Contesting the growing city? Forms of urban growth and consequences for communal violence

Elfversson, Emma; Höglund, Kristine; Sellström, Angela Muvumba; Pellerin, Camille Louise

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102810

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Order can break down, and when this happens in cities, large numbers of people can be affected negatively. Climate change in cities in the developing world today is exacerbating urban unrest and violence through a variety of mechanisms, from unemployment and underemployment to individual and organized crime to riots and demonstrations (Elfversson, et al, 2023, Engelke, 2013. Archaeologists can sometimes identify the breakdown of order in past cities (Fernández-Götz, 2020, Speed, 2014, but there has been little systematic or comparative research on this topic.…”

Section: The Problem Of Urban Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taken together, urban institutions were responsible for the creation and maintenance of much of the urban order in early cities. When these institutions broke down (e.g., the fall of a dynasty, the withdrawal of imperial control, or the decline of commerce), urban unrest or violence could erupt (Elfversson, et al, 2023, Moser, 2004. While urban life and social order were structured by the five kinds of institution listed in Table 1, much of urban life (and order) took place outside of the reach of institutions; the dynamic forces in this realm are known as generative processes.…”

Section: Urban Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Institutions, Generative Processes, and Urban Order in Early Cities

Smith

2024

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I address the question of what holds cities—particularly early cities—together. I first discuss the question of urban order, or social order in cities. Archaeologists are starting to come around to the standard answer to that question in the social sciences: urban order is created and maintained by the operation of two types of social forces: institutions (top-down forces) and generative processes (bottom-up forces). I review the changes in archaeological thinking that led from obsolete and inadequate models of social order (statism and agency) to the emerging current understanding. I discuss the concept of institutions, including a new archaeologically-useful definition, and describe five types of early urban institutions (political, economic, political economy, social, and religious). I then present three types of generative process: population/demography, self-governance, and self-coordination. I also urge archaeologists to stop using idiosyncratic definitions of concepts (like institution) that serve to isolate archaeology from wider scholarship in the social and natural sciences.

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Section: The Problem Of Urban Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urban Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%