This proposed panel features new work that explores alternative paths of theorizing urban processes. Since around 2008, the field of global urban studies has seen a gradual paradigm shift. Neoliberalism has been increasingly called into question for its lack of explanatory power for processes of urban restructuring that do not conform to the model of post-Fordism and deindustrialization as seen in West Europe and North America since the 1970s. The critique is especially launched by postcolonial scholars, who value local particularities and question both economism and over-determinacy in conventional political economy analyses. However, many scholars working on cities in the global South find an uncomfortable theoretical fit with both neoliberalism and its postcolonial critiques. From a comparative perspective, the five papers explore new conceptual frameworks by examining housing, land, regional planning, and environmental issues in urbanizing regions in the global South.
Moderator: Xuefei Ren, Michigan State University
Towards Inclusive Cities: Strategies and Outcomes of Community Organizations Across Latin America and Africa Maureen Donaghy, Rutgers University, Camden; Jeffrey Paller, University of San Francisco
Agrarian Urbanisms: Locating Urbanisms Beyond the City Shubhra Guruani, York University
“Land Grabbing” in China and India: The Political Economy of Land Acquisition in an Autocracy and a Multi-Party Democracy Lynette Ong, University of Toronto
Up in the Air: Clean Air Campaigns in Beijing and Delhi Xuefei Ren, Michigan State University
The Greater Bay Area in China: A New Paradigm or Old Wine? Lin Ye, Sun Yat-Sen University