City and Night as Global Urban Phenomena: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
XXXIV Italian Geographic Congress
Turin, Campus Luigi Einaudi and Castello del Valentino, September 3-5, 2025
Urban Era and World Disorder: Geographies for Interpreting the Present
Night studies constitute an interdisciplinary field of research aimed at expanding the understanding of the night through analysis in specific social, cultural, and geographic contexts. Since the early 21st century, this field has seen significant development thanks to contributions from various scientific communities and research traditions, enabling a plural and interdisciplinary understanding of the geographies of the night.
The debate on the geographies of the night, traditionally focused on analyzing nightlife spaces (urban playscapes), exploring a few urban realities in North America and Northern Europe, and relying on a limited set of theoretical frameworks (such as the metaphor of the “night as frontier”), has over time given rise to a highly diverse array of research lines. This has allowed for a deeper understanding not only of nighttime itself but also of the city in a broader sense.
With this session, we invite contributions that deepen the understanding and explore the applications of the nocturnal perspective as a tool to grasp and examine the evolution of urban spaces. Contributions may focus on general theoretical issues, specific case studies, or aspects of the debate that have remained overlooked.
In particular, we welcome contributions on the following topics:
- Theoretical frameworks and methodological experiments in night studies
- Social geographies of the night: labor, social exclusion, marginalized bodies and minds
- Contestation and conflicts in nighttime public spaces
- Security and surveillance in the urban nighttime dimension
- Sociality and economies of urban nights
- Nocturnal mobility
- Governance and management of the nighttime city
- Night, tourism, city branding, and promotion
- Cultural geographies of the night, darkness, and obscurity
- Meanings, imaginaries, and experiences of urban darkness
- Representation of urban nights in the arts and media
- Utopian and/or dystopian visions of nighttime urban futures
- Non-human and more-than-human nocturnal geographies
- Ecosystems, nighttime ecologies, and light pollution
- Night, technology, infrastructure, and Science and Technology Studies (STS)
- Sonic geographies, music, and noise politics
- Comparative geographies of the night, including different conceptions of nighttime in non-urban contexts
- From the 24-hour city to the 15-minute city: possibilities and limitations in organizing nighttime urban spaces
- Urban rhythms, geographies of the night-day alternation, and rhythmanalysis
- Feminist and decolonial perspectives in the analysis of the urban night
- Historical geographies of the urban night
Keywords
Cultural geographies of the night, governance of the nighttime city, night-time economy, nightscape, darkness
Key points
1. Abstract submission deadline: 3 May 2025 (via online form)
2. Contributions: Italian, English, French or Spanish
Please note that while contributions can be in various languages, most sessions will be conducted in Italian. I hope this won’t discourage you, but I’d rather let you know this as it might affect your participation.
3. Abstracts will be published online, with proceedings to follow later
Proponents
- Giuseppe Tomasella (Department of Historical, Geographical, and Antiquities Sciences – DiSSGeA, University of Padua)
- Alberto Vanolo (Department of Culture, Politics, and Society, University of Turin)
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Manuel Garcia-Ruiz (March 4, 2025). City and Night as Global Urban Phenomena: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. International Night Studies Network. Retrieved March 13, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13f13
