Robinson, Jennifer, 1963-
Comparative urbanism : tactics for global urban studies / Jennifer Robinson. - 1 online resource (xii, 449 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color) - - IJURR studies in urban and social change book series. . - IJURR studies in urban and social change book series. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Preface Preface ix
Introduction 1
Part I Reformatting Comparison 23
1 Ways of Knowing the Global Urban 25
Uncertain Territories, ‘Strategic Essentialisms’: Regions, the Global South and beyond 27
The Disappearing City: Planetary Urbanisation and its Critics 35
Decolonial, Developmental, Emergent: Different Starting Points, or Incomparability? 41
Dimensions of a Comparative Urban Imagination 47
Conclusion 50
2 The Limits of Comparative Methodologies in Urban Studies 53
Some Analytical Limits to the ‘World’ of Cities: Beyond Incommensurability 54
Conventional Strategies for Comparison in Urban Studies 57
The Potential of Comparative Research 69
Conclusion 76
3 Comparative Urbanism in the Archives: Thinking with Variety, Thinking with Connections 79
Expanding the Comparative Gesture 80
Thinking with Variety 83
Stretching Comparisons: Thinking with Connections 91
Conclusion 104
4 Thinking Cities through Elsewhere: Reformatting Comparison 107
Thinking with Concrete Totalities 108
Singularities, Repeated Instances, Concepts 119
Genetic and Generative Grounds for Urban Comparisons 125
Conclusion: From Grounds to Tactics 128
Part II Genetic Comparisons 135
5 Connections 137
Connections as Urbanisation Processes 138
Connections Producing Repeated Instances 146
Every Case Matters 154
Conclusion 159
6 Relations 161
Wider Processes 164
Urban Neoliberalisation, Comparatively 171
Connected Contexts 186
More Spatialities of the Urban: Topologies, Partial Connections, Submarine Relations 191
Conclusion 195
Part III Generative Comparisons 199
7 Generating Concepts 201
The Conceptualising Subject: Institutions, Horizons, Grounds 204
A Life of Concepts: Ideal Types 217
Thinking the ‘Concrete’ 230
Negotiated Universals: Concepts ‘In-common’ 235
Conclusion 243
8 Composing Comparisons 247
Working with ‘Conjuncture’ 249
Conceptualising from Specificity 263
Thinking across Diversity 271
Conclusion 276
9 Conversations 279
Shifting Grounds: Comparison as Practice 280
Comparison as Conversations 284
Theoretical Reflections 292
Mobile Concepts, or ‘Arriving at’ Concepts 295
Conclusion 301
Part IV Thinking from the Urban as Distinctive 305
10 Territories 307
Thinking from Territories 308
Which Territorialisations? 312
Assembling Territories 320
Conclusion 325
11 Into the Territory, or, the Urban as Idea 329
Detachment 331
Suturing 336
Standstill 340
Ideas 346
Informality, as Idea 357
Conclusion 362
Conclusion: Starting Anywhere, Thinking with (Elsew)here 369
A Reformatted Urban Comparison 370
Conceptualisation 376
An Explosion of Urban Studies 383
References 387
Index 441
Available to OhioLINK libraries.
"Urban studies has gone global - in the range of cities it considers, the scope of its theoretical ambition, and the breadth of practical concerns which now frame urban research. New topics, new subjects of theorisation and new centres of analytical innovation shape the field. The last decade has seen a significant transformation in the terms of the analysis of urbanisation and of the territories thought of as urban across the world. Many more places and processes are being brought into analytical conversation. Nonetheless, there is a keen awareness of the challenges of constituting a global field of urban studies. Shifts in the dynamic sites of rapid global urbanisation to Asia and Africa, along with the great diversity of forms of urban settlement, and the increasingly world-wide impacts of urbanisation processes, have led many urbanists to propose a renewal, if not a fundamental transformation, in urban theory. Many acknowledge this as a moment to confront head on the impossible object of the city, whose boundaries are perhaps even more indistinct than ever. The traditional object of urban studies is arguably disappearing in the face of sprawling urban settlements and "planetary" urbanisation processes. Cities, centres and suburbs become useless residual concepts, which must be used with circumspection and care. The field is in search of new vocabularies to engage with the extraordinary explosion and variety of urban forms - not just sprawling or extended, regional or mega, scholars reach for terms such as galactic and planetary to invoke the physical expansion and world-wide impact of urbanisation. There is much to think about here, and this book will contribute to how we can re-build theorisations in engagement with these trends. In this light, a series of methodological and epistemological dilemmas face all urbanists and require creative and new responses. How can concepts be reviewed, renovated, overthrown or invented across diverse urban outcomes? How can urban theory work effectively with different cases, thinking with the diversity of the urban world? How can the complexity of the urban be addressed with concepts which are necessarily always reductionist? Concepts are inevitably confined by those who articulate them to always begin somewhere, to be spoken always in some particular voice - and yet concepts must grapple with the inexhaustibility of social and material worlds. And what happens when concepts run aground, unable to speak to distinctive urban worlds?"--
Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography, University College London, UK. She is the author of Ordinary Cities, a seminal work which developed a postcolonial critique of urban studies. Her empirical research in South Africa examined the history of apartheid cities and the politics of post-apartheid city-visioning, while her comparative research has considered urban development politics in London, Shanghai and Johannesburg, and transnational circuits shaping African urbanisation.
9781119697510 9781119697589 1119697581 9781119697572 1119697573 9781119697565 1119697565
Cities and towns--Study and teaching.
Sociology, Urban--Study and teaching.
Urbanization--Study and teaching.
Electronic books.
HT109 / .R54 2022
307.76071
Comparative urbanism : tactics for global urban studies / Jennifer Robinson. - 1 online resource (xii, 449 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color) - - IJURR studies in urban and social change book series. . - IJURR studies in urban and social change book series. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Preface Preface ix
Introduction 1
Part I Reformatting Comparison 23
1 Ways of Knowing the Global Urban 25
Uncertain Territories, ‘Strategic Essentialisms’: Regions, the Global South and beyond 27
The Disappearing City: Planetary Urbanisation and its Critics 35
Decolonial, Developmental, Emergent: Different Starting Points, or Incomparability? 41
Dimensions of a Comparative Urban Imagination 47
Conclusion 50
2 The Limits of Comparative Methodologies in Urban Studies 53
Some Analytical Limits to the ‘World’ of Cities: Beyond Incommensurability 54
Conventional Strategies for Comparison in Urban Studies 57
The Potential of Comparative Research 69
Conclusion 76
3 Comparative Urbanism in the Archives: Thinking with Variety, Thinking with Connections 79
Expanding the Comparative Gesture 80
Thinking with Variety 83
Stretching Comparisons: Thinking with Connections 91
Conclusion 104
4 Thinking Cities through Elsewhere: Reformatting Comparison 107
Thinking with Concrete Totalities 108
Singularities, Repeated Instances, Concepts 119
Genetic and Generative Grounds for Urban Comparisons 125
Conclusion: From Grounds to Tactics 128
Part II Genetic Comparisons 135
5 Connections 137
Connections as Urbanisation Processes 138
Connections Producing Repeated Instances 146
Every Case Matters 154
Conclusion 159
6 Relations 161
Wider Processes 164
Urban Neoliberalisation, Comparatively 171
Connected Contexts 186
More Spatialities of the Urban: Topologies, Partial Connections, Submarine Relations 191
Conclusion 195
Part III Generative Comparisons 199
7 Generating Concepts 201
The Conceptualising Subject: Institutions, Horizons, Grounds 204
A Life of Concepts: Ideal Types 217
Thinking the ‘Concrete’ 230
Negotiated Universals: Concepts ‘In-common’ 235
Conclusion 243
8 Composing Comparisons 247
Working with ‘Conjuncture’ 249
Conceptualising from Specificity 263
Thinking across Diversity 271
Conclusion 276
9 Conversations 279
Shifting Grounds: Comparison as Practice 280
Comparison as Conversations 284
Theoretical Reflections 292
Mobile Concepts, or ‘Arriving at’ Concepts 295
Conclusion 301
Part IV Thinking from the Urban as Distinctive 305
10 Territories 307
Thinking from Territories 308
Which Territorialisations? 312
Assembling Territories 320
Conclusion 325
11 Into the Territory, or, the Urban as Idea 329
Detachment 331
Suturing 336
Standstill 340
Ideas 346
Informality, as Idea 357
Conclusion 362
Conclusion: Starting Anywhere, Thinking with (Elsew)here 369
A Reformatted Urban Comparison 370
Conceptualisation 376
An Explosion of Urban Studies 383
References 387
Index 441
Available to OhioLINK libraries.
"Urban studies has gone global - in the range of cities it considers, the scope of its theoretical ambition, and the breadth of practical concerns which now frame urban research. New topics, new subjects of theorisation and new centres of analytical innovation shape the field. The last decade has seen a significant transformation in the terms of the analysis of urbanisation and of the territories thought of as urban across the world. Many more places and processes are being brought into analytical conversation. Nonetheless, there is a keen awareness of the challenges of constituting a global field of urban studies. Shifts in the dynamic sites of rapid global urbanisation to Asia and Africa, along with the great diversity of forms of urban settlement, and the increasingly world-wide impacts of urbanisation processes, have led many urbanists to propose a renewal, if not a fundamental transformation, in urban theory. Many acknowledge this as a moment to confront head on the impossible object of the city, whose boundaries are perhaps even more indistinct than ever. The traditional object of urban studies is arguably disappearing in the face of sprawling urban settlements and "planetary" urbanisation processes. Cities, centres and suburbs become useless residual concepts, which must be used with circumspection and care. The field is in search of new vocabularies to engage with the extraordinary explosion and variety of urban forms - not just sprawling or extended, regional or mega, scholars reach for terms such as galactic and planetary to invoke the physical expansion and world-wide impact of urbanisation. There is much to think about here, and this book will contribute to how we can re-build theorisations in engagement with these trends. In this light, a series of methodological and epistemological dilemmas face all urbanists and require creative and new responses. How can concepts be reviewed, renovated, overthrown or invented across diverse urban outcomes? How can urban theory work effectively with different cases, thinking with the diversity of the urban world? How can the complexity of the urban be addressed with concepts which are necessarily always reductionist? Concepts are inevitably confined by those who articulate them to always begin somewhere, to be spoken always in some particular voice - and yet concepts must grapple with the inexhaustibility of social and material worlds. And what happens when concepts run aground, unable to speak to distinctive urban worlds?"--
Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography, University College London, UK. She is the author of Ordinary Cities, a seminal work which developed a postcolonial critique of urban studies. Her empirical research in South Africa examined the history of apartheid cities and the politics of post-apartheid city-visioning, while her comparative research has considered urban development politics in London, Shanghai and Johannesburg, and transnational circuits shaping African urbanisation.
9781119697510 9781119697589 1119697581 9781119697572 1119697573 9781119697565 1119697565
Cities and towns--Study and teaching.
Sociology, Urban--Study and teaching.
Urbanization--Study and teaching.
Electronic books.
HT109 / .R54 2022
307.76071