RC21 CONFERENCE 2013
Resourceful cities
Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute for Social Science, Dept. for Urban and Regional Sociology
Theory and Method in Critical Urban Studies
Most urban theories originate in the efforts of one scholar - or a school of scholars - to understand the specific urban locale where they live and/or study. The experiences of English cities during the industrial revolution, of German cities at the start of the twentieth century, or Chicago a little later, or Los Angeles more recently, become the basis of "theories" that are then applied elsewhere, and which are sometimes accorded a quasi-universal status.
Theories travel uneasily, however: whilst theories sometimes illuminate and reveal, they sometimes distract and obscure. This has become more striking at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first, as cities across the global South have grown not only at extraordinary speed but also in ways and directions that differ in many respects from their antecedents in the global North.
Whilst urban sociologists collectively now use a wider range of methods than ever before, not all methods are used equally in all parts of the world. Quantitative data is much more readily available in cities across the global North than in the cities of the global South. But are all methods equally valuable in different urban settings? Are some cities more usefully studied with one or other method than others?
This session welcomes papers that will examine how theories travel around the world, how methods can be applied in diverse settings, and how the experiences and characters of diverse cities across the world can be harnessed in comparative or even global analyses.
Session Organizer
Prof. Jeremy Seekings,
University of Cape Town / Yale University,
South Africa / USA E: jeremy.seekings@gmail.com
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