The Intimate Book Dialogue Event: Where Authors Meet Readers

In recent years, urban debates and interventions have drawn attention to power relations in the production of urban theory and practice. These contributions include theories on, and perspectives from, the global South, post-colonialism, decolonialism, rogue urbanism, subaltern urbanism, ordinary cities, secondary cities, small cities, and post-abyssal thinking to mention a few. As part of these debates, the notion of “overlooked cities” acknowledges and engages with these critical debates while drawing attention to the fact that even within these frameworks, there are cities that remain overlooked.

 According to that, RDI was honored to conduct the Book Dialogue: Authors Meet Readers on 17 March 2022. The event was the meeting platform between the authors of the book “Overlooked Cities: Power, Politics, and Knowledge beyond the Urban South”, which are Dr. Erwin Nugraha, Dr. Hanna A Ruszczyk, Dr. Isolde de Villiers, and Dr. Julia Wesely. This event consisted of a conversation from the authors and readers to revisit and reorient our attention towards the urban majority of overlooked cities in re-imagining our collective urban futures.

Dhimas Bayu Anindito, S.T., MSc. (Universitas Gadjah Mada) was smoothly moderated this event. There were three readers of this event, which were Prof. Dr. Delik Hudalah,S.T, M.T, M.Sc. (Institut Teknologi Bandung), Elisa Sutanudjaja, M.Arch. (Rujak Center for Urban Studies), Dr. Saut Sagala (RDI). Each reader has shared their perspective and reflection from the book in relation to their expertise and research. It also became the chance for the readers to show how the book dialogues with their experience. Then it was followed by the response from each author and a Q&A session with the audience. All and all,  this event has successfully become the right chance for the discussion meeting between the authors and the readers.