Can you describe your journey a bit before starting the program?
Before joining the master, I did sociology in Ghent. I think that what drew me towards urban studies is that I was already writing some papers on the connections between the spatial and the social. I wrote my thesis project on the social composition of a neighborhood within Ghent and I started reading about urban sociology. After I finished my degree in sociology, I thought that maybe I wanted to delve deeper into urban topics. Which are the different population groups living in the city? How is the city produced, and how does that impact different population groups? I also think there was the element of housing: I was getting interested in gentrification and social renewal and the effects they have on vulnerable groups. I think these questions pushed me a bit towards urban studies.
How did you experience the multidisciplinarity of the master?
I think that it was definitely one of the things that attracted me to the master. I really like sociology, but I also felt a bit limited within that field: it was just preparing myself for one perspective. I was looking to expand that a bit more. I was really happy to be able to combine my sociological base with some geography, some criminology, and some history. As well as the fact that all students came from different kinds of disciplines. We had a lot of architects, some historians, some philosophers, some urban planners. So everyone was learning new things, I think.
"I was really happy to be able to combine my sociological base with some geography, some criminology, and some history. As well as just the fact that all students came from different kinds of disciplines. We had a lot of architects, some historians, some philosophers, some urban planners. So everyone was learning new things, I think."
And where do you work now?
I am based in Brussels, but I work in Ghent. I work at Community Land Trust Gent as a community worker. I did my internship with Community Land Trust Brussels, so that is kind of how I got to know the organisation. After the master, I was questioning whether I wanted to stay in academia: I felt quite comfortable there and I have a theoretical interest as well, I would say. But I felt like I also wanted to have a practical experience with people and projects.
Actually, my first reflex made me decide to become a teacher. I taught only for one year in two secondary French-speaking schools here in Brussels. After a year, I saw that there was a job vacancy at Community Land Trust Gent. It was actually done through Saamo, which is a people-based project that targets issues that people experience in their everyday lives, such as in the labour market and housing market. I worked for Saamo for one year and a half, and I recently switched to CLT Gent itself to mainly do community work with inhabitants. We try to tackle problems in a more structural way, for instance, by crafting a new housing model that might create a bigger change and maybe also challenge existing housing policies.
How would you relate your current work to the skills and the experience you gained in the master?
During MUS, I became quite interested in the effect of the market economy and market dynamics on the city. I wrote my thesis on the commodification of labour in the gig economy. I was influenced by the market-dominant approach to housing in Belgium in general and then the idea of community land trust as a housing model that realises adequate housing for people with limited means. It comes from the idea of taking land out of the market because the market alone does not provide the housing we need. The social housing segment in Belgium is just not big enough, so we need other alternative housing models to provide housing. I use the knowledge I gained by analysing the city in my job, seeing which stakeholders are involved, and being critical. Analysing urban reality by looking into which political decisions are made based on power imbalances.
What does the master represent to you?
I think any master has limits because you can only get that much in a curriculum and I think sometimes the link with practice was still missing. However, the opportunity to be able to engage with these topics for two years, together with people who have very similar interests but different backgrounds and another theoretical lens also gives you a specific skill. We took our academic lenses outside of university as well. It is a big group of people, mostly new to Brussels and very much looking to explore the city through an urban studies lens. I think that taught me a lot and I think that it's very connected to how I arrived in Brussels and how I read the city now.
What is a key lesson you can take away from the program?
I think one key lesson would be analysing the world critically. Not just accepting things as they are but questioning what's behind it. What are the power dynamics behind it? Whose precarity is reinforced? You have a relational view of things, nothing is neutral, and we should always be critical about which structures lay behind the production of something. I think we learned this from the courses, but also through the conversations among students as well. I also learned how to do something with that and to not be afraid to take a position. In that sense, I think the program taught me to be very conscious of what I want and to be very conscious of my position, how I live in the city, but also professionally what I want to do and involve myself in.
"I think one key lesson would be analysing the world critically. Not just accepting things as they are but questioning what's behind it. What are the power dynamics behind it? Whose precarity is reinforced? (...) I think the program taught me to be very conscious of what I want and to be very conscious of my position, how I live in the city, but also professionally what I want to do and involve myself in".
Are you still in contact with students from the master?
Yes, one of my housemates I got to know through the master, for example. And I have good contact with some people abroad as well.
Can you describe urban studies?
Well, this is a question that I have been trying to respond to for 5 years already. I think urban studies is the study of the city. So it is looking into what makes this city a city. How do people contribute to the city? How does the fact that they live in a city, work in a city, or pass by a city structure their lives? At the same time, how is the city structured by the interest of state policy or markets, and how can we maybe change things as well? I think, for me, how I see urban cities includes a political dimension as well. We want to make better cities, whatever that means for the person involved. I think that's why I am interested in urban studies.
This interview was conducted in April 2024.