To extend: Temporariness in a world of itineraries

Abstract

Recent urban analysis has emphasised the ‘big moves’ – planetary scales, extensive processes, major actors, mega-developments and substantial financial flows – important in accounting for a seemingly all-encompassing urbanisation. Still, significant volumes of the urban environment have historically been shaped by the collaborative efforts of residents and their associative institutions. These were collaborations largely operating without formal contracts or consensus, piecing together concrete places capable of holding different practices and sentiments and, as such, rarely became sedentary, even if conditions and power relations might have appeared fixed. These forms included and exceeded clear demarcations of entities (individual, household, social), with, for example, the operations of the digital media increasingly beyond the apprehension of human cognition, making it increasingly unclear ‘who is the what that does something to whom.’ As a result, the terms and economies of such collaborations amongst residents – their acts of autoconstruction – have become more complex and precarious, particularly as residents emphasise the importance of mobility, flexible commitments and individual aspirations. Hence, urban environments are elaborated in ways not captivated by plans, measures or even advanced computational analyses, and there are many ways that residents continue to operate in concert but without discernible mobilisation or organisation. Focusing on temporariness – not as a specific sector or set of practices but as a constellation of efforts to generate something of value – and drawing upon fieldwork across different sites in Indonesia, this lecture explores the new terrain of urban invention by poor, working and lower middle-class residents in the wake of its purported demise.

Imagining Cities of Inclusion—Formulating Spaces of Justice

“…This issue also questions conventional assumptions of the omnipotence of hegemonic structures of governance, highlighting people's strategies of reinterpreting hierarchical modes of planning, and resisting uneven ways of governing through claim-making, negotiation, escaping, and situational spontaneity (Meehan, 2013;Nygren, 2016;Roy, 2011;Simone, 2020;Sletto & Nygren, 2016). It presents attempts to (re)claim urban spaces, develop alternative forms of urbanism, and influence the urban fabric with subaltern discourses and practices, revealing the cities not only as products of formal planning and technocratic engineering, but also of resistance and improvisation (de Boeck, 2011;Simone, 2010).…”

Of political entrepreneurs: Assembling community and social capital in Hyderabad’s informal settlements

“…In assembling individuals for various projects, Chand draws on the resources offered by their caste-affiliation and their political affiliation to add weight to the task at hand, and he also takes into account physical resources such as motorbikes, business connections, etc. Thus, the neighbourhood becomes a ‘field of improvisations’ (Simone, 2020), not only because Chand has to navigate multiple political interests but also because of a firm economic constraint of resources, where the cost of a more stable organisation and planning, and implementing more well-defined projects might be too high. For example, throughout 2015, at the expense of an international NGO called saciWaters, BVM had an office in Bholakpur.…”

“…While many studies emphasise the agency of these actors in activating social capital or in facilitating access to public goods, I argue that their work has to be situated in the context of informal settlements and livelihoods. It has been argued that residents in such situations forego hopes of stable networks and access to resources because the perceived costs are ‘too high, whether measured monetarily or in terms of strategic advantages’ (Simone, 2020: 7). Thus, the narratives I present are punctuated by experiences of structural limits and obstacles and remarks about their emotional toll.…”

“…Literally: Slum Development Platform). Although my analysis is limited by its focus on two male actors with similar socio-religious backgrounds, it contributes to a rich literature on practices of political entrepreneurialism which has studied actors with a range of gender, race, caste identities (Auyero, 2001; Elyachar, 2005; Simone, 2020; Williams et al, 2015). Further, my extended temporal perspective sheds light on the patterns of political entrepreneurialism which are harder to discern using synchronic qualitative or survey research methods.…”

Urban planning and climate transition post Covid-19. A case study of Athens, Greece

“…Planning, public administra:on, and public policy link the delimita:on of land use and land cover, and in general land policy, with that of administra:ve competence (e.g., Marshall et al, 2020;Lagopoulos, 2018;Schmic and Wiechmann, 2018;Taşan-Kok et al, 2020). A theore:cal and prac:cal problem is the asymmetry between input, throughput, output, and outcome of an administra:ve act, an itera:on of the problem of the asymmetry between the geographical jurisdic:on of administra:ve division and policy impact, or, in general terms, the delimita:on of spa:al units for analysis and/or regula:on (e.g., Freemark et al, 2020;Granqvist et al, 2020;Hirschl, 2020;Pan et al, 2020;Pistor, 2017;Sassen, 2018;Simone, 2020). Such asymmetries link to 'territorialism', the ideology of the hierarchical, poli:cal-administra:ve division of space, and the precondi:ons of it, geographical cons:tuency and state monopoly on the use of force, and the absolute (in contrast to rela:ve) concep:on of space as a container (in contrast to network) (Faludi, 2018).…”