Planetary urbanization: An urban theory for our time?

Abstract

In our engagement with Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid’s thesis on planetary urbanization we argue that, while they have successfully marked some important limits of mainstream thinking on the urban, their privileging of epistemology cannot produce an urban theory for our time. Engaging in a symptomatic reading of their work, and with a focus on the implications of their limited mobilization of social ontology—or Lefebvre’s ontology of the everyday—we ask what is occluded in planetary urbanization. In particular, we explore three areas of concern: the urban as the grounds for difference, centrality and the everyday; the omission of subjects of and occlusion of subjectivity; and the occlusion of a constitutive outside and its political capacities to remake the urban.

Transforming rural light and dark under planetary urbanisation: Comparing ordinary countrysides in India and the UK

“…Ruddick et al. argue that it is difficult “to locate either subjects or the process of subjectivation” (, p. 396) in much of the work; we would point to the foundational Implosions/Explosions edited collection as illustrative of this (Brenner, ). Ruddick and colleagues call for “a social ontology of the urban” (p. 388), which accounts for people's everyday experiences and struggles, to enhance the theories of planetary urbanisation.…”

“…First, because changes in lighting practices draw attention to the role that the countryside is now playing in technological innovation and experimentation. Second, because the emergence of theories of planetary urbanisation raise the question of the role of the countryside in a progressively urban world (Brenner & Schmidt, ; Ruddick et al., ). Specifically, it causes us to ask how cities and countryside come together (or not) to form global environmental and economic systems; in this paper, we argue that the countryside becomes an increasingly infrastructural space, but not necessarily an urban one.…”

China's Belt and Road Initiative and the emerging geographies of global urbanisation

“…In the broadest sense, commentators have questioned both the originality of the argument and its efficacy in developing new ideas for emancipatory or progressive forms of urbanisation (Ruddick et al, 2018;Shaw, 2015;Walker, 2015). In the broadest sense, commentators have questioned both the originality of the argument and its efficacy in developing new ideas for emancipatory or progressive forms of urbanisation (Ruddick et al, 2018;Shaw, 2015;Walker, 2015).…”

“…While the planetary urbanisation concept has certainly been influential in shaping urban theory, it has also received a great deal of criticism. In the broadest sense, commentators have questioned both the originality of the argument and its efficacy in developing new ideas for emancipatory or progressive forms of urbanisation (Ruddick et al, 2018;Shaw, 2015;Walker, 2015). Indeed, Schindler (2017) argues that the discourse around planetary urbanisation, in its prioritisation of grand theory, has tended to overlook multiple and contradictory forms of urbanisation, particularly in the so-called global South, and gives no conceptual room to account for differences in lived experience.…”

Irregular Connections: Everyday Energy Politics in Catalonia

“…Building on Lefebvre, Ruddick et al . () have recently made the case for what they term ‘a social ontology of the urban’ that emphasizes the role of everyday life in producing urban space and its ‘constitutive outsides’. Ruddick et al .…”