Final Call for Papers, AAG 2016 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 29 March - 2 April 2016





*** Apologies for cross posting ***

Comparing Urban Geopolitics - Learning from Different Contested Cities

Session Organisers:


Jonathan Rokem, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London ([log in to unmask])

Camillo Boano, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London ([log in to unmask])

The rapid urbanisation of our world is one of the greatest societal transformations of the 21^stcentury, bringing with it new opportunities and challenges. Presently, as a result of mounting global urban protest and violence, there are significant debates as to the role of the welfare state, urban planning, and urban space as such, in addressing the challenges of social and spatial inequalities. One of the growing fields of research within urban studies and political geography in the last few decades is the role of planning in shaping ethnically contested urban space (see for example: Bollens, 2000; 2012; Calame and Charlesworth 2009; Gaffikin and Morrisey 2011; Pullan and Baillie, 2013). However most of the leading literature stems from cases in the Global North with limited examples from cities from other world regions (Roy 2009). This call for papers joins the topical call of the Global North's declining dominance in the production of urban theory and the need to move beyond methodological regionalism and incommensurability in urban studies research (Parnell and Oldfield 2014; Robinson 2014; Sheppard et al 2013; Watson 2013; Peck 2015). 



Critically focusing on what has traditionally been labeled as part of the ‘Global South’, this CfP’s main focus is that on the surface different kinds of cities share and are developing growing similarities stemming from ethnic, racial and class conflicts revolving around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity. We are particularly looking for papers that share a joint critical and comparative reading of urban geopolitics and planning in cities from different regional settings with the aim of learning through differences, rather than seeking out similarities (Robinson 2011) as part of a general call to investigate difference in comparative urban research (McFarlane and Robinson 2012).


The session’s main objective is to bring together a selected group of international case studies engaging with planning and urban geopolitics. In doing so, we seek to start learning from, and comparing across different cities - pointing to the growing need to re-think 'labels' and 'concepts' attributed to cities and neighborhoods, to better conceptualise and adapt policy and practice to ethnic minorities and migrants in an ever more fractured urban reality. Regional examples include (but are not exclusive to); South America, Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  

We invite papers that discuss and address (although not limited to) the following broad topics:

·      The role of urban geopolitics and planning in different contested neighbourhoods and cities from a comparative perspective.

·      Comparing how spatial policies, urban conflicts and divisions shape the identities and wellbeing of urban residents.

·      Comparing planning and its (lack of) promotion of spatial justice under extreme urban geopolitical conditions.

·      The shifting roles of the neoliberal economy, ethnicity and race in shaping urban geopolitics in different cities.

·      Learning from comparing urban geopolitics and planning across 'Northern' and 'Southern' cities.

The session is organised by Jonathan Rokem (The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London) and Camillo Boano (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London). 

Interested session participants should contact Jonathan Rokem ([log in to unmask]) and Camillo Boano ([log in to unmask]) by 15th October 2015 to indicate their interest in participating in the session. Please include your affiliation, a proposed title and a 250-word abstract.

Successful applicants will be contacted by the 20th of October 2015 and will be expected to pay the registration fee and submit their abstracts online at the AAG website by October 29th 2015.

Location: AAG 2016 Annual Meeting, San Francisco

Dates: 29 March - 2 April 2016



  

Conference website: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting

References cited

Bollens S. A. (2000) On Narrow Ground: Urban Policy and Ethnic Conflict in Jerusalem and Belfast. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Bollens S. A. (2012) City and Soul in Divided Societies. London and New York: Routledge.

Calame J. and Charlesworth E. (2009) Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar and Nicosia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Gaffikin F. and Morrisey M. (2011) Planning in Divided Cities. Wiley Blackwell: UK.

McFarlane C. and Robinson J. (2012) Introduction - Experiments in Comparative Urbanism, Urban Geography, Vol. 33 (6): 765–773.

Peck J. (2015) Cities beyond Compare? Regional Studies: The Journal of the Regional Studies Association, Vol. 49 (1-2): 160-18 

Pullan W. and Baillie B. (eds.) (2013) Locating Urban Conflicts - Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Everyday.  Palgrave Macmillan: London.

Parnell S. and Oldfield S (2014) Introduction, in Oldfield, S. and Parnell, S. (eds.): Handbook on Cities in the Global South, London: Routledge. 

Robinson J. (2014) New geographies of theorizing the urban: putting comparison to work for global urban studies. In Parnell S. and Oldfield S. (Eds) The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South: 57-70. Routledge: London.

Robinson J. (2011) Cities in a world of cities: the comparative gesture, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(1): 1–23.