Monika Streule

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 48.3, 275–291. DOI: 10.1177/03091325241228600

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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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