Manuel GARCIA RUIZ, ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal
Jordi NOFRE, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal
Over the past three decades, there has been an epistemological revolution in ‘Night Studies’. A growing number of authors has started to radically challenge the dominant, neoliberal academic and policy approach about the urban night. Over the past years, ‘night scholars’ have been paying an increasing attention to nightlife-related inequalities, while equally revealing the importance of nightlife as (i) a source of socio-emotional wellbeing and community building, (ii) a time-space of collective and individual liberation, emancipation and integration. In parallel, some nightologists argues that nightlife has been increasingly threatened by ‘old’ and ‘new’ aggressive urban processes (such as gentrification, touristification, real estate speculation) only interrupted by the current global pandemic. In turn, a growing number of scholars have started to focus on the evolution and transformation of other tangible and intangible dimensions of the urban night, developing terrific works on nocturnal environment, social and cultural heritage of the nocturnal city, informal economies at night, mobility and transport provision, night work, etc. Recently, the arise of so-called ‘pandemic politics’ and its related ‘pandemic panic’ has provoked a revival of punitive, repressive, criminalizing discourses, voices, and policies on night, youth & minorities (especially racialized, stigmatized, non-normative, dissident individuals/groups). On the occasion of the Centenary of the International Geographical Union, and after providing a short explanation about the evolution of ‘Night Studies’ in the past three decades, this presentation aims at proposing a new research agenda in the field of ‘Night Studies’ with the aim of enhancing and fostering the role of so-called nightologists in exploring, reflecting on, and designing the future ‘nocturnal city’ facing the current transition towards Next Generation Cities (inclusive, connected, collaborative, ecological, healthy and mobile).
Mots clés : Night Studies|Nocturnal City|Research Agenda
A103006JN