proposals

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28 June 2027         Notification of acceptance for abstracts and sessions

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28 June 2027          Early Bird registration opens

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28 July 2027             Early Bird registration closes

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6 September 2027         Registration closes

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21 September 2027         Deadline for the submission of Artworks and Other Creative Formats​

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28-30 October 2027       Conference

 

Submission Formats

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Individual Papers: Individual submission of a paper consists of an abstract (300 words) and a brief biography (100 words), including contact information. Papers will be grouped thematically by the programme committee and may become part of a 7/7, debate, or panel session.

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Sessions: A full, pre-organised 7/7, debate, or panel session. A session submission should include a title, a summary of the session theme and the method chosen for facilitating discussion (300 words), as well as abstracts for each contribution/presentation (300 words). A short biography of each presenter is also required (100 words), with contact information.

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• 7/7 sessions: This means seven slides and seven minutes for each presentation (max 7 papers). The sessions will have plenty of time for discussion. This will be supported by having a chair who might also act as a discussant. Presenters shall focus on their main argument in order to avoid overly complex presentations.​

• Debate sessions: Debate sessions have a maximum of five presenters. Each gives a five-minute focused input to the topic, and this should be followed by a discussion involving the audience. Led by a chair.​

• Panel sessions: Panels consist of a chair, three to four paper presenters, and one discussant (optional). Panels should include time for audience discussion. Each presenter has 20 minutes (15 min + 5 min for questions); papers are grouped thematically.

 

Artworks, Posters, and Other Creative Formats: These formats offer opportunities to exhibit artwork and to discuss early, exploratory, or creative work at the conference. A submission consists of an abstract (300 words) and a brief biography (100 words), including contact information. The full artwork, poster, and other creative format are due by 21 September 2027.

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After Acceptance, all abstracts will be published on the conference website.

Submit your paper, session proposals, and /or poster to: 2027GMHC@gmail.com

For any questions, send an email to:  2027GMHC@gmail.com

 

Registration

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All participants must register and pay the registration fee via the conference website (details to follow), with only one submission per person.

 

Individual fee is for regular researchers.

Reduced fee is for PhD students, researchers from the Global South, and retired scholars.

 

Early Bird registration before 26 July 2027 

Individual fee: 220 Euros

Reduced fee:  160 Euros

 

Registration after 26 July to 6 September 2027

Individual fee: 280 Euros

Reduced fee: 220 Euros

 

The registration fee will cover the costs for the conference materials, coffee/tea breaks, two lunches (Friday and Saturday), and three dinners (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).

 

Please email the Organising Committee (2027GMHC@gmail.com) with the subject heading “2027GMHC Inquiry” if you have any questions or concerns.

 

 

Conference Committee

 

Convenors

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Kawamura Koichi (Director-General of the Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization), Philippe Peycam (Director of International Institute for Asian Studies), Inseop Shin (Konkuk University, Director of the Academy of Mobility Humanities

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Programme Committee

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Peter Adey (Monash University), Taehee Kim (Konkuk University), Jinhyoung Lee (Konkuk University), Benjamin Linder (International Institute for Asian Studies), Peter Merriman (Aberystwyth University), Lynne Pearce (Lancaster University), Paul Rabé (International Institute for Asian Studies), Zhe Ren (the Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization), Tania Rossetto (University of Padua)

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Organising Committee

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Jooyoung Kim (Konkuk University), Eunhye Choung (Konkuk University), Bomi Lim (Konkuk University), Miae Lee (Konkuk University), Johaeng Rho (Konkuk University), Gijae Seo (Konkuk University), Yeonhee Woo (Konkuk University), Myungsim Yang (Konkuk University), Hongsuk Yoon (Konkuk University)

 

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​​​Download Application Forms​​

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