Call for Papers
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers,
New Orleans, 10th-14th April, 2018
Producing comparability in urban geographical research: intellectual and practical considerations
Organisers: Shaun Teo and Frances Brill (Department of Geography, University College London)
How might contemporary urban research theorize with more global purchase? This has become one of today’s core methodological questions in post-colonial urban geographical studies. The comparative approach has been at the forefront of this endeavour. By placing different cases in conversation on the same analytical plane, comparative urbanism has helped to develop theoretical understandings that are more applicable to the expanding and diverse world of cities (Robinson 2006; 2016). Unsurprisingly, much of the previous work has sought to discuss and develop the methodological and epistemological dimensions of comparative urban research. However, there is a lesser focus on the process of producing comparability. That is, what are the actual practices researchers undertake in conceptualising and implementing their comparative endeavours, and how do they evaluate and present these as useful outputs? As Deville et al (2015, 100) note, comparative research has to be assembled from diverse entities, according to specific forms of knowledge and expertise. In order to produce the comparative output, these assembled parts have to actively intervene and provoke relations between previously uncompared inputs. In other words, the theoretical outputs of any comparative endeavour are produced through the ways in which the researcher understands, grapples with and leverages intellectual and practical realities as well as their their own positionality.
This panel invites papers that critically reflect on the (often experimental) process of producing comparability and its influence on the outcomes of research. The broader goal of these papers should be to further our current understandings of why and how comparative methods are/ can be more useful and efficacious. Topics may include – but are not limited to – one or more of the following:
• The influence of the identities and geographies of the researcher on the comparative process
• The researcher’s movement between intellectual spaces (theory; existing case studies etc.) and fieldwork places
• The process of constructing and developing comparators and their role in producing comparability
• Vectors of comparison: with which case(s), and at what point, should comparison begin and end? In which direction(s) should comparison move?
• The role of serendipity and/ or setbacks in the comparative process
• Failed comparisons and implications for future comparative endeavours
• The practical and intellectual limits of comparability – is comparison always better for a global urban studies?
Interested parties may contact us prior to submission of abstracts with any enquiries. Abstracts of 250 words, together with the presenter’s contact information should be submitted no later than October 20 to Shaun Teo ([log in to unmask]) and Frances Brill ([log in to unmask]). Please ensure that your abstract conforms to the requirements outlined by the AAG (see http://annualmeeting.aag.org/).
References
Deville J, Guggenheim M and Hrdličková Z (2015) Same, same but different: Provoking relations, assembling the comparator. In: Deville J, Guggenheim M and Hrdličková Z (eds) Practising Comparison. Manchester: Mattering Press.
Robinson J (2006) Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (Vol. 4) Psychology Press.
Robinson J (2016) Thinking cities through elsewhere: Comparative tactics for a more global urban studies. Progress in Human Geography, 40 (1), 3-29.
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