2021 Virtual Summer School
Under the title ‘Urban Management across Continents’, the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab held its first joint online summer school on the 14th and 15th of December 2021. A cohort of 33 master’s students from the Urban Management courses at TU Berlin (Germany), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and the University of Lagos (Nigeria) and twelve lecturers from all three institutions came together for the summer school.
To open the event, Astrid R.N. Haas of the African Development Bank held a keynote speech on “Achieving the promise of cities that work”, which was followed by a lively discussion on her input.
The summer school focused on nine thematic panels where the students presented and discussed their thesis work. Students’ theses were in different stages of the research process: Some presented results from the initial conceptualisation and literature review, other presentations were more directly concerned with theoretical and methodological questions. Most students, however, presented first insights or final results from their empirical work in the field. The students were asked to formulate questions to the audience and the convenors, in order to receive targeted feedback that allowed them to alleviate their research challenges and to improve the final written thesis.
On day one, the panels’ themes included ‘Transport & Mobility’, ‘Land Governance’, ‘Human Settlements & Service Delivery’ as well as ‘Private Sector Development & Building’. The first day was concluded by plenum discussions on the presented topics and feedback from experienced researchers. On day two, students shared their research experiences in panels ranging from ‘Spatial Inclusion & Community’ and ‘Environmental Management’ to ‘Policy & Governance’. The second day concluded with a networking session that enabled students to build connections among peers with similar research interests.
The format of an online summer school presented a unique opportunity for the master’s students to present their thesis projects and have a lively exchange with their colleagues across continents. In the sessions, the students identified and discussed common interests and themes; they also discussed challenges they encountered in their research processes, especially the fieldwork impediments related to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The final networking session was extensively used to intensify the discussions and deepen the newly established relations.
With students and lecturers having joined in from different locations in various time zones –not only in Nigeria, South Africa and Germany, but also Latin America – conducting and taking part in an online conference required high commitment from all contributors. Repeated power cuts and internet network problems posed considerable challenges to a number of participants during the summer school, representing a constant reminder of the challenging work conditions many of the students encounter even beyond the pandemic. All convenors and participants – whether presenters, audience or discussants in different moments – exhibited great patience and flexibility in response to technical circumstances, which provided everyone a platform for presenting her or his work.
