The Global Urban Studies Cluster, under the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), National University of Singapore (NUS), is an initiative to promote interdisciplinary work on urban territories and processes in the humanities and social sciences. In addition to providing a space for urban studies research within FASS, the cluster seeks to foster collaborative research with different faculties in the university and with other international universities and research institutions.

Previously known as the Cities Cluster, the Global Urban Studies Cluster includes but is not limited to the study of cities and urban processes in Asia.

The “global” scope of the cluster encompasses:

• Global and world cities research on advanced producer service linkages and associated transnational networks
• Social, economic and political networks incorporating cities that do not appear on world/global cities maps
• Historical work on transnational and global urban connections (including from eras before academic social scientists became interested in globalization, transnationalism etc.)
• The city (and other urban units of analysis) in comparative perspective at a variety of spatial scales and historical timeframes
• Postcolonial urban scholarship and the associated push for a “more global” (i.e. less Euro-American-centred) urban studies
• Issues of extended urbanization, operational landscapes and their planetary ecological implications.
• Methodology, and the diverse modes of “doing” urban studies

These themes are promoted through the various activities that we organize such as seminars, workshops, forums and conferences. Through these activities, we seek to bring together faculty members from different disciplines with shared interests in cities and urban transformation as well as academics from other relevant institutions to network and engage in intellectual discussion.