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Hej. We are looking for one or two more papers for the following session:

*Call for Papers for the AAG*

*“The Normalcy of Urban Neoliberalism and its Limits”*


Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in 
New York (February 24-28, 2012)

_Organizers_: Susanne Heeg, Robert Pütz, Felix Silomon-Pflug and Anne 
Vogelpohl (Goethe University Frankfurt (Main), Germany)

*Sponsored by the Urban Geography Specialty Group*

The neoliberal “re-ordering of cities” has to be understood within the 
stress ratio of global conditions and specific local requirements. As a 
result urban neoliberalism is shaped by local adaption, transformation 
and implementation of globally available urban policies. Solving local 
crises and preparing cities for interurban global competition can be 
seen as purposes of this “travelling of policies”. The mobility of urban 
politics has led to the normalization of neoliberal urban development as 
well as the corresponding analytic perspective on cities. As this 
process of normalization yet remains a contested process that is 
resisted, obstructed or avoided in many ways it can be understood as a 
constant stretching of limits ­– e.g. through policies that strengthen 
the ability to co-opt critique or de-politicize social movements. But 
limits to urban neoliberalism’s normalcy may also hint at a 
post-neoliberal change.

We invite paper proposals that either analyze the process of enforcing 
the urban neoliberal character or that analyze limitations to 
neoliberalization and potentially post-neoliberal urban development. The 
former include re-orderings of administrations or policy guidelines; the 
latter include re-interpretations of failed policies and deepened 
inequalities (shrinkage, marginalization etc.) or concepts and 
perspectives for alternative cities (“just city”, “right to the city”, 
peoples/participatory budgets etc.).

Within this field the papers may address, but are not limited to the 
following questions:
·How are mobile urban policies adapted, transformed and implemented and 
what are the effects for the re-ordering of urban 
configurations/assemblages?
·Which role does the travelling of urban policies play for the 
normalization of neoliberal urban development?
·How are contradictions between market- and competition-oriented 
restructurings on the one hand and a socially just/ livable city 
discourse on the other reconciled?
·Is the neoliberal city depoliticized and, if so, what are the 
consequences for modes of participation/ (self)representation?
·Is the neoliberal character of the urban reinvented or overcome in the 
course of the ongoing economic crisis? What are the limits of neoliberal 
adaptability?
·Which theories and concepts can be used to conceive a post-neoliberal 
change?

Please submit a ~250-word abstract by September 25, 2011 to Anne 
Vogelpohl ([log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>)

Best regards,
anne.