EPFL laboratoire bâle (laba) and urban lab +: an international network of urban laboratories are holding a PhD colloquium at the EPFL. Lausanne Switzerland, on Friday, 14. November 2014 within the second workshop examining Intercultural Learning and attended by KRVIA (Mumbai), Università della Calabria, laba and TU Berlin.

The intercultural realm is seen as a site of conflict and negotiation between parties, but is however a shared space, a common ground subject to temporal forces. Territory is a cultural product, continuously undergoing both physical and conceptual modification. Therefore the relationship between territory and culture emerges as a tightly interwoven dialogue. Territory has been described by Corboz as a Palimpsest, by Debarbieux as the material and symbolic resources structuring the existence of an individual or a social community and by Bernardo Secchi as a portion of land transformed during the course of history in ecological and cultural space. The colloquium looks for new understandings of territory through its intercultural dimensions. Which kinds of "cultures" have not been granted space but only time?

Researchers are invited to contribute with reflections and proposals on research methodologies pertaining to the intercultural dimensions of territory. The colloquium has a special focus on mapping as a research methodology which can potentially reveal details and processes that escape the dominant quantitative, technical and scientific portraits of space.
) Which intercultural exchanges between diverse entities have recently developed or have previously been neglected in territorial /or built environment research?
) Where are critical sites of intercultural negotiation and how can we represent them?
) How can the intercultural dimensions of change be identified- which methodologies can be used?
) What are the dimensions of intercultural exchange which have emerged in your research?
Abstracts of 1 A4 side plus an image to be submitted before Friday, 31.10.14. presentations will be short- max 10-15 mins.