Race, Class, Skill, and Migration in the Unequal Construction of Urban Futures

What are the aesthetics of labor exploitation? Four scholars of migration and work join forces across the disciplines of public policy and planning, sociology, and architecture to explore who builds our architectural visions, and how social hierarchies and power structures are encoded in — and reinforce — them. Although their research subjects vary, from the Black builders of historic World's Fairs to South Asian laborers in the contemporary Middle East, all four panelists investigate how design, construction, power, and money jointly erect social boundaries of race, class, and skill that disadvantage the migrants who raise some of our most wondrous edifices.

Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, for in-person attendance, this program is only open to members of the NYU community in New York with an NYU Daily Screener Pass status. To join via Zoom, please contact nyuad.institute.ny@nyu.edu for details.

Speakers

• Rina Agarwala, Associate Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
• Jordan Carver, Writer and PhD candidate, American Studies, NYU; Member, Who Builds Your Architecture?
• Natasha Iskander, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Wagner School of Public Policy, NYU
• Mabel Wilson, Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies, and Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS), Columbia University