Urban Justice from the grassroots: lessons from Leeds

 

Urban Justice from the grassroots: lessons from Leeds will feature campaigners and community groups from Leeds working on the ground to achieve urban justice.

The event will focus on initiatives from the grassroots, run by and for citizens in Leeds to tackle the major problems that the city faces such as housing, food security or the well-being of refugees.

Despite Leeds being a growing city and a centre for financial services it has high rates of inequality between different types of groups of residents and neighbourhoods. Local authorities in the UK are increasingly struggling to deliver local services due to cuts imposed by the ongoing austerity programme. Leeds has rich history of innovative, diverse and compassionate grassroots initiatives and the aim of this session is to celebrate and showcase some of them and discuss how best work together to achieve a more just city.

This event is part of a larger conference hosted by the University of Leeds titled Rethinking Global Urban Justice between 11-13 September, which will bring more 600 academics from around the world to discuss issues of urban inequalities and justice. This is the annual gathering of the RC21 committee.

Programme

This session will feature campaigners from the following organisations (subject to changes):

• Real Junk Food Project, started in Leeds but has now become a global network. They divert surplus edible food destined for waste and make it accessible for human consumption through 'pay as you feel cafes'.
• Leeds Tidal, works to support, coordinate and grow global activism in Leeds. It acts as a hub for networking, training and resources for campaigns on a diversity of in Leeds.
• Chapeltown co-housing project (TBC), is an initiative to build 33 households by and for residents of the Chapeltown neighbourhood of Leeds.
• Two other groups/campaigns to be confirmed on housing and refugees/migrants

The session will start with a brief introduction from the chair of the session explaining the aim and format and then followed by c.10 mins presentation from each of the organisations, in a roundtable format with questions discussion from the audience after.

This event is sponsored by the Leeds Social Sciences Institute.

Chaired by Dr Sara Gonzalez, School of Geography and Prof Paul Routledge, School of Geography, University of Leeds.

Registration

This session is free and open to the public. There will be a mix of RC21 conference participants and members of the Leeds public. If you are not already registered to participate in the RC21 conference please register here.