ISSN 0004-0894 © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2003

Area

(2003) 35.2, 217–222

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Observations

Observations

Reflections on current developments in contemporary urban geography

Susan Moore*, James Faulconbridge**, Clare Blake**, David Westhead**, Tom Slater

†

, Gavin Brown

†

, Mark Davidson

†

, Margo Huxley

††

and Eddie Huijbens

‡

*Department of Geography, London School of Economics, London, **Department of Geography, Loughborough

University, Loughborough,

†

Department of Geography, King’s College London, London,

††

Department of

Geography, Open University, Milton Keynes and

‡

Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham

Revised manuscript received 23 February 2003

The UGRG post-graduate conference held at theUniversity of Reading on 30 November 2002provided a forum for PhD students from various UKuniversities to come together to discuss not onlytheir own research but to reflect on currentdevelopments in contemporary urban geography inthe UK and elsewhere. The format of the day-longmeeting was divided into a morning devoted togroup discussions of three recent publications (Aminand Thrift 2002; Dear and Flusty 2002; Ethingtonand Meeker 2002), and an afternoon sessionwherein each post-graduate presented a posterreflecting how their own research incorporateselements of ‘the urban’. The objective of the daywas to engage critically with the readings and tostimulate discussion surrounding current thinkingin ‘urban geography’ and the role we as newresearchers might play in shaping the sub-discipline.Following this event, a smaller group of studentsparticipated in a lively (often heated) internet-baseddiscussion. The collective commentary whichfollows is the result of this on-line forum and it aimsto summarize some of the points raised at theReading event, and also to review the issues withwhich the participants of the smaller group weregrappling. In general, these focused on the ways inwhich ‘the urban’ is currently being theorizedwithin geography.

The discussion commenced with an evaluation ofAmin and Thrift’s (2002) book, which promotes a

‘reimagining’ of the way in which the urban isviewed, studied and theorized. Many participantswelcomed the manner in which Amin and Thrift’swritings recognized the complexity of cities. Othersfavoured the authors’ emphasis on the relevance ofstructured and unstructured processes intrinsic to theconnectivity and porosity of cities as an antithesisto totalizing conceptualizations which imply an‘immanent logic’ to urban life. However, the ‘com-plexity’ argument also drew some criticism fromsome participants who feared that a view of theurban as complexity and mixity may obscure urgentissues of inequality, power imbalance and socialinjustice within cities. In particular, concern wasraised regarding how such an approach can beoperationalized in the field as the subject of‘socially relevant’ empirical research. These concernswere countered by other participants who felt thatAmin and Thrift’s work was not merely promotingunchecked pluralism, but an understanding of theurban as a site of complexity, openness andencounter. These participants stressed how Aminand Thrift also see the city as a regulated site inwhich lived practices are engaged through formaland informal institutions, conventions, rules andphysical barriers. Thus to engage in urban researchgrounded in ‘complexity’ and in theoretical andmethodological pluralism is not to obscure issues ofinequality and social relevance, but rather to engagewith them as part of the ‘systematized network’ that

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is the city. Beyond this assertion, however, someparticipants were still troubled by the lack of meth-odological clarity present within Amin and Thrift’sbasic ontology for reimagining the urban.

Amin and Thrift attempt to emphasize the poros-ity of cities and the growing importance of local–global connectivity. The authors aim to address thetendency in urban geography to concentrate analysison the internal dimensions and proximate links of asingle city as if these can be separated from a city’songoing formation by wider networks and flows. Itwas argued by some in the discussion group thatalthough Amin and Thrift’s (2002) work representedan initial step in recognizing global–local processes,more could have been written to address this open-ness, and the ways in which power relationsembedded in distanciated flows and transnationalinstitutions also affect cities and contribute to theircomplexity. An alternative approach produced froma critical engagement with studies of the way inwhich power is constituted through flow and networktopologies might therefore seem relevant. The intro-duction of a Foucauldian perspective, for instance,was suggested as a means of raising issues aboutpower relations by recognizing the way in whichgovernmental projects mobilize assemblages ofpower between spaces and subjects.

