Transformation of Place or Landscapes initiative brings together three interrelated areas of inquiry—Contested Cities, Migrations, and Critical World Ecologies—to examine the shifting landscapes of justice, inequality, and resilience in the 21st century.
By 2050, most of the world’s population will live in cities, which have become arenas of social and political struggle over housing, health, sustainability, and human rights. At the same time, unprecedented levels of human mobility—across and within borders—reshape communities, economies, and cultural life, revealing new forms of displacement, belonging, and contestation. These dynamics unfold against the backdrop of rapid ecological transformation, where climate change, extractive capitalism, and histories of colonialism and racism intersect to produce uneven vulnerabilities and new demands for global accountability.
This interdisciplinary initiative convenes scholars, students, activists, artists, and policymakers to investigate how urban transformations, patterns of migration, and ecological crises are deeply interconnected. It emphasizes both the global processes that shape these challenges—financialization, securitization, and privatization—and the lived experiences of communities that confront and resist them. Together, we seek to generate new frameworks for understanding and responding to the pressing political, ethical, and ecological questions of our time.