Translocal assemblages: Space, power and social movements

McFarlane, Colin

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.05.003

Cited by 397 publications

(278 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Infrastructure has tended to be understood through the dichotomy of formality and informality (Varley, 2013) yet new approaches are shifting our understandings to consider alternative forms of infra-structure that are heterogenous and hybrid, consisting of standard hardware, improvised technologies (Silver, 2014) and people them-selves (Simone, 2004a). This work draws attention to what Furlong (2014: 139) terms the, Ôcoexistence among sociotechnical systems, as opposed to the universality of a single dominant infrastructure networkÕ alongside the everyday practices that (re)make infra-structure space across various socio-material conÞgurations (McFarlane, 2009;Silver, 2014;Simone, 2004a). This growing body of literature explores these particular urbanisation dynamics covering multiple scales from the everyday through to the broader urban and regional geographies of sub-Saharan Africa (Myers, 2003;Pieterse, 2008Pieterse, , 2010aPieterse, , 2010bSimone, 2004aSimone, , 2004bSimone, , 2010aSwilling, 2011).…”

Section: Speciþcity Of African Urbanisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Powering sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution: An energy transitions approach

Silver

Marvin

2016

Urban Studies

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This paper develops a geographic understanding of urban energy transitions in subSaharan African towns and cities. In doing so this paper seeks to critically reßect on the value and limits of urban transitions analysis as a framework for understanding energy networks beyond the largely integrated systems across the Global North. We explore how these potentials and deÞcits can be addressed by examining promising developments across a series of debates in urban studies that can help sensitise this approach to energyscapes in the African context. By reviewing urban transi-tions analysis through these debates the paper offers four important contributions to expand existing ways of understanding energy transition. These include the particular urbanisation dynamics of African towns ands cities, the need to locate the urban across energy regimes, the agencies of various intermediaries and urban actors and the contested politics inherent in the governing of energy networks. In the conclusion we reßect on the speciÞc directions that have emerged from the paper in relation to our contributions, offering a geographically informed framework that allows us to better examine the challenges and speciÞcities of transition across these rapidly growing urban regions.

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Section: Speciþcity Of African Urbanisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Powering sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution: An energy transitions approach

Silver

Marvin

2016

Urban Studies

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“…SDI's enumeration activities in particular represent a strategic attempt to render previously "invisible" uncounted citizens visible and lay bare the myths and prejudices that are used to justify their exclusion from substantive rights afforded to other citizens (Appadurai, 2002;McFarlane, 2009).…”

Section: From Quiet To Bold Encroachmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

From quiet to bold encroachment: contesting dispossession in Accra’s informal sector

Gillespie

2016

Urban Geography

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This article draws on Asef Bayat's theory of "quiet encroachment" to analyse the political agency of street hawkers and squatters in Accra, Ghana. It demonstrates how squatters and street hawkers in Ghana's capital city are engaged in everyday practices of quiet encroachment, whereby they occupy urban space as a means to reproduce themselves. It then explores how encroachers take collective action to defend their access to urban space from stateled dispossession. In a context of competitive partisan politics where the management of urban space has become highly politicized, hawkers and squatters organizations have been empowered to seek active engagement and dialogue with the authorities. Whereas Bayat argues that the informal proletariat in authoritarian contexts desire autonomy and invisibility from the institutions of the state, therefore, the particular characteristics of Ghana's multiparty system have created the possibility for bold acts of encroachment on urban space. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…The array of labors involved in maintaining relations has frequently fallen outside the analytical gaze of studies of governance. The ongoing nature of these labors is widely acknowledged in ANT and AT 3 both of which emphasise how human and material actors are bound up with each other in actor-networks/assemblages and the ongoing work required to cohere and maintain them (e.g., McFarlane 2009;Müller 2015a). Yet analyses thus far have tended to be muted when it comes to specifying the processes, practices, and devices through which this work is achieved (though see Henry and Roche, 2013).…”

Section: From Governing Intent To Intervention: Configuring Urban Carmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuring Urban Carbon Governance: Insights from Sydney, Australia

McGuirk

Bulkeley

Dowling

2015

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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In the political geography of responses to climate change, and the governance of carbon more specifically, the urban has emerged as a strategic site. Although it is recognized that urban carbon governance occurs through diverse programs and projects-involving multiple actors and working through multiple sites, mechanisms, objects, and subjects-surprisingly little attention has been paid to the actual processes through which these diverse elements are drawn together and held together in the exercise of governing. These processes-termed configuration-remain underspecified. This article explores urban carbon governance interventions as relational configurations, excavating how their diverse elements-human, institutional, representational, and material-are assembled, drawn into relation, and held together in the exercise of governing. Through an analysis of two contrasting case studies of urban carbon governance interventions in Sydney, Australia, we draw out common processes of configuring and specific sets of devices and techniques that gather, align, and maintain the relations between actors and elements that constitute intervention projects. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of conceiving of governing projects as relational configurations for how we understand the nature and practice of urban carbon governance, especially by revealing the diverse modes of power at work within processes of configuring. AbstractIn the political geography of responses to climate change, and the governance of carbon more specifically, the urban has emerged as a strategic site. While it is recognised that urban carbon governance occurs through diverse programs and projects-involving multiple actors and working through multiple sites, mechanisms, objects and subjects-surprisingly little attention has been paid to the actual processes through which these diverse elements are drawn together and held together in the exercise of governing. These processestermed configuration -remain under-specified. This article explores urban carbon governance interventions as relational configurations, excavating how their diverse elements-human, institutional, representational, material-are assembled, drawn into relation and held together in the exercise of governing. Through an analysis of two contrasting case studies of urban carbon governance interventions in Sydney, Australia, we draw out common processes of configuring and specific sets of devices and techniques that gather, align and maintain the relations between actors and elements that constitute intervention projects. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of conceiving of governing projects as relational configurations for how we understand the nature and practice of urban carbon governance, especially by revealing the diverse modes of power at work within processes of configuring.

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Translocal assemblages: Space, power and social movements

Cited by 397 publications

References 37 publications

Powering sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution: An energy transitions approach

Powering sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution: An energy transitions approach

From quiet to bold encroachment: contesting dispossession in Accra’s informal sector

Configuring Urban Carbon Governance: Insights from Sydney, Australia

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