It is a strange time to do urban research for young researchers. We have found ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, the latest effect of the multifaceted crisis that our generation has lived through: that of capitalist production and environmental change. It is high-time to rethink this living in crisis. We share a responsibility to improve our capacities to understand and interpret this world for the well-being of society, above all by learning from those who bear the brunt of this crisis. Each of us, PhD candidates, works and researches through imaginaries of an alternative world and fairer cities. However, the complexities of our current times require new tools, discourses, approaches for care. This session is prompted by such renewed awareness and responsibility, as well as by the urge to discuss and dialogue with those who, before us, have highlighted these issues through field work and who can now share their experience in urban and social research.