Please see our CFP below, noting the revised abstract deadline of February 9th, and circulate within your networks if applicable. Apologies for cross-postings.
Call for Papers: Urbanization, Cityness, and the Site Multiple – Urban Political Ecology Beyond Methodological Cityism (Sponsored by the Urban Geography Research Group)
Conveners: Ingrid Behrsin (Geography Graduate Group, University of California, Davis) Creighton Connolly (School of Environment, Education & Development, University of Manchester)
According to Angelo and Wachsmuth (2014), Urban Political Ecology (UPE) started with two main projects through which it aimed to contribute to urban theory. First, it sought to put forth a theory of urbanization that attends to “the dynamic internal relationships between humans and nature that produce socio-natural entanglements” manifest in cities (Heynen et al. 2006, 7). Yet, Angelo and Wachsmuth (2014, 5) assert, UPE has to-date fallen flat of its second ambition, namely to interrogate “urbanization as a set of processes that are not reducible to the city.” Crucially, the authors argue, UPE research has tended to be methodologically tied to ‘the city’ as discrete, bounded site, rather than focused on urbanization as a more dynamic process. This session intends to both critically evaluate and engage with Angelo and Wachsmuth’s provocative call for Urban Political Ecology to move beyond ‘methodological cityism’ and parallel ventures in urban theory that aim to investigate or teach urbanization processes. For example, heuristics such as ‘the site multiple’ (Lepawsky et al. 2014) and ‘cityness’ (Simone 2010) have emerged as productive concepts with the potential to push urban research beyond methodological cityism and ‘metrocentricity’ (Bunnell and Maringanti 2010). We thus invite contributions that adopt an Urban Political Ecology approach to engage, empirically and methodologically, with urbanization beyond the limits of the city or metropolitan region.
Please email abstracts of no more than 250 words to Ingrid Behrsin ([log in to unmask]) and Creighton Connolly ([log in to unmask]) by February 9th for consideration.
References: · Angelo, H., and D. Wachsmuth. 2014. “Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. · Bunnell, T., and A. Maringanti. 2010. “Practising Urban and Regional Research Beyond Metrocentricity” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 34(2): 415-20 · Heynen, N., M. Kaika, and E. Swyngedouw. 2006. “Urban Political Ecology: Politicizing the Production of Urban Nature.” In In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism, edited by Nick Heynen, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw, 1–20. Questioning Cities Series. London ; New York: Routledge. · Lepawsky, J., Akese, G., Billah, M., Connolly, C. and McNabb, C. 2014. "Composing Urban Orders from Rubbish Electronics: Cityness and the Site Multiple." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. · Simone, A.M.. 2010. City life from Jakarta to Dakar: movements at the crossroads. Routledge, New York, NY.