The diversity of disciplinary backgrounds of theparticipants engaged in this discussion was anenabling factor in allowing these observations to bemade. However, it also provoked a number ofcontrasting views, which raised the point of how thesubjectivity of the researcher might influence thisre-evaluation of ways of viewing the city. Whenwe begin to look at the urban as a complex andfluid ‘process’, we begin to encounter divergingapproaches and perspectives for ‘imagining’ thecity. Indeed, Ethington and Meeker’s (2002) concep-tualization of two modes of analysing the city (onereferred to as

Saber

, the knowing of facts analogousto ‘surveying’, another as

Conocer

, the intimateknowledge of relations within and between selves,others and places analogous to ‘walking’) highlightsone such important debate. A relationship of mutualinterdependence of theorization and empiricismhas developed in the social sciences and an opendialogue across disciplinary boundaries is essential.

As we found through our debates, urban geo-graphy becomes most interesting when opposingviewpoints are juxtaposed and controversies arise. Thisdoes not mean disposing of our rigorous methodolo-gies or foregoing the need to be critical and reflexive

of our own and others’ work. Rather, what bothAmin and Thrift (2002) and Ethington and Meeker(2002) are suggesting is the need for urban researchto be open and receptive to alternative approaches.Indeed, both see the path to methodological andtheoretical clarity through complexity and pluralism.

All of this raises important questions about thenature of contemporary urban geography. Posedwith so many challenges, debates and tangentialapproaches, many would question our ability todefine the sub-discipline. There are those who pushfor a unified model, such as the much-debated ‘L.A.School’ (see Dear and Flusty 2002) as a paradig-matic site within which post-modern urban geo-graphers can observe ‘contemporary expressions of theurban’. Whilst the discussions at Reading and on-lineseemed to gravitate towards the tensions betweenrepresentational and non-representational approachesimplicated within Amin and Thrift’s work, it isimportant to expand briefly on some of the reac-tions to Dear and Flusty (2002) and their promotionof the L.A. School. The general response of thoseinvolved at the Reading gathering was immediatelyto dismiss the ‘L.A. School’ – some even admitted tonot reading more than the first paragraph becausethey ‘knew what was coming’. This knee-jerk repul-sion to a proposition for a school of thought thatis meant to bring urban research in line with thecontemporary restructuring processes forming andre-forming our cities is at best counter-productiveif it cannot attract other urban researchers to con-sider its outputs. Whilst Dear and Flusty (2002) maydescribe this type of reluctance to engage with thepossibility of an L.A. School as an impediment tothe growth of intellectual and political alliances, thediscussions at Reading revealed that the idea ofthe ‘school’ itself may be alienating urban thinkerselsewhere, and limiting the seeds for constructivecross-national research.

Our debates here and in Reading have high-lighted that we will perhaps never agree on a singleschool of thought to guide new and ‘lost’ urbangeographers – nor should we seek to do so. Instead,we should embrace the plurality, dynamism andprovocative nature of our sub-discipline. As Gregson(2003) suggests, we do not want to become ‘paro-chial’ in our studies, and there is no one characteror group of academics who can define what urbangeography is and should be. This is dangerousand harmful for the future development of urbangeography. Instead, we need to embrace challenges,debate them (as we have done furiously for the past

Observations

219

two months!) and explore tensions and disagree-ments productively. The result will be a diversearray of outputs with social and political relevance,theoretical merit and empirical foundation.

In conclusion, our discussion of the writings ofAmin and Thrift (2002), Ethington and Meeker(2002) and Dear and Flusty (2002), has rested onthe recognition that if, as they suggest, the urban isitself complexity and pluralism, wherein one place,practise or process cannot be isolated, then anyattempt to view the city other than through a toler-ance of multiple views cannot suffice. This needs tobe remembered at a time when many writers (notonly those who would identify themselves as ‘urbangeographers’ – and it is telling that several partici-pants at Reading felt uncomfortable applying thislabel to themselves) are attempting to re-evaluatethe way in which the urban is conceptualized, sothat dialogue rather than isolation between alternat-ive viewpoints is maintained. Otherwise, we risk agreater impasse in urban geography’s developmentthan that which its critics have already claimed.The meeting in Reading demonstrated through thevariety of viewpoints expressed and the range ofresearch themes presented that no single city canever fully be ‘known’ nor can theories based on a

single city or a single epistemology suffice to repre-sent ‘contemporary urbanism’. The urban existsthrough limitless imaginings and this is what under-pins all ‘urban geography’.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the Urban Geography Research Group(UGRG) of the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) fororganizing and funding this annual event, and to theDepartment of Geography, University of Reading, for host-ing it.

References

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N

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Geoforum

34 5–7