The conference will bring together scholars from different disciplines as well as policymakers and other stakeholders in the community to together tackle questions on the in- and exclusivity in the city. We do this by specifically looking at the street as a site of contestation and emancipation. In particular, we aim for the conference to be a site of encounter between hitherto separate enquiries into the past, present and future of city streets, and between academic enquiries and practical experiences.

The conference stems from the desire of three UvA scholars who work on issues of public urban space, to cross the departmental and disciplinary boundaries and  connect to stakeholders in the community. 2021 is the year that the NWO-funded research project ‘The Freedom of the Streets. Gender and Urban Space in Eurasia 1600-1850’ led by Dr Danielle van den Heuvel comes to an end. It was one of the aims of this project to hold an interdisciplinary conference in which the project’s results are shared with social scientists and policymakers. Building on this premise we have developed this conference plan.