[Apologies for cross-posting]
Call for Papers
Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Washington DC
April 14-18, 2010
Session: Reclaiming the city: new urbanisms in the Global South
Session organizers: Ipsita Chatterjee (University of Texas at Austin) and
Koenraad Bogaert (University of Ghent - Belgium)
Cities in the Global South are no longer a stage where contradictions of
globalization, economic reforms, and structural adjustments are simply
played-out, rather, they actualize these contradictions by inventing 'new'
urbanisms. New urbanisms entail 'new' regulatory arrangements, 'new'
spaces, 'new' micro economies, 'new' cul-de-sacs of consumption and
production, 'new' avenues of speculation and investment. New urbanisms form
the new mechanisms of extraction of surplus value from laboring groups.
Surplus value is accumulated by dismantling organized jobs, promoting
subcontracting and special economic zones, destroying labor unions,
producing gated enclaves, uprooting slums, displacing hawkers with malls,
selling city bonds to speculators. New urbanisms extend exploitation to all
spheres of social existence and funnel surplus value into global
circulation. New urbanisms however, are also contested and negotiated
everyday through social movements, co-operatives of informal workers,
displaced and slum dwellers co-coalitions, and through other un-organized
forms of resistance using art, graffiti, blogosphere in an attempt to
reclaim the city and re-possess the value. This session seeks to understand:
(a) how 'new' urbanisms are performed in the Global South to extract surplus
value and extend exploitation to all spheres of existence-what regulatory
frameworks and policies are adopted, how are urban spaces segmented and
controlled, how are livelihoods altered, how is labor super-exploited; (b)
How are 'new' urbanisms contested in a an effort to reclaim the city - how
do movements frame their struggle, how do the worker's co-operatives
organize in the context of disappearing factory floors, what venues do the
un-organized forms of resistance have?
The following questions can be explored as a critical reflection on the
session:
1) How new are 'new' urbanisms in the Global South or in general?
2) Is every form of activism a form of resistance? And what makes
action turn into resistance?
Please submit your abstracts to both session organizers by October 10th
2009.
AAG format and style http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2010/papers.htm
If you have any questions please contact the organizers:
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Koenraad Bogaert
Doctoral researcher at Centre for Third World Studies
Middle East and North Africa Research Group (MENARG)
Ghent University
Universiteitstraat 8 9000 Gent (Belgium)
T: +32 (0)9264 69 10
M: +32 (0)485937707
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