Introduction: Generating concepts of ‘the urban’ through comparative practice

Abstract

This Introduction to the special issue, ‘ Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’, outlines the basis for a reformatted comparative method inspired by the complex spatialities of the urban world. The articles in the volume each bring forward innovative approaches to comparative methods which support wider conceptualisations of urban processes and urban experiences. The articles in this volume consider a wide range of urban contexts and collectively move beyond geopolitically imprecise propositions of ‘southern’ urbanism to embrace the wider comparative agenda of thinking with both the diversity and the profound interconnectedness of the urban globally. The articles contribute to decentring urban studies, opening conceptualisation to a range of different contexts and differently positioned writers. They also speak to the analytical and methodological challenges posed by current trends in global urbanisation, as dispersed, fragmented and extending over vast territories. Thinking with the multiple elsewheres of any urban context invites a comparative imagination – this introduction draws together the creative ways in which authors in this volume have responded to this potential. Processes of conceptualisation both emerge from and more acutely reveal the spatiality and nature of the global urban: comparative method, then, also proposes a certain mode of theorisation of the urban.

Reimagining climate networking between cities: clustering cities based on a large dataset of mitigation actions

“…Despite potential concerns over the feasibility of knowledge exchange between cities across different socio-spatial contexts, cities are already acting beyond their socio-spatial context. We acknowledge that cities are connected through complex global and local processes and circuits beyond their socio-spatial contexts [13,24,53]. For example, we found Bangkok, Kisumu, Salvador, and San Isidro (Lima) similar (Cluster 5a), due to their focus on Waste and Communityscale development.…”

Los estudios comparativos en el campo de la investigación urbana

“…En términos generales, identificamos un cambio en el objetivo de las comparaciones, pasando de la observación de paradigmas o modelos de ciudad y teorías generales, a la predominancia de estudios sobre relaciones locales y procesos. De esta manera, se dejan de estudiar las manifestaciones de una tipología o teoría general de la ciudad para prestar atención a procesos sociales en su contexto específico, analizando las conexiones y relaciones que caracterizan a las urbes contemporáneas (Brill, 2022;Robinson, 2022;Ward, 2010). Como un ejemplo, mientras que en un momento inicial la comparación contribuiría a construir un modelo general de ciudades latinoamericanas, dominada por paradigmas teóricos, rápidamente esto fue matizado al contar con información empírica sobre esas ciudades, como una familia de casos, sin restarle importancia al papel del contexto histórico y social para cada una de ellas.…”

HOUSING INFORMALITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: Insights from a Policy Comparison between Accra and Buenos Aires

“…On this note, comparison as a 'strategy' (McFarlane, 2010) enables urban scholars to develop international urban studies, as these practices help them to 'build wider insights across a diversity of urban experiences and urban territories' (Robinson, 2022). The purpose thereof is to use the outcomes of the comparison to contribute to 'broader conceptualizations and conversations about (aspects of ) the urban' (Robinson, 2016b).…”