Southern Theory without a North: City Conceptualization as the Theoretical Metropolis
There have been calls to broaden urban theory to incorporate learnings from the Southern or ordinary cities (periphery). These calls are often placed as a counter to the hegemony of … Continue reading
The fluid city, urbanism as a process
Cities seem solid and static, but are fluid and in motion. Cities in archaeology are often identified and conceptualised through shared characteristics (e.g. irrigation, hierarchy, monuments). The archaeological record reveals … Continue reading
Urbanisation, informality, and corruption
How should anti-corruption policies be designed when the ways people live and make a living in rapidly growing cities are often marked by high levels of informality? What do we … Continue reading
Moving urban political ecology beyond the ‘urbanization of nature’
Urban political ecology (UPE) focuses on unsettling traditional understandings of ‘cities’ as ontological entities separate from ‘nature’ and on how the production of settlements is metabolically linked with flows of … Continue reading
Transcending (in)formal urbanism
We outline the important place that informal urbanism has acquired in urban theorising, and an agenda to further this standing towards an even more explicit role in defining how we … Continue reading
Hegel’s Hipsters: Claiming Ownership in the Contemporary City
Property is both revered and reviled. Praised for its connections to autonomy, agency, power and community, property attracts scorching critiques for its implication in exclusion, inequality and injustice. This article … Continue reading
A City Is Not a Computer
Shannon Mattern – We should reject data-driven models that delegate critical, often ethical decisions to the machine. Urban intelligence is more than information processing. Urban intelligence involves experience, observation, sensory … Continue reading
Environment Politics in Urban India: Citizenship, Knowledges and Urban Political Ecologies
This special issue of SAMAJ, composed of six empirical papers and an introduction seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. Adopting a deliberately broad understanding of … Continue reading
Without Architects, Smart Cities Just Aren’t Smart
Arguably the biggest buzzword in urbanism right now is the ‘Smart City’. The idea, although certainly inclusive of eco-friendly practices, has even replaced “sustainability” as the major intent of cities … Continue reading
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