Martin Dijst: Pathways to Healthy Urban Living

We are pleased to invite you to the next event of the Cities & Society seminar series: Pathways to Healthy Urban Living by professor Martin Dijst.

Portrait Martin Dijst

Professor Martin Dijst. Photo: Edvan Rijswiik

About the lecture:

Perspectives on health are in transition. First, the interpretation of health is moving away from a one-sided focus on disease itself to the ability of people to adopt and to self-manage all their life domains such as the physical and mental health domains as well as the social domain. Second, exposures to physical, social and economic environments over time in understanding morbidity and mortality of people get an increasingly prominent role. Third, the awareness in growing that an inter- and transdisciplinary approach is necessary to develop effective pathways to healthy urban living. Especially in cities in which unhealthy temptations as well as opportunities for healthy lifestyles are concentrated addressing these transitions still remains a massive unmet challenge. Based on experiences at Utrecht University, the lecture will address these issues.

About the speaker:

Martin Dijst is full professor of Urban Geography at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University.  His main research focus concerns the relation between characteristics of static and dynamic geographical environments along daily and life course paths and various behavioural decisions, embodied experiences, well-being and health outcomes of different social groups. He is using and integrating various theories such as Time Geography, Actor Network Theory, (Post) Phenomenology, Emotional Geography and Assemblage Theory. Currently, he is leading the inter- and transdisciplinary research program Healthy Urban Living.

About the seminar series Cities & Society:

As a growing majority of the planet's population live in urban landscapes, cities are increasingly identified by a wider variety of actors as the primary strategic ground for resolving some of the most pressing environmental, political, and social challenges of the 21st century. In this context, there is an urgent need to reexamine some of the basic categories and concepts used to define and decipher urban processes, and to more broadly pose the questions of what characterizes the urban today and what approaches that can help us to successfully generate new urban theory and knowledge. By inviting international expertise working at the frontiers of urban research, this seminar series seeks address these questions and support the development of a dynamic and robust research environment around contemporary urban issues at the University of Oslo.

Click here for more information about the seminar series

 

Published Apr. 7, 2017 12:46 PM - Last modified Apr. 14, 2023 12:53 PM