Reading Development

Random readings on society, politics and change – Jorge Carrillo

Informational Peripheries – Rethinking the urban in a digital age

‘Informational peripheries’ are a combination of digital, material, territorial, infrastructural and social marginalisations that emerge from informational control, redlining, manipulation and blockading. This book argues that in a digital age, … Continue reading →

Tuesday, 5 August 2025 · Leave a comment

Pathways to development: from politics to power

A country’s pathway to development is shaped less by institutional type than by the nature of the politics and power relations that underpin these institutions and which shape how they … Continue reading →

Tuesday, 2 April 2024 · Leave a comment

Urban Informality and the Built Environment

This open access book looks at how the built environment allows different urban processes to interact and how it groups elements together. We propose to explore urban informality by analysing … Continue reading →

Tuesday, 26 March 2024 · Leave a comment

15 years of degrowth research: A systematic review

In academia and political debates, the notions of ‘degrowth’ has gained traction since the dawn of the 21st century. While some uncertainty around its exact definition remains, research on degrowth … Continue reading →

Monday, 25 March 2024 · Leave a comment

Politics and the Urban Frontier

Despite the rise of global technocratic ideals of city-making, cities around the world are not merging into indistinguishable duplicates of one another. In fact, as the world urbanizes, urban formations … Continue reading →

Monday, 25 March 2024 · Leave a comment

Seeing democracy as a city

Urbanisation is changing landscapes, social relations and everyday lives across the globe. But urbanisation is also changing the ways democracy is understood and practiced. Nevertheless, the relation between urbanisation and … Continue reading →

Monday, 25 March 2024 · Leave a comment

2024 State of Civil Society Report

Civil society is being tested like never before by a series of multiple and accelerating crises. Amid growing conflict and repression, in 2023 civil society faced mounting obstacles that made … Continue reading →

Tuesday, 19 March 2024 · Leave a comment

Controlling the Capital – Political Dominance in the Urbanizing World

While most literature considers authoritarianism on the national scale, the chapters in this book train their gaze on capital cities, which as ‘containers’ of both capital and sovereignty are spaces … Continue reading →

Monday, 18 March 2024 · Leave a comment

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Vol 3

For a post-human hitchhiker, human life – with its anxiety, ageing, illness and constant need for problem-solving – may look unviable. Yet, for humans, the life struggle is softened by … Continue reading →

Monday, 18 March 2024 · Leave a comment