The City in Transition Transformation Processes in Southeastern Europe since the 1980s

(Press release of the IdGL)

Conference
6th to 8th of October 2022
Museumsgesellschaft Tübingen, Silchersaal

The conference addresses diverse transformation processes in Southeastern Europe, using cities as examples. It will attempt to combine historical research as well as social science analyses in order to relate macro processes such as political developments, crises and conflicts to people's perceptions, memories and ideas.

Cities are suitable for a concentrated examination of transformation because, on the one hand, they are administrative, economic, and cultural centers and thus, spaces of diverse social developments. They are crystallization spots of different and intertwining practices and discourses. On the other hand, the development of cities in the 20th century is understood as part of an overall social change. Cities are involved in regional, European and global relations with other cities. They are sites of both enactment and initiation of economic, cultural, and political change.

The conference papers will discuss how a historyof the transformation of economy, culture, and politics can be written, using the example of some Southeastern European cities. Looking at these three broad areas in the small context of cities promises to make visible the mechanisms of transformation ‘from below’. Therefore, contributions and suggested topics on industrial cities with their companies as possible agents of change as well as on capital cities, university, and other cities in their role as knowledge centers and municipal or state decision-making centers were included. The focus will be on agents of change at the macro and micro levels.

Event on the website of the IdGL

Program as PDF