Territorial subjectivities. The missing link between political subjectivity and territorialization

Progress in Human Geography – 2024

Political subjectivity and territorialization often appear disconnected in recent debates. We propose a fresh approach based on Latin American scholarship to understand subjects and territories as relational: Subjects are (de)stabilized in processes of territorialization, while territories are (de)stabilized in processes of subject formation. We introduce the concept of territorial subjectivities and use examples from the literature to show how these emerge in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and Dresden. Placing an analytical focus on becoming rather than being, the contingency of territorial subjectivities is key to this novel conceptual link that supports a differentiated reading of socio-territorial struggles in diverse geographical contexts.

Schwarz, Anke and Monika Streule (2024) Territorial subjectivities. The missing link between political subjectivity and territorialization. Progress in Human Geography, OnlineFirst. DOI: 10.1177/03091325241228600

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Vocabularies for an Urbanising Planet: Theory Building through Comparison

Birkhäuser – 2023

The speed, scale and scope of urbanisation have increased dramatically in recent decades. To decipher the rapidly changing urban territories across the planet, we need a radical shift in the analytical perspective on urbanisation.

In this book, a transdisciplinary international research team presents an expanded vocabulary of urbanisation processes through a comparison of Tokyo, Hong Kong – Shenzhen – Dongguan, Kolkata, Istanbul, Lagos, Paris, Mexico City and Los Angeles.

Based on a novel cartography and on detailed ethnographic and historical explorations, this book systematically analyses the diversity of responses to urgent contemporary urban challenges. It proposes a series of new concepts that allow us to assess the practical consequences of different urban strategies in everyday life.

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Vocabularies for an Urbanising Planet: Theory Building through Comparison (Birkhäuser, 2023) edited by Christian Schmid and Monika Streule. With contributions by Naomi Hanakata; Ozan Karaman; Anne Kockelkorn; Lindsay Sawyer; Christian Schmid; Monika Streule; Kit Ping Wong.

ISBN: 978-3-0356-2301-7

How to compare specificity, build concepts, and change theory: A creative methodology to grasp urbanization processes

FQS – 2023

In a range of comparative methods that have emerged in recent years, scholars were increasingly drawing on innovative approaches to engage with today’s diverse and complex urban worlds. Yet few researchers to date—in the field of urban studies or in spatial disciplines in general—have focused on the design and implementation of comparative inquiry. With this article, I seek to contribute to these current debates by presenting the specific methodology developed in the framework of the research project Patterns and Pathways of Planetary Urbanization. The main questions are: How can the spatiality of large urban territories be empirically studied? How can urbanization processes be analyzed comparatively? To tackle these questions, I focus on our experiences of putting the comparative procedure to work, drawing on a complementary set of ethnographic, cartographic, and historiographic methods useful for a creative, transdisciplinary, and more collaborative study of urbanization. I conclude with a call for a broad discussion of methodology and its theoretical implications by emphasizing the intrinsic link between crafting new methods and the generation of comparative concepts.

Streule, Monika (2023) How to compare specificity, build concepts, and change theory: A creative methodology to grasp urbanization processes. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 24(3), Art. 11. DOI: 10.17169/fqs-24.3.4016

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Decolonial Cities Beyond Justice

Decolonial Cities Collective – 2023

Decolonial Cities Collective’s first Dialogue event was a virtual conversation between Heather Dorries (University of Toronto) and Monika Streule (LSE), and Bobby Farnan (University of York) and Dena Qaddumi (LSE). In this dialogue, we discuss how centring the ‘decolonial city’ can pluralise conceptions of justice and the ‘good city’. In particular, we ask:

  • How do decolonial approaches shift conceptions of the ‘good city’?
  • How do distributive, procedural, and recognition justice frameworks inform and limit the horizon of the decolonial city?
  • How does centring decoloniality pluralise conceptions of justice in the city through registers such as abolition, care, indigeneity, and ecology?

Watch the video recording of the event here. The dialogue was held online on 19 April 2023, 15:00-16:30