Reading Development

Random readings on society, politics and change – Jorge Carrillo

The Commodification of Public Spaces

This study focuses on the mechanisms and institutions for the governance of public spaces on Khao San Road, Bangkok, Thailand. Khao San offers immense opportunity for vendors, as it is … Continue reading →

Saturday, 19 October 2019 · Leave a comment

How the urban poor define and measure food security

Urban food security, or its lack, is attracting growing interest in global policy debates. Glaringly missing in these conversations, however, are the voices of the urban poor. To fill this … Continue reading →

Wednesday, 16 October 2019 · Leave a comment

The street market as animated space

“This ethnography of Chapel Market in Islington uncovers an animated space replete with its own actors, history, currents of activity, and interrelations with authorities and with government. There is a … Continue reading →

Saturday, 5 October 2019 · Leave a comment

Assembling street vending

Current scholarship on street vending in cities of the global south have mainly focused on street vendors and their politics of resistance against the state’s revanchist and exclusionary policies. This … Continue reading →

Saturday, 28 September 2019 · Leave a comment

Interrogating informality

Informality is growing in a context of increasing inequity, and in many places becoming the norm. However, despite decades of studies and interventions, ‘recognising informality’ is still a key issue. … Continue reading →

Thursday, 29 August 2019 · Leave a comment

Informality crusades

Informality crusades: why informal practices are stigmatized, fought and allowed in different contexts according to an apparently ununderstandable logic. This paper suggests that informality and informal practices are present and … Continue reading →

Sunday, 25 August 2019 · Leave a comment

Unaffordable and Undrinkable: Rethinking Urban Water Access in the Global South

In 2015, UNICEF and the World Health Organization reported that over 90% of the world’s population used improved drinking water sources. But new research suggests the indicators used by UNICEF/WHO … Continue reading →

Tuesday, 13 August 2019 · Leave a comment

Urban Informality as a Site of Critical Analysis

Across the Global South, the realities of urban informality are changing, with implications for how we understand this phenomenon across economic, spatial, and political domains. Recent accounts have attempted to … Continue reading →

Thursday, 1 August 2019 · Leave a comment

Cities Made of Boundaries: Mapping Social Life in Urban Form

Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. Its vantage is a plea to establish … Continue reading →

Saturday, 20 July 2019 · Leave a comment