Writing in public

Marketplaces are one of the oldest forms of urban public space. Historically, and in many contemporary cities, they define a center point, where residents as well as visitors have the opportunity to meet. Given their important role in creating encounters between strangers, with many diverse traits and backgrounds, investigating marketplaces provides a window into the functioning of diversity in a city.

My talk will discuss how UM students are involved in, and learning from, research work on social and linguistic encounters in the Maastricht market.

Professor Lauren Wagner of Wageningen University in Holland will give a talk on "Property of Tangier: Dynamics of Housing in an Expanding City"

This project explores the region of Tangier as a case study for a current global phenomenon: ‘ghost urbanization’, or the proliferation of housing development for absentee owners, potentially becoming wholly unoccupied. As a city with a complex history of property regulation, incorporating many international interests in a pivotal geopolitical location, Tangier provides both a unique and archetypical case for thinking about how property owners from elsewhere manage the care for their property, and by extension contribute to the life of the city and neighborhood – or, conversely, how the city and neighborhood residents adjust when that care is absent.