For urban studies, after more than a century, the question as to what is “urban” remains a vital framing for theoretical enquiries. In the current moment of explosive, fragmented and arguably planetary urbanisation, some quite fundamental lines of enquiry emerge, like, what and where are the territories of urbanisation? To discern what “urban” might be, to conceptualise the urban, is to give up on many inherited assumptions, and to reckon with a highly varied formation globally. This talk will explore one line of response to this: a revitalised comparativism, as explored in Comparative Urbanism (2022, Wiley-Blackwell), and a different treatment of concepts, as light, emergent, and revisable, rather than burdened with authoritative weight or anachronistic terminology. It will activate the potential for generating new concepts across the diversity of urban life and displacing inherited, parochial terms, motivating to start urban studies from African contexts. The talk will reflect on how the distinctive (and pressing) experiences of African urbanisation might be considered not as exceptions which need segmented theorisation, but as starting points for theorising global urbanisation, prioritising the voices and insights of African scholars. The presentation will take as an example a current collective research project which has drawn us to propose to refocus analyses of urban development politics around the concept of transcalarity, highlighting the powerful role of central government actors and questioning the meaning of stateness. The analysis starts from an African context but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents.
Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography at University College London and co-Director of UCL Urban Laboratory. Previously she has worked at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the LSE and the Open University. Her book, Ordinary Cities (Routledge, 2006) developed a post-colonial critique of urban studies. Her new book, Comparative Urbanism: Tactics for Global Urban Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), proposes new methodological foundations for urban studies, which are further developed in the Routledge Handbook of Comparative Global Urban Studies, co-edited with Patrick Le Galès. Earlier empirical research explored the history of apartheid cities, and the politics of post-apartheid city-visioning. Current empirical projects focus on the politics of large-scale urban developments (London, Johannesburg, Shanghai) and the transnational circuits shaping African urbanisation (Accra, Dar es Salaam, Lilongwe).
Co-sponsored with DCRP. No RSVP is required.