Noticias accidentales: el gran vertido de crudo como suceso local y acontecimiento nacional.

Sin resume

Las noticias como conducta intencionada: sobre el uso estratégico de los acontecimientos rutinarios, los accidentes y los escándalos.

Sin resume

Las noticias como conducta intencionada: sobre el uso estratégico de los acontecimientos rutinarios, los accidentes y los escándalos.

Sin resume

Noticias accidentales: el gran vertido de crudo como suceso local y acontecimiento nacional.

Sin resume

Beyond 'Global Production Networks': Australian Fashion Week's Trans-Sectoral Synergies

When studies of industrial organisation are informed by commodity chain, actor network, or global production network theories and focus on tracing commodity flows, social networks, or a combination of the two, they can easily overlook the less routine trans-sectoral associations that are crucial to the creation and realisation of value. This paper shifts attention to identifying the sites at which diverse specialisations meet to concentrate and amplify mutually reinforcing circuits of value. These valorisation processes are demonstrated in the case of Australian Fashion Week, an event in which multiple interests converge to synchronize different expressions of fashion ideas, actively construct fashion markets and enhance the value of a diverse range of fashionable commodities. Conceptualising these interconnected industries as components of a trans-sectoral fashion complex has implications for understanding regional development, world cities, production location, and the manner in which production systems “touch down” in different places

Urban Fortunes and Skeleton Cityscapes: Real Estate and Late Urbanization in Kigali and Addis Ababa

In many parts of Africa, societies that are still primarily rural are experiencing accelerated urban growth and highly visible booms in property development. Investment is pouring directly into what Lefebvre and Harvey characterized as the ‘secondary circuit’ of capital, in the absence of significant industrialization. Debates about the drivers of investment in real estate are longstanding in relation to the global North, but have given little consideration to low-income and late-urbanising countries in Africa. Yet such contexts offer important opportunities to reflect on existing theory. Focusing on Kigali and Addis Ababa, which have transformed virtually beyond recognition in the past two decades, this article explores the drivers and consequences of investment in urban real estate in countries striving to structurally transform their economies. It argues that a range of formal and informal incentives and constraints have led to high-end real estate being viewed as the ‘safest bet’ for those with resources to invest, even where demand is limited and governments are promoting other kinds of investment. While some people are reaping urban fortunes in largely untaxed rents, much of the construction is merely speculative, creating landscapes of unused and underused high-end properties in contexts where investment is desperately needed elsewhere

Milan: A City Lost in the Transition from the Growth Machine Paradigm Towards a Social Innovation Approach

Milan can be described as a city lost in transition. For more than two decades, Milan has been ruled by a system of strongly market-oriented governance, following the rhetoric that creating a "good business climate" is an effective way to not only foster growth and innovation but also eradicate poverty and deliver higher standards of living. This approach has led to: (a) a disinvestment in welfare services directly provided by the municipality, in favour of a more residual welfare system based on non-profit and private involvement; (b) a huge investment in neo-liberal tools of government for the economic development of the city, such as the promotion of international events (Expo 2015) and large real estate investments through public–private partnerships. After some scandals as well as a huge increase of social inequalities, municipal elections rewarded a new coalition following a style of governance oriented to a social innovation approach. However, the difficult financial situation of the municipality has reduced ambitions of the current government

Space Invaders in Barcelona: Political Society and Institutional Invention Beyond Representation

In the contemporary neoliberal urban dynamics, those agencies that are on the margin of society constantly disrupt the boundaries of civil representation and forge new institutional relations within the dynamics of urban governance. I explore how this process was enacted at the turn of the century in Barcelona, looking at two coeval social mobilisations: the lock-in of undocumented migrants in the Iglesia del Pi (2001), and the project of las agencias at the Museum of Contemporary Arts (1999–2003), both of which unfolded in the central neighbourhood of Raval. The invasion of the boundaries of civil society emerges here as a double phenomenon—one that develops both within society and in relation to institutions, instituting new modes of urban politics

Values in the Smart Grid: The co-evolving political economy of smart distribution

Investing in smart grid infrastructure is a key enabler for the transition to low carbon energy systems. Recent work has characterised the costs and benefits of individual "smart" investments. The political economy of the UK electricity system, however, has co-evolved such that there is a mismatch between where benefits accrue and where costs are incurred, leading to a problem of value capture and redeployment. Further, some benefits of smart grids are less easy to price directly and can be classified as public goods, such as energy security and decarbonisation. This paper builds on systemic treatments of energy system transitions to characterise the co-evolution of value capture and structural incentives in the electricity distribution system, drawing on semi-structured interviews and focus groups undertaken with smart grid stakeholders in the UK. This leads to an identification of municipal scale values that may be important for business models for the delivery of smart infrastructure. Municipalities may thus pursue specific economic opportunities through smart grid investment. This supports recent practical interest in an expanded role for municipalities as partners and investors in smart grid infrastructures