Applications are now open for the 2019 intake of the MPhil in Southern Urbanism offered at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town.
It is well known that the world is transitioning to an irrevocable urban future whose epicentre has moved into the cities of Asia and Africa, which together will account for 86% of all growth in the world’s urban population over the next four decades.
This unprecedented increase will pose new environmental, economic and social challenges, the full implications of which cry out to be understood as city-making and remaking are entangled in these profound multi-dimensional shifts.
These shifts also highlight a profound epistemic crisis that forces us to question taken-for-granted assumptions about the Urban Studies canon. It demands critical engagement with the dominant Global North theories, bold methodological experimentation, plural perspectives brought into conversation through co-production and critical engagement from a Global South perspective urgently resisting the easy generalisations.
The MPhil in Southern Urbanism is a learning platform for students interested in taking up this challenge. Through a combination of guided learning in seminars, experimentation in city spaces and independent thesis research the programme provides a unique opportunity to ground yourself in the realities, theories and practises of cities of the Global South.
