Theorising in urban and regional studies: negotiating generalisation and particularity

Theorising with urban China: Methodological and tactical experiments for a more global urban studies

“…The goal of 'thinking cities through elsewhere' is predicated upon rethinking the relationship between the case study and theory, or between the particular and general (Robinson, 2016a). Robinson (2016a: 21) argues that if cases were seen as singularities-"distinctive outcomes on their own terms rather than particular examples of pregiven theories like neoliberalism"-then they could be, notwithstanding their geographical context, "opened up for conceptualisation through a wider array of available interpretations, related cases or emergent concepts" (see also Cox and Evenhuis, 2020). This is possible because cases in the urban share features of urbanisation-one could think about how a case of urban entrepreneurialism or displacement in urban China, for instance, inevitably shares features with those in any other city.…”

“…Here we take additional inspiration from conjunctural analysis, which prioritises the dialectical relationship between the general and particular. Sceptical of both universalism and particularism, conjunctural analysis calls for interpretations of the mutual constitution of any given theoretical generality and particular on-ground realities (Cox and Evenhuis, 2020). As Peck (2017: 22) notes, while conjunctural analysis is attentive to the role of pre-given theories in analysis, it never resorts to "its complacent use or, for that matter, to its ham-fisted 'insert[ion] into the here and now'" (Grossberg, 1996: 148).…”

Urban inequality revisited: Beyond city limits

“…For theory, it has been somewhat of a holy grail for scholars concerned with space and social relationships-how do we build some general understanding of social processes that incorporate the vagaries of geographic context? Cox and Evenhuis (2020) have recently grappled with this issue and explained scholars' different positions. They conclude there is no single or easy solution but offer some strategies for moving forward.…”

Rethinking the role of local knowledge networks in territorial innovation models

“…At first sight, this emerging deficit masquerades as another manifestation of the longlasting conflict in (geographical) research of identifying generalisable mechanisms (quasi-universal mechanisms related to local knowledge networks), on the one hand, and their incomparableness due to context-specificity on the other (Cox and Evenhuis 2020;Gong and Hassink 2020). However, nothing could be further from the truth, as several contributions in this special issue show.…”