I spent the afternoon at the University of Basel at an informal workshop on urban studies pedagogy. The idea of this workshop was to bring together a range of scholars working on the urban in order to exchange ideas about pedagogy. It was a lovely opportunity to meet interesting people and discuss approaches to teaching, which is something that I’d like to concentrate on now that I’ve actually submitted my dissertation.

It was organized by the Critical Urbanisms group at Uni Basel. It was my first time meeting most of these people but I hope not the last. It seemed all at once productive and exciting, but not formal, egoistic, or overbearing. It was delightful.

The discussion was framed roughly around the idea of sharing the teaching approaches centered in our various institutions around Switzerland. Unfortunately, the professor from Uni Lausanne fell ill, so it fell to me to introduce the urban focus of our department’s master’s program. Together with my friend Julio Paolos, I also introduced our nascent Urban Studies thematic group under the Swiss Association of Geography. I’m extremely excited about this initiative and I see the potential for it to grow into something of a parallel structure to what got underway in Basel yesterday.

Whereas the pedagogy group is comprised mostly of professors looking to create networks and improve teaching, our thematic group aims more at PhD students and early career researchers. Our goal is to strengthen the visibility of urban research for those just starting out, and to provide a platform for methodological reflection that spans disciplines. To that end we’ve been working on putting together a collaborative workshop of our own, centered on early career researchers sharing work in progress – while also providing connections to more established scholars through keynotes and less formal interactions.

It occured to me yesterday that the pedagogy group – comprised of more senior scholars – might provide an excellent source from which to draw the keynote speakers for our workshop. Every single person who spoke in Basel was fascinating in their own way, and their research profiles were diverse and stimulating. I’ve never been to a workshop before where literally everyone had something (that I, at least considered) valuable to contribute. It really was a fabulous group.

So at this point, I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities on offer. On one hand, I want very much to be involved with this urban studies pedagogy group, particularly as I transition (hopefully) into more teaching. There were some great people gathered there and I’m excited to stay in touch and see if we can build this group into something that lasts. On the other hand, the thematic group that Julio and I are putting together should – we hope – provide early career researchers with a substantial methodological and conceptual footing in urban research, while building bridges to more established scholars in the Swiss academic landscape.

I’m trying not to get ahead of myself here, but I think it’s pretty exciting to imagine how this could develop in future, with each group playing off and building up the other. We’ll see how it works out!