We are living in an era of global crisis. Cities around the world are impacted by financial, climate, health and political disruption. Top-down responses such as curfews are often flawed, repressive or lacking sensitivity. This can particularly affect communities in cities with high levels of inequality and exclusion.
The research team includes experts from urban studies, communication studies, political science, and geography, with extensive experience using participatory and audiovisual methods in Latin American and African cities. Together they aim to:
- Explore how urban crises are represented by people in four South African and Colombian cities, and by media and other organisations outside these cities. .
- Understand the relationship between how crises are represented, and how effective crisis response is, according to local people.
- Compare representations of and responses to crises across fourdiverse cities in South Africa and Colombia: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cali and Buenaventura.
Find out more about the project
As part of the workshop they created a film showcasing some of the incredible stories created by participants in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Cali, and Buenaventura. You can watch it here: .
The workshop involved collaboration from the Politics and Urban Governance Research Group (PUG) at the University of the Western Cape, and colleagues from the Universidad Javeriana Cali and Cormepaz in Buenaventura, Colombia, as well as participation from our Cape Town project partners Project 90 by 2030 and Equal Education.