Urban political ecology: a critical reconfiguration

Gandy, Matthew

doi:10.1177/03091325211040553

Cited by 52 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 172 publications

(159 reference statements)

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“…Urban nature is multilayered and exists across a range of scales and degrees of human management (Bratman et al, 2012;Gandy, 2022a). Contradictions can emerge from the dissociation of "nature" from "non-nature, " as well as of "human" from "nonhuman" (Gandy, 2010(Gandy, , 2022b. However, this demarcation here supports the understanding of the way they perceive, approach, and support non-human nature in the process of producing urban spaces.…”

Section: Definitions and Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Co-building trust in urban nature: Learning from participatory design and construction of Nature-Based Solutions in informal settlements in East Africa

Diep

Mulligan²,

Oloo³

et al. 2022

Front. Sustain. Cities

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While the amount of research on NBS is growing rapidly, there is a lack of evidence on community experiences of NBS design and implementation, particularly from low-income and informal settlements of African cities. This article adds new empirical evidence in this space through grounded analysis of NBS “niche” projects co-developed by intermediary organizations and communities in five sites across three settlements in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Findings are organized around four established NBS knowledge gaps: (1) NBS-society relations; (2) Design; (3) Implementation; (4) Effectiveness. We find that across the five studied sites, residents' perceptions and valuation of urban nature has changed through processes of co-design and co-implementation, enabling community ownership of projects, and hence playing a crucial role in NBS effectiveness over time. The integration of gray components into green infrastructure to create hybrid systems has proven necessary to meet physical constraints and communities' urgent needs such as flood mitigation. However, maintenance responsibilities and cost burdens are persisting issues that highlight the complex reality of NBS development in informal settlements. The cases highlight key considerations for actors involved in NBS development to support the replication, scaling up and institutionalization of NBS. These include the need to: (i) develop forms of engagement that align with co-production values; (ii) capture communities' own valuation of and motivations with NBS development for integration into design; (iii) elaborate technical guidance for hybrid green-gray infrastructure systems that can be constructed with communities; and (iv) help define and establish structures for maintenance responsibilities (especially governmental vs. civil society) that will enhance the environmental stewardship of public spaces.

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Section: Definitions and Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Co-building trust in urban nature: Learning from participatory design and construction of Nature-Based Solutions in informal settlements in East Africa

Diep

Mulligan²,

Oloo³

et al. 2022

Front. Sustain. Cities

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“…While various studies use UPE to examine urban infrastructures of, for instance, water, electricity, and food supply (for an overview, see Gandy, 2022), there are few articles exploring questions of urban heating from a UPE perspective (see Bouzarovski, 2022;Bridge et al, 2018;Moss et al, 2016). Such analyses have not yet connected the spheres of urban heating and housing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Heat Transition in Berlin: Corporate Strategies, Political Conflicts, and Just Solutions

Sander

Weißermel²

2023

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In the field of urban climate policy, heat production and demand are key sectors for achieving a sustainable city. Heat production has to shift from fossil to renewable energies, and the heat demand of most buildings has to be reduced significantly via building retrofits. However, analyses of heat transition still lack its contextualization within entangled urban politico-economic processes and materialities and require critical socio-theoretical examination. Asking about the embeddedness of heat transition within social relations and its implications for social justice issues, this article discusses the challenges and opportunities of heat transition, taking Berlin as an example. It uses an urban political ecology perspective to analyze the materialities of Berlin’s heating-housing nexus, its politico-economic context, implications for relations of inequality and power, and its contested strategies. The empirical analysis identifies major disputes about the future trajectory of heat production and about the distribution of retrofit costs. Using our conceptual approach, we discuss these empirical findings against the idea of a more just heat transition. For this purpose, we discuss three policy proposals regarding cost distribution, urban heat planning, and remunicipalization of heat utilities. We argue that this conceptual approach provides huge benefits for debates around heat transition and, more generally, energy justice and just transitions.

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“…For instance, the courts have operated in authoritarian contexts to dominate opposition, maintain power among elites, contain majoritarian institutions, and channel divisive politics to the courts (Bali 2012; Barros 2016; Moustafa 2014). Yet, they can also empower social movements and political action focused on corporate accountability or questions of culpability and legal liability (Bosworth 2019; Gandy 2022). The environmental justice movement in the United States and beyond has utilised courts in various ways to advocate for the fair and equitable distribution of environmental goods and bads (Bullard 1990; Pulido et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Judicialising Urban Political Ecologies: Post‐Politics and Environmental Governance in South Asia

Mehmood

Cousins

2022

Antipode

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Legal and judicial mediation and arbitration significantly influence who has access and control over resources. Taking insights from post‐political debates in political ecology and discussions at the intersection of critical legal geography and political ecology, we focus on the production of judicial ecologies. Through case studies on waste management in India, water governance in Pakistan, and urban air pollution in Bangladesh, we describe how political‐ecological questions get transferred to the courts. We describe this as a process of political bonsaification—a process that shifts political questions to the courts and contains political action to legal and technocratic forums. Our aim is to stimulate research on how courts and legal institutions form judicial ecologies by setting, enforcing, or ignoring rules that influence human–environment interactions. Understanding how judicial and legal systems intersect across class, race, gender, and different political‐ecological contexts, we argue, is the aim of research in judicial ecology.

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Urban political ecology: a critical reconfiguration

Cited by 52 publications

References 172 publications

Co-building trust in urban nature: Learning from participatory design and construction of Nature-Based Solutions in informal settlements in East Africa

Co-building trust in urban nature: Learning from participatory design and construction of Nature-Based Solutions in informal settlements in East Africa

Urban Heat Transition in Berlin: Corporate Strategies, Political Conflicts, and Just Solutions

Judicialising Urban Political Ecologies: Post‐Politics and Environmental Governance in South Asia

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