Reading Development

Random readings on society, politics and change – Jorge Carrillo

Public space and public rituals: Engagement and protest in the digital age

In our technology-based society, individuals have more tools that they can use to manage and ‘show’ themselves in public space. In public space, they are monitored by agencies using surveillance … Continue reading

Saturday, 28 January 2023 · Leave a comment

Migrant waste collectors in Thailand’s informal economy: Mapping class relations

Recent scholarship on primitive accumulation and deagrarianisation in the global South has addressed a decline in formal employment prospects, leaving most ex-peasants (and their heirs) struggling to earn a livelihood … Continue reading

Thursday, 3 November 2022 · Leave a comment

Fragmentation and urban knowledge: An analysis of urban knowledge exchange institutions

Silo-ed thinking, fragmented knowledge systems and short-termism remain key challenges in transforming urban systems and policy making towards more sustainable and resilient cities. Innovative strategies and actions which seek to … Continue reading

Saturday, 13 August 2022 · Leave a comment

Gentrification, urban policy and urban geography

Despite recognition that gentrification around the world is state-led– and that gentrification is in of itself de facto an urban policy – few scholars writing about gentrification, including urban geographers, … Continue reading

Saturday, 13 August 2022 · Leave a comment

African urbanisation at the confluence of informality and climate change

(Temporary open access) Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces climate change’s harshest consequences. Ramifications of climate change pose daunting multi-scalar urban challenges, specifically because … Continue reading

Tuesday, 9 August 2022 · Leave a comment

From the smart city to urban justice in a digital age

The smart city is the most emblematic contemporary expression of the fusion of urbanism and digital technologies. Critical urban scholars are now increasingly likely to highlight the injustices that are … Continue reading

Tuesday, 19 July 2022 · Leave a comment

Invisible Labor: Precarity, Ethnic Division, and Transformative Representation in Landscape Architecture Work

[Behind paywall] For designers concerned with social and spatial justice, it is necessary to expand the context of landscape work beyond a site’s physical and historic narratives to include the … Continue reading

Tuesday, 7 June 2022 · Leave a comment

Gentrification through the ages – A long-term perspective on urban displacement, social transformation and resistance

Gentrification is one of the most striking urban developments of our time, radically impacting residential, consumption and investment patterns, and urban culture more broadly. Commonly explained as the transformation of … Continue reading

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 · Leave a comment

Writing Across Contexts: Urban Informality and the State in Guinea-Bissau, Estonia, and Germany

Urban research has long related informality to a lack of state capacity or a failure of institutions. This assumption not only fails to account for the heterogeneous institutional relations in … Continue reading

Friday, 29 April 2022 · Leave a comment