Research on urbanism in tropical forests has played a pivotal role in challenging the enduring envision of pristine nature. On the other hand, the term evokes a specific definition that constantly requires attention to avoid anachronistic approaches. In light of this, we intend to promote a critical analysis of urbanism in the Amazon on long-term (centuries to millennia) and short-term (decades to years) timescales. 

During a two-day international Workshop, we will welcome at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology researchers, professors, and young scholars from different backgrounds based in the United States, Brazil, England, Portugal, Switzerland, and Germany. The program includes multiple presentation formats from lectures to book and paper talks.

We will start on Monday 27 morning with the panel “INTRODUCING & CORRELATING FOREST CITIES: concepts, frameworks, approaches” paying attention to different theoretical and disciplinary perspectives on forest cities in the Anthropocene. The first panel will be followed by the launch of the Gerda Henkel three-year project “RESILIENT: forest cities, utopia and development in Modern Amazon” hosted at MPI-GEA within the IsoTROPIC research group in cooperation with the University of Geneva and the University of Coimbra. 

The following panel “ESTABLISHING & COMPARING FOREST CITIES: Amazonian industrial and Indigenous urbanism” will then focus on a series of case studies which underline crucial differences on what urbanism means culturally, economically, politically and environmentally across space and time. We will close the first day with broader discussions on human history in the Amazon. 

The workshop continues on Tuesday morning. The panel EXPANDING & CONSERVING FOREST CITIES: Indigenous Resistance and Biodiversity Protection” compiles emerging topics relating to the future protection of the Amazon rainforest and its populations along with a discussion about genetic resources, indigenous knowledge, and climate change. 

Finally, we close the Workshop with the panel “CHALLENGING & ENVISION FOREST CITIES: cosmological alternatives and Amazonian culture” which brings together experts from different fields to discuss the role of the imaginaries in the promotion of extractivism projects in the rainforest and to shed light on more than human (‘multi-species’) relationships involved in the making of multiple Amazonian forest cities. 

Come and join us!

* If you are keen to participate online only, scan the poster QR code or click in the Zoom link below. You are welcome to join spontaneously at your convenience:

https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/65940986112                                                    

Meeting ID: 659 4098 6112

*If you are planning to come to MPI Gea in person, you should fill out the form below. We are offering a limited number of slots to join lunch on both days.