Urban Political Ecology: Environmental Imaginary, Governance, and the Non‐Human

Abstract

Urban political ecology (UPE) has established a firm foothold as urban environments have become increasingly relevant for both academics and for the broader environmental movement. Over the last decade, UPE has established a position that took as its starting point the tightly interwoven status of “socionature”, coupling a critical stance on urban environments through a theorization of society in which the “urban” is a distinct historical expression of capitalism. More recently, some in UPE have voiced the concern that this approach places too heavy an emphasis on structural capitalist forces and have begun to reexamine and push further UPE's engagement with post‐structuralism and post‐humanism. This paper explores three such moves: the first is a resurgence in interