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Apologies for cross posting..... Title: Urban Political Ecology through African Cities Paper Session Co Sponsored by Developing Areas Research Group and Urban Geography Research Group Session Convenors: Dr Henrik Ernstson (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town/Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University Dr Mary Lawhon (African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town) Suraya Fazel-Ellahi (Manchester University) Jonathan Silver (Durham University) Chair: To be announced. Urban political ecology (UPE) provides a range of potential theoretical tools to understand the complex geographies of the contemporary African city. Whilst rural Africa has provided fertile ground for extensive political ecological work (e.g. Blaikie, Rocheleau, Watts) urban political ecologists have rarely explored the potential for African cities to critique and contribute to political ecology. This session therefore seeks theoretical, critical and polemic papers that interrogate the political ecology of the African city. Given the limited existing work (e.g. Debanne and Keil 2004; Loftus 2006; Gandy 2006; Myers 2008), an urban political ecology of African cities necessarily needs to be viewed as in-the-making and we frame this session as one construction place for such an endeavour. We are interested in work that draws on the specificity of urban conditions in these cities and can help develop an African UPE research practice. We invite studies that i) make use of already fabricated tools and theoretical constructs within the urban political ecology tradition which include: politics of scale, socionature, cyborg urbanization, post-politics, relational marxism, material semiotics/actor-network theory, and production of space/nature (see for instance Keil 2003, 2005; Swyngedouw 2004, 2009; Gandy 2005; Loftus 2007; Smith 1990; Harvey 1996, but also for instance Haraway 1991; Latour 2004; Mol 2010) and/or ii) builds on emerging theoretical engagements with issues such as informalities, mobilities, poverty and post-colonial/post-apartheid geographies as well as other constructs that could be related to the ecology and materiality of the city, for instance: radical incrementalism and recursive political empowerment (Pieterse, 2008), ‘the city yet to come’ and ‘emergent forms of social collaboration’ (Simone, 2004), performative citizenship, and quiet encroachment practices (Bayat, 1997). From this, we seek to explore the possibilities of developing a political ecology research agenda in the African city. We therefore invite contributions which articulate responses to these issues and show new research practices that can respond to a range of issues including: What does it mean to use urban political ecology in the African city? How can such a research practice articulate the contested politics of the African city and its relations to processes and spaces beyond a focal city or cities? What spaces, practices and organizational networks for emancipatory politics can be understood? What does it tell us about the nature of the political and the politics of “nature”? How does it link with notions of urban security and capacity of reorganization and resilience? Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: Housing, Water, Energy, Food, Waste, Technologies, Biodiversity & urban ‘green’ space, Social movements Please send abstracts up to a minimum of 250 words, proposed title and 5 keywords (clearly stating name, institution, and contact details) to Jonathan Silver: [log in to unmask] or Mary Lawhon [log in to unmask] _______________________________________________________ [log in to unmask] An urban geography discussion and announcement forum List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/URB-GEOG-FORUM Maintained by: RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group UGRG Home Page: http://www.urban-geography.org.uk