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In spatial disciplines such as urban research, we often have to deal with a wide variety of data: Interviews, observations, documents, photos or video are just some of them. Data collection is usually tedious in itself, and little time is then often spent analyzing and describing it - but this becomes necessary in research articles at the latest. The webinar presents ways to analyze urban data with a special focus on qualitative content analysis and grounded theory approaches.

Ariane Sept is a professor for Participative Spatial Development and Community Work at Munich University of Applied Sciences since 2022. Before she has been working as a Research Associate at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space in Erkner, Germany. She studied Urban and Regional Planning and holds a PhD in Sociology. Her main fields of study regard current spatial transformations especially the interplay of rural and urban areas, social innovations, and urban sustainability. In her teaching and research activities she has a special focus on methodological issues, because, with her background in different disciplines, she repeatedly realizes that social sciences and spatial disciplines sometimes have completely different approaches to methods. Finding a common methodological language here is a major concern for her.

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The Wits-TUB-UniLag Urban Lab will host an international conference on "African Urbanisms" in Johannesburg next year. The conference will take place from October 23 to October 26 at Wits University's School of Architecture and Planning. The call for session proposals is open until January 21 2024. More information on the conference's theme can be found here.

In a new blog post James Gondwe, one of the project's PhD students based at Wits university, reflects on his engagement with animal geographies at this year's European Conference on African Studies. In his PhD project James explores the role of cattle in the making of urban spaces in Karonga Town, Malawi. You can find the full text here.

Marie Huchzermeyer and Fana Sihlongonyane together with ten other colleagues from Wits University and other institutions published a piece on the devastating fire in an appartment block in Johannesburg in The Conversation discussing ways forward to address the housing crisis in the inner city: Johannesburg fire: there was a plan to fix derelict buildings and provide good accommodation - how to move forward

Taki Sithagu the project coordinator at Wits University just published a new article on just published a new article on “‘The ‘Invisible’ Property System and Revenue Collection in Former Homelands in the Context of Hybrid Governance and Access to Land And Basic Services" in Transformation.

Through the study of the revenue collection in the context of customary land ownership in the Thembisile Hani Local Municipality the article explores how state and non-state institutions attempt to deliver basic services by using informal practices to navigate formal systems.

Please find the full article here

The four semester part-time Masters Programme in Urban Management in UniLag is open for application. You can apply for the programme here. Please find more information on the programme here and on the website of UniLag's Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development.