201112 - Toward a Global Urban Sociology

Seminar Cities are back in town

Thursday 12 November 2020, 5.30 – 7 pm CET, Sciences Po, Webinar (Compulsory registration)

Starting from the structural differences that set many Global South cities apart from cities of the North-West, Marco Garrido and Liza Weinstein state that depicting and understanding cities of the South through a standard urban sociology vocabulary can conjure representations that are not fitting nor adequate. In a special issue of City & Community, Marco Garrido and Liza Weinstein aim at contributing to the construction of a more relevant vocabulary by unsettling our established understandings of urban sociology keywords with respect to the experience of cities in the Global South. In her contribution, Weinstein offers to reconstruct our understanding of the word eviction using empirical evidence from South Africa and India. Garrido chooses to 'open up' the meaning of the term segregation in the light of socio-spatial exclusion dynamics at work in Metro Manila. Both scholars will join us to present their own attempt at carving an appropriate vocabulary for the discipline and go deeper into their respective take on the development of a truly global urban sociology.

Speakers:

Marco Garrido, Assistant Professor, The University of Chicago, Department of Sociology 

Marco Garrido's work has focused on the relationship between the urban poor and middle class in Manila as located in slums and upper- and middle-class enclaves. His project has been to connect this relationship with urban structure on the one hand and political dissensus on the other. In the process, he highlights the role of class in shaping urban space, social life, and politics. His research has resulted in several articles: on segregation in the form of the interspersion of slums and residential enclaves; on the urban poor’s support for populism; on the relationship between spatial and social boundaries; and on developing an urban sociology focused on cities in the Global South. This work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Qualitative Sociology, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. More recently, he published a book entitled The Patchwork City (The University of Chicago Press, 2019).

Liza Weinstein, Associate Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Department Chair

Liza Weinstein researches and teaches on cities and globalization, urban political economy, and the politics of informality with a regional focus on India. Her work has appeared in Politics & Society, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and City & Community, and numerous edited volumes. Her 2014 book, The Durable Slum: Dharavi and the Right to Stay Put

in Globalizing Mumbai (University of Minnesota Press), examines the Indian state’s changing response to residential informality in the context of economic globalization and global city formation.

Discussion: Sukriti Issar, Sciences Po, OSC 

For more information: citiesarebackintown@sciencespo.fr