How does the dissemination of private “security” agents and devices in Latin-American metropolises impact on preexisting segregation dynamics? Is it still relevant and appropriate to analyse these urban spaces in terms of the centre-periphery divide that characterised them throughout most of the twentieth century? And what are the connections between the emergence of new business centralities, filled with luxurious office buildings, and the reworking of policing and surveillance practices in these metropolises?

These are some of the questions that motivated the writing of my article ‘Security’ and private governance in São Paulo’s corporate centrality frontier, recently published for the forthcoming Urban Studies special issue on The New Private Urban Governance. In the article, I discuss the links between the transformation in centre-periphery relations and the changes in socio-spatial control in Latin America since the 1990s, when private “security” companies and public-private “security” policies started to expand rapidly in the region and around the world. More specifically, I debate the effects of the production of corporate centralities, represented as “safe” spaces for business outside the historic city centres, on the differential governance of urban space, and on the opening of new avenues for the prominence of private agents in urban governance arrangements in these metropolises.

For that purpose, I draw from empirical work carried out in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the region’s largest metropolises, and focused on a dynamic frontier of São Paulo’s Southwest Vector, a spatial axis that concentrates some of the highest posts for corporate command in Latin America. The frontier zone I examine marks the transition between these business centralities and the majority black peripheral neighbourhoods of the metropolis’ South. Thus, it constitutes a privileged space for the observation of the racialised aspects of both centre-periphery relations and differential policing practices. The empirical research carried out involved fieldwork, interviews with public and private “security” agents, the observation of meetings of the local Public Security Community Council (CONSEG), and the analysis of police statistics.

Based on São Paulo’s case, I seek to contribute to broader debates on securitisation, private urban governance and urban frontier dynamics, particularly regarding Latin America’s changing segregation patterns. In sum, my argument is that the differentiation of the “security” apparatus and of policing practices facilitates the reproduction of centre-periphery relations under new spatial configurations. That means that even if the region’s metropolises can no longer be described as an array of precarious peripheral neighbourhoods distant and relatively detached from the downtown areas, where elite residences, urban infrastructure and services are concentrated, the idea of a centre-periphery divide is not simply overcome. More than a distinction between the topographic positions occupied by different segments of the urban population, it is possible to think of “centre” and “periphery” in relational terms, as a spatialisation of relations of domination beyond a specific socio-spatial form. In other words, I suggest that central and peripheral territories are also reproduced based on racialised distinctions between the spaces that should be protected, and those against which such protections are mobilised.

Moreover, I argue that the centre-periphery frontier can be understood both as constituted by segregation and control mechanisms, and as an instrument for segregation itself, working as an operational dimension for the programming of differential forms of governance. That includes the selective dissemination of private “security” devices and services, which contributes to the construction of business centralities such as those of São Paulo’s Southwest Vector as “safe”, protected spaces, while also expanding the capacity of real estate and other corporate agents to subject urban space to their own rules and regulations.

Read the full open access article on Urban Studies OnlineFirst here.

New blog post

Infrastructural politics: A conceptual mapping and critical review by León Felipe Téllez Contreras

León Felipe Téllez Contreras summarises their recently published article, which discusses key concepts concerning the relationship between infrastructure and politics. 

New book review

Call for Papers: Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies

Urban Transport as a Social Construct forms a pivotal segment of the 2024 Call for Papers initiative being launched by Urban Studies. This initiative, known as Critical and Conceptual Advances in Urban Studies, aspires to be a catalyst for groundbreaking research and thought-provoking discussions that will shape the future of urban studies and contribute to the sustainable and equitable development of cities around the globe. As a key part of this extensive initiative, the call for Urban Transport as a Social Construct seeks to foster a deeper, more nuanced understanding of urban transportation. It encourages a departure from conventional perspectives, catalysing new dialogues on how social, cultural, and political elements influence and are influenced by urban transport systems.

Further information and details on how to apply here.

Special Issue Builder Webinars Initiative

The Urban Studies Special Issue Builder webinars (i.e., the Webinars Initiative) aim to assist prospective editors and authors in developing their Special Issue proposals at an early stage of topic development. Researchers interested in developing a Special Issue proposal are invited to apply to receive specialist technical and administrative support in recruiting and hosting webinars with prospective authors.

Further information and details on how to apply here.

When reading the literature on infrastructure, people often come across the terms the politics of infrastructure, political infrastructure, infrastructure politics, techno-politics, and other similar concepts. They all address a central issue in urban studies and cognate disciplines: the complex relationship between infrastructure and politics. For instance, some of these terms, the politics of infrastructure, draw our attention to the underlying political practices that make infrastructure production possible. Others, such as political infrastructure, highlight the political agency of infrastructures themselves, that is, their roles in forming socio-political orders.

I began examining the use of these terms in the literature as part of a PhD project on the political practices of Mexico City’s market traders and their relationship with a 329-public-market network. I soon realised how widespread and diverse their use has become. Today, they undoubtedly are an essential staple in urban studies, where they help to explain the transformation of cities, urban life, urbanisation processes, and the urban condition. Because of this central role in urban theory and practice, I found it critical to interrogate these terms and their multiple meanings further.

Thus, Infrastructural politics: A conceptual mapping and critical review has two main objectives. First, it maps out the main strands and dimensions informing the meanings and uses of these terms. Analysing these terms’ differences, similarities, overlaps, and integral complementarity, the article identifies two main strands in their conceptualisation: conventional and popular infrastructural politics. These strands emerge from rich and fruitful debates; however, clear and explicit definitions are only sometimes provided. Ultimately, the paper finds that using these diverse terms leads to an understanding of infrastructural politics as two separate, antagonistic domains. One is characterised by state, neoliberal, and neocolonial agendas of dominant political actors and the other by subalterns’ networks, bodily, and resistant practices. In the article, I examine these tendencies with reference to different instances of infrastructure production studied in the literature.

These tendencies in the literature lead to the article’s second objective: to propose an approach that can provide urban studies scholars with a broader conceptualisation of infrastructural politics. For this, I draw on political ethnographic approaches to politics concerned with the ordinary, contentious, interdependent, and multifaceted nature of political spaces, practices, and outcomes. The article thus proposes a definition of infrastructural politics as an arena, a point of convergence, where actors, practices, and processes identified with conventional and popular infrastructural politics co-exist, interact, overlap, and contest each other in creating multifaceted political outcomes and infrastructural landscapes.

This approach calls for nuanced conceptualisations of the relationship between infrastructures and politics. Conceptualisations that shed light on how repertoires of infrastructure production consolidate as hybrid products of hegemonic-subaltern interactions rather than as separate domains. This is critical for an urban studies discipline interested in the political nature of infrastructures and their central role in creating and preserving political-infrastructural orders. As the article shows, this critical understanding is already present in the infrastructure literature, and a cross-fertilising dialogue with political ethnography can further refine it.

Read the full open access article on Urban Studies OnlineFirst here.

New issue out now

The second May 2024 issue (Volume 61, Issue 7) of Urban Studies Journal is now available online. Read the full issue here.

Articles include:

‘Beyond GDP’ in cities: Assessing alternative approaches to urban economic development debates paper by Richard Crisp, David Waite, Anne Green, Ceri Hughes, Ruth Lupton, Danny MacKinnon and Andy Pike

Debates paper by Crisp et al compares 5 alternative yet increasingly prominent economic development approaches that urban policymakers are applying –wellbeing economy, inclusive growth, community wealth building, doughnut economics and foundational economy.

Conceptualising ‘street-level’ urban design governance in Scotland by Robert Richardson

Robert Richardson develops ‘street-level bureaucracy’ theory to conceptualise how policy implementation within urban design governance is shared among actors whose role transcends sectoral responsibilities and motivations.

 

Latest articles on OnlineFirst

Infrastructural politics: A conceptual mapping and critical review by León Felipe Téllez Contreras

This open access debates paper by León Felipe Téllez Contreras interrogates the use of infrastructure politics in the literature, in particular the emphases and tendencies on which its meanings are built.

African Urban Studies: Contributions and Challenges by Sylvia Croese and Astrid Wood

In this open access introductory essay to a new Virtual Special issue, Astrid Wood and Sylvia Croese reflect on the contributions of African urban scholarship and present a selection of papers to highlight the ways in which it has shaped key fields of urban studies.

New book reviews on Urban Blog

Read more book reviews on the Urban Studies blog.