CPF: Urban and regional political economy stream, IIPPE conf, May 2011

We are the initial coordinators of a Working Group of the IIPPE in ‘Urban and
Regional Political Economy’, which we are in the process of setting up.  Please
see below for the aims and organisation of this working group. 

We wish to organise a stream in ‘Urban and regional political economy’ at the
International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy Conference in
Istanbul, 20-22 May 2011.  The conference website is
http://www.iippe.org/wiki/Second_International_Conference_in_Political_Economy.
 We welcome papers on any aspects of the political economy of localities and
regions.   This includes analysis from a political economy perspective not only
of 'economic' and 'political' issues but also 'social' and 'cultural' ones. 

The deadline for submission of both streams and individual abstracts to IIPPE is
15 February 2011.  If you would like to give a paper as part of our proposed
stream, please send one of us an abstract of up to 250 words by 31 January
2011.  We will then put together one or more sessions, and inform you of the
composition of the stream by 4 February.  

Please submit your abstract directly to IIPPE at
http://www.iippe.org/wiki/Abstract_Submission  by 15 February. 

Best wishes, 

Jamie Gough 
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Ozlem Celik 
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Department of Town and Regional Planning, Sheffield University, England

International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy

A new Working Group: 

Urban and Regional Political Economy

22 Dec 10
Aims

The aim of this group is to foster intellectual and political exchange and
collaboration between researchers using a radical political economy approach to
the study of localities of sub-national scale.  ‘Localities’ here denotes
scales from neighbourhood through village, town, city and rural district to
region.  We take it as obvious that society at these scales cannot be analysed
separately from society at national and global scales.  But there are important
social relations and processes which are enacted in part within the local
scale, and these relations and processes differ in major ways between
localities, even localities within the same country.  These locally-enacted and
locally-distinct social processes will be a focus for the group’s work.  But so
too will be the relations, processes and structures which link localities with
larger-scale territories.  The group is interested in fostering work which
highlights the internal relations between space – territory, distance, scale –
and social processes, and the way in which social actors use space.  

We are interested in bringing together researchers and research in both the
Majority World and the imperialist countries.  We wish to include work on
diverse aspects of the political economy of localities, including – 

* the social processes and relations of the monetised ‘economy’, waged and
unwaged work, the reproduction of people within homes and neighbourhoods using
commodity consumption and public services, associated cultures of work and
social life, popular collective organisations, and the interventions of the
state; and   

* the sites and spaces of industries, public and private services, domestic
work, housing, transport, the built and natural environment, public space, and
the state. 

We are particularly interested in fostering work which crosses and links these
aspects and draws out their internal relations.  

Even before the global economic crisis, the majority of the world’s population
faced severe, if differentiated, problems enacted and experienced at the local
scale, and there have been a wealth of struggles organised at least partly at
local scales.  Since the crisis, these problems and the struggles against them
have intensified.  The intention of this working group is to analyse these
local aspects and sites of exploitation and oppression, and contribute to the
struggles against them.  

Initial work of the group

1.  Signing up members

In January 2011 we will set up an email group in Gmail for communications within
the Urban and Regional Working Group.  We will send out an email to existing
contacts when we do this.  We will publicise the group through IIPPE, INURA,
left academic sites in geography and urbanism, and Historical Materialism,
Capital and Class and other journals.  

2.  Posting members’ interests

The group’s website will host a list of members’ interests in the field of local
political economy.  We hope this will foster interchanges and collaborations. 


3.  Conference sessions

The group can be a medium for organising sessions on local political economy at
suitable conferences.  In the short term, we are organising a session at the
May 2011 IIPPE conference in Istanbul.

4.  Other activities

The initial coordinators would welcome suggestions for – and work to coordinate
– other activities.   

Contact information

We welcome offers to join the contact/organising group.  We would like to
develop a division of labour within the contact group.  The group coordinators
will include researchers in both the Majority World and the imperialist
countries.  We aim at a gender balance.  

The initial coordinators are:

Jamie Gough and Ozlem Celik, 
Department of Town and Regional Planning, Sheffield University, England

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Dr Jamie Gough,
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Town and Regional Planning,
Sheffield University, 
Winter Street,
Sheffield, 
S10 2TN
0114 222 6909 (direct line)

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