Multiple Crises and Radical Urban Research (AfterCorona #13)

Starting off from her latest agenda-setting article "What does it mean to be a radical urban scholar-activist, or activist scholar today?" published earlier this year in the relaunch issue of the journal _CITY – analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action_. It was published before the pandemic shock and the current wave of Black Lives Matter protests took off. In our conversation, Margit will thus discuss with us her notion of three tipping points in light of these pressing concerns but also highlight the opportunities for political change and how the anti-racist protests have created a collective agency whose vibrancy compares to the movements of the 1960s. In this situation, urban researchs are called not only to scholarly rigor but also to a politics of mobilization. **Margit Mayer** has been professor for comparative and North American politics at Freie Universität Berlin, as of 2014 she is Senior Fellow at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at Technical University Berlin. Her research focuses on comparative, urban and social politics as well as social movements. She has published on various aspects of contemporary urban politics, urban theory, (welfare) state restructuring, social movements, and migrant (support) organizing. She co-authored _Nonprofits in the Transformation of Employment Policies_ (2004), co-edited _Urban Movements in a Globalising World_ (2000), _Cities for People not for Profit_ (2012), _Neoliberal Urbanism and Its Contestations_ (2012). and _Urban Uprisings: Challenging the Neoliberal City in Europe_ (2016). **Article Reference:** Mayer, Margit, 2020. "What does it mean to be a (radical) urban scholar-activist, or activist scholar, today?". _City_ 24 (1/2): 1-17.