2. Walking the city with… Julie Ren and comparisons

Elsewheres, middles and comparisons

Caitlin and Michele walk the city with Julie Ren, hearing about taking a global viewpoint without losing identity, with a trip that flies us from arts spaces in Beijing to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Julie guides us from research on integration and on public space to the complexity of the ‘global urban’ debate around comparative urban studies. Thinking through the politics of aspiration in cities and urban theory alike, she helps us we find what the ‘middle’ of theory is, and what role language and culture play in the way in which we depict cities, or translate urban ideas. What is a ‘hukou’ anyway?

Julie Ren is Assistant Professor of Urban Geography in the Department of Human Geography, Urban Planning and International Development, at the University of Amsterdam, and Book Reviews Editor at Urban Geography, and her work focuses on questions of comparative urban research and its potential for redressing existing modes of urban theorisation.

If you liked our walk, you might want to follow up on Julie’s work in Urban Studies in the Related Articles section below.

And if you want more, we very much recommend Julie’s recent books:

Ren J (2020) Engaging Comparative Urbanism: Art Spaces in Beijing and Berlin. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Credits

Every Beginning Is Hard 1v46 by Setuniman

nothing more 1T37 by Setuniman

Ambience_Berlin_Balcony by danner

berlin_car_bell_footsteps by uair01

Berlin beggars busking by uair01