Introduction: re-spatialising urban informality: reconsidering the spatial politics of street work in the global South

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilda Lindell
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
Spatial Politics

scholarly journals Urban informality as a signifier: Performing urban reordering in suburban Rio de Janeiro

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank I Müller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Global South ◽  
Gated Communities ◽  
Marginalized Populations ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
The Relationship

Urban informality is typically ascribed to the urban poor in cities of the Global South. Drawing on Judith Butler’s concept of performativity and taking the case of Rio de Janeiro in the context of the 2016 Olympic Games, this article conceptualizes informality as a signifier and a procedural, relational category. Specifically, it shows how different class actors have employed the signifier informality (1) to legitimize the confinement of marginalized populations; (2) to justify the organized efforts of the upper middle class to protect their ‘self-enclosed’ gated communities; and (3) to warrant the formation of opposition and alliances between inhabitants, activists, and researchers on the edges of the urban order. This article offers new perspectives to better understand the relationship between informality and confinement by examining the active role that inhabitants of marginalized settlements assume in the Olympic City.

Towards a critical geography of corruption and power in late capitalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sapana Doshi ◽  
Malini Ranganathan
Keyword(s):  
Human Geography ◽  
Global South ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
The North ◽  
North And South

Corruption politics have received little attention in human geography. We offer a critical geography of corruption as an alternative to economistic framings that take corruption as an objective set of deviant practices mostly besetting states in the Global South. Instead, we theorize corruption as a historically shifting, subjective discourse about the abuse of entrusted power. Geographic and cognate disciplinary approaches reveal how corruption narratives become politicized and yoked to symbolic, material, and territorial regimes of power. We suggest that recent theories of urban informality provide a revealing lens into the ethico-politics and territorial struggles of contemporary capitalism across the North and South.

scholarly journals Digital territories: Google maps as a political technique in the re-making of urban informality

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Luque-Ayala ◽  
Flávia Neves Maia
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Google Maps ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Digital Maps ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Digital Mapping ◽  
Political Category

This article examines the mobilisation of spatial media technologies for digitally mapping informal settlements. It argues that digital mapping operates politically through a re-configuration of circulation, power, and territorial formations. Drawing on Stuart Elden’s understanding of territory, where space is ‘rendered’ as a political category, the coming together of digital mapping and the geoweb is uncovered as a political technique re-making territory through computational logics – operating as a calculative practice that, beyond simply representing space, is productive of the political spatiality that characterises territory. The article is based on an analysis of recent attempts by ICT corporates, particularly Google, to map favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, critically examining the claim that digitally mapping informal settlements is a mechanism for socio-economic inclusion. Providing a counterargument to claims around the power of digital maps to incorporate favelas, provide recognition, legitimacy, visibility and citizenship, we discuss how in the interface between digital and urban worlds, territory as a political space is constructed through economic incorporation. In doing so, the article unpacks the spatial politics of digital and smart urbanisms and the emerging sovereignties of digital territories, particularly in the context of the tension between inclusion and exclusion experienced by those who live in informal settlements in cities in the global South.

Urban Informality

2012 ◽  
pp. 690-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ananya Roy
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Global South ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
History Of

This article examines contemporary understandings of the informal city and situates them in a broader history of ideas. It investigates why certain land uses and settlement patterns are designated as formal by the state while others are criminalized and maintained as informal, and considers the ownership and use of property, focusing on the splintered landscapes of spatial value that mark the metropolitan regions of the Global South. The article also proposes a conceptual framework for the study of urban informality.

Understanding India's Representation of North–South Climate Politics

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shangrila Joshi
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global South ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
The North ◽  
North And South ◽  
First World ◽  
Differential Contribution ◽  
Insight Into

This paper examines India's role in perpetuating North-South imaginaries in global climate politics. A Global South perspective on climate politics is premised on the differential contribution of developed and developing countries towards climate change, differential adaptive capacities, and the overriding need of developing countries to focus on poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Meanwhile, the North-South binary has been extensively critiqued in the literature for the heterogeneity of each category, narrowing gaps between North and South, and the state-centrism implicit in such a categorization. Based on the understanding that the reproduction of the North-South frame in climate discourses is inherently political, I examine the politics behind their reproduction, rather than focus on the validity of these categories. Based on fieldwork in Delhi and Copenhagen, my paper provides insight into the spatial politics of climate policy negotiations. The categories North and South, developed and developing, or First World and Third World constitute powerful spatial imaginaries that strongly influence the negotiating positions of Indian officials in global climate politics, even as India's image as a developing country is increasingly questioned in light of its status as an emerging economy and major emitter. The self-identification of Indian officials with the imaginary of the Global South is a crucial feature of global climate politics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document