IUSD Lecture: Who cares for the African peripheries?
November 18 | 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Dear all,
we are delighted to welcome Alexandros Haridis to our upcoming Constructive Conversations event on Thursday, 19 November 2026, 4:00 p.m.
The Cluster’s expert guest lecture series ensures a close interaction with the larger research community by hosting renowned national and international scientists.
topic
Who cares for the African peripheries?
A discussion about space, infrastructure and knowledge production
through a situated gender lens
speaker
Dr. Priscila Izar,
University of São Paulo
date
Wednesday, 18 November 2026 | 5:00 p.m..
location
University of Stuttgart, K I, Room 8.06, 8th Floor,
Keplerstr. 11, 70174 Stuttgart
& online
abstract
This presentation advocates for an intersectional gender lens to understand urban peripheries, peripheral urbanization, and women’s role in construction across African and Southern cities. Drawing on research in Dar es Salaam and women led federation groups engaged in autoconstruction, it highlights women’s contributions to securing land and housing rights, negotiating with the state, and developing affordable housing and eco-friendly sanitation. It also explores the value of learning from women’s experiences rather than simply prioritizing them in urban research.
Finally, it argues that a feminist logic of care, or peripheral feminism, can generate transformative social technologies, hybrid governance, and decolonial knowledge.
This lecture is part of the AdvanceAEC partner seminar series. Please register or log-in to your account to access the event credentials.
bio
Priscila Izar is a research fellow at the Laboratory for Public Space and Right to the City (LabCidade), University of São Paulo (FAU USP) and a visiting fellow at the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES), University of the Witwatersrand, where she was previously a postdoctoral fellow (2023-26) and Urban Studies Foundation International Scholar (2021-2022). Her current research work investigates a gender lens in analyses of housing and peripheral urbanization in African and Brazilian cities. She is a convener of the research network “Feminist Urban Struggles”, which seeks to expand debate about gender, intersectionality and territory through situated debate and partnerships between feminist researchers and community based organizations (find out more here). Priscila has a professional degree in Architecture and Urban Planning and holds a PhD in Planning, Governance and Globalization from Virginia Tech. She was a post‐doctoral fellow at the Institute of Human Settlements Studies (IHSS) at Ardhi University (2019-21), where she co-coordinated the Dar es Salaam CityLab.
