August 11, 2018

YERUN RMA 2018 – Meet Begoña Aramayona

From Autonomous University of Madrid –> To University Nova de Lisboa

I am working on different topics around urban studies and planning, such as ‘centre-peripheries relations’, ‘retail gentrification’, ‘touristification’, ‘public policies’, ‘nightlife economies’ and ‘comparative and ethnographic studies’, with a special focus on ‘visual-based methodologies’. My host for the YERUN Mobility Program was Dr. Jordi Nofre at the Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais – CICS NOVA, at Universidad Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon). The project title  was `Tourism and Urban Planning in Contemporary Southern Europe: comparisons between Lisbon and Madrid´, and aimed to explore the social impacts on community livability of recent urban tourism in large South European big cities, a topic of recent concern both for the academic studies, policy-makers and the civil society itself (Colomb and Novy, 2017).

Through different interdisciplinary encounters between researchers working on different scientific disciplines (Social and Environmental Psychology, Sociology, Geography and Regional and Urban Planning), we established a strong research link between the Department of Social Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), and two other Lisbon Research Centres: (1) CIS.NOVA – Interdisciplinary Center of Social Sciences (hosted by Pr. Jordi Nofre) at the New University of Lisbon (NOVA)  and (2) at ISCTE-IUL (hosted by Pr. Susana Batel).

The YERUN RMA has produced many significant and endurable outcomes both within the academic and scientific sphere, but also within different and diverse non-expert actors and audiences. Thanks to the YERUN RMA, we have prepare two scientific publications around the impact of tourism, leisure and nightlife in South European cities; we have transfer important knowledge around how to design more sustainable and inclusive urban centres, specially at night, based on participatory processes and hybrid governances between citizens, public and private institutions and scholars; and we have prepared the conditions for future collaborations in a European context, a very important step in order to keep on working for the improvement and well-being of society.

At the same time, my participation at Observatory of Nightlife Lisbon (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa and LXNIGHTS) has been a powerful experience in order to learn how to design new and innovative public policies to regulate nightlife activities in Lisbon. This experience has has open a very broad range of opportunities in order to design new policies around ourism and nightlife in Madrid. The importance of participation in order to create more inclusive cities at night has been one of the most powerful learnings of this Research Mobility.

Begoña Aramayona was awarded one of the 26 Research Mobility Awards of the 1st call for applications that YERUN offered in 2018. 

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