Flickering Bodies: Mapping Multiculturalism and Insurgent Citizenship in Wayde Compton's Black Vancouver

We live in a moment of hardening of nationalist discourses against immigration and racial minorities. In this conservative climate, Canada prevails as a benchmark for multicultural integration. However,there are voices within the nation that question this image of harmony. The case of the Black Vancouver community has not yet been studied in depth in this regard. This article of reflection aims to contribute to the debate on the relations of the nation-state and subaltern groups, and how they manifest themselves in the multicultural city. Vancouver has been chosen as a paradigmatic space because of its transcultural character built on indigenous lands. The object of study was the literature of Wayde Compton, author and Black activist of the city. Stemming from theories of the socio-spatial dialectic of Edward Soja and Leonie Sandercock, this article analyses the connection between the city, its representation in literature and its effects on social relationships. The work of Compton and its parallelism with the geo-history of Vancouver and subaltern ethnic communities were analysed. The result reaches a reading of Vancouver as a (post)colonial city and space of subaltern multiculturalism, regarding the official Canadian model, and colonialism that has made invisible the Black Vancouver and the indigenous communities

Collective learning experiences in planning: the potential of experimental living labs

‘Living labs’ originate from an R&D environment, and intend to innovate commodities by experience-based knowledge, with a direct involvement of users. Meanwhile, the living labs approach has been shifting into a wider range of applications, and has also ended up in the toolbox of actor- and action-oriented planners. The approach is (implicitly) promoted as a new and better way of combining capacities of different stakeholders by exploring and experimenting in realworld situations. In this paper, we attempt to critically discuss the use of the living lab approach. The first section explores the potential thereof for planning issues: How univocal is the concept of Living Labs? How much do different interpretations and practices of Living Labs resemble in terms of actors involved, actions stimulated, processes promoted and criteria for good practices accepted? The exploration is based on the experience of two experimental living labs, which are compared with a range of international examples. The second section turns to a series of alternative approaches in spatial planning in Flanders: How do the aims and means of these collaborative learning experiences differ? What is the role of users and how important is experimentation? What is the innovative contribution to planning (if any)? How do the practices deal with path dependencies and uncertainties in complex multi-actor settings? We will answer these questions based on research seminars on ‘collective learning’, which are organized for the Policy Research Center Spatial Planning in Flanders, as a part of a work-package which focusses on methodologies for future explorations

Ambivalent insurgencies: citizenship, land politics and development in Hanoi and its periurban fringe

This article examines the Vietnamese state’s ambivalence towards insurgent assertions of urban citizenship in and around Hanoi. In the 1980s and 1990s, it tolerated the lawbreaking construction of self-built housing in the city centre and eventually extended self-builders land use rights for their extralegal claims. In the 2000s and 2010s, however, the state violently cracked down on periurban villagers using insurgent strategies to resist the expropriation of their agricultural land for master-planned real estate developments. I suggest that the insurgency of self-builders precipitated a regime of graduated land use rights wherein the informal, extralegal claims of self-builders have been more respected than the formal, legal claims of periurban villagers. I ultimately argue that the state’s ambivalent responses to insurgency result from its pursuit of a materially shifting ideology of developmentalism. I also find that the success of insurgency derives from how the interests of citizens, the local state and the national state align and realign with one another

Activating Informality: Negotiating Urban Identities in Bolivia and Brazil

Drawing on original research, this paper explores the relationship between community identity and informality in Bolivia and Brazil, answering the question “How does informality influence and operate as identity in the social imaginary of urban Bolivia and Brazil?” Based on case studies of informal settlements in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia and Niterói, Brazil, I argue that informality is a tool of social control, community resistance, and identity consolidation. Community identity is informed by the territorial stigmatization of place through national conceptualizations of race and violence, and histories of marginality, resulting in resistance identity and insurgent citizenships

New urban frontiers: contemporary tendencies in Brazil’s urbanization

Brazil; urbanization

Introduction: Urban revolutions in the age of global urbanism

This special issue, papers presented at an Urban Studies Foundation-funded conference in Jakarta (March 2011), examines the current ‘urban century’ in terms of three revolutions. Revolutions from above index the logics and norms of mainstream global urbanism, particularly the form they have taken as policymakers work with municipal officials worldwide to organise urban development around neoliberal norms. Revolutions from below refer to the multifaceted contestations of global urbanism that take place in and around cities, ranging from urban street demonstrations and occupations (such as those riveting the world in early 2011 when these papers were written) to the quotidian actions of those pursuing politics and livelihoods that subvert the norms of mainstream global urbanism. It also highlights conceptual revolutions, referencing the ongoing challenge of reconceptualising urban theory from the South – not simply as a hemispheric location or geopolitical category but an epistemological stance, staged from many different locations but always fraught with the differentials of power and the weight of historical geographies. Drawing on the insights of scholars writing from, and not just about, such locations, a further iteration in this ‘southern’ turn of urban theorising is proposed. This spatio-temporal conjunctural approach emphasises how the specificity of cities – their existence as entities that are at once singular and universal – emerges from spatio-temporal dynamics, connectivities and horizontal and vertical relations. Practically, such scholarship entails taking the field seriously through collaborative work that is multi-sited, engages people along the spectrum of academics and activists, and is presented before and scrutinised by multiple publics

Bottom-up creativity and insurgent citizenship in “Afro Lisboa”: Racial difference and cultural commodification in Portugal

This article analyzes recent audio-visual creativity by young Afrodescendants emerging out of the outskirts of Lisbon. We argue that those cultural productions are challenging unproblematic identifications of the Portuguese capital as a multicultural city shaped by African communities. Responding to issues of racism, police violence, and urban marginalization, but also to celebratory views of Portuguese society as exempt of racial discrimination, the communities inhabiting the neighborhoods of Cova da Moura and Quinta do Mocho are employing creative means to develop a positive identification of afro-diasporic communities. Engaging those means, this article places bottom-up creativity side by side to the activity of Lisbon cultural institutions such as museums and contemporary art centers. It also addresses the relevance of visual and musical creativity to counter the stereotypes and images frequently used to categorize racialized subjects and communities in Portugal. Finally, it explores the strategies employed by the residents of the above mentioned neighborhoods to struggle against the process of cultural gentrification Lisbon is going through.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio