We are delighted to announce our PLENARY SPEAKERS:

	sociologist Iván Szelényi (formerly at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary; University of Kent, UK; Flinders University, Australia; University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA; City University of New York, USA; University of California, Los Angeles, USA; Yale University, USA; currently at NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE)
	anthropologist Martha Lampland (formerly at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA; currently at the University of California, San Diego, USA)

The aim of this year's IJURR ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION is to generate cross-generational & cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Subaltern Solidarity in Academia: How Area-based Urban Studies can Build its Strength by Working across Boundaries, Disciplines and Generations? 

Despite the calls to expand the production of theory beyond the Global North, regions that are small, non-Anglophone and relatively resource-poor remain underrepresented in urban theory-making. Yet instead of focusing on structural challenges of area-based urban research, in this session time we’ll use the example of Central and Eastern Europe and strategize how to leverage the features of a small, area-based research community to build strength. Following Fred Moten’s and Stefano Harney’s idea of ‘undercommons,’ we’ll discuss, for example, how the small size of our community and the relatively low degree of professionalisation of Eastern European academia can foster transdisciplinary research, as well as combining critical perspectives with the engagement in urban practice.

The participants include:

• anthropologist Martha Lampland (University of California, San Diego, USA);
• sociologist Joanna Kusiak (University of Cambridge, UK);
• geographer & urban historian Erika Nagy (Institute for Regional Studies, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary);
• economist, political scientist & development studies scholar Abel Polese (Dublin City University, Ireland).