Urban Theory Sessions

Critical Theory Beyond-the-Urban

Coordinators: Prof. Milica Topalović, Dr. Nancy Couling, Raquel Jerobon, and Juan Villalón-Hernando

Building on the previous sessions, we continue the enquiry into 21st-century Extended Urbanisation, exploring three intertwined systems of spatial production; infrastructure, agriculture, and wilderness. We critique the binaries of the urban and the rural, the natural and the cultural, to partially decentre urban and human perspectives, and to introduce a foundation for critical theory beyond-the-urban.

Our current research on agricultural, infrastructural, and wilderness systems show how each construct, reconfigure, and commodify territory with far-reaching effects and contradictory intersections. However, these territories of Extended Urbanisation also reveal potential for negotiation and socioecological regeneration.

Through these sessions, participants will cultivate a critical understanding of urban theory and urban change in three systems of spatial production; infrastructure, agriculture, and wilderness. The sessions will explore agrarian change, political economy, urbanisation, social and ecological concerns in diverse geographies. It aims to build tangible links from theory to spatial practice through the discussion of case-studies and field work from current research. Active engagement with recommended literature is expected, encouraging participants to present, discuss, and debate key concepts in urban and environmental humanities.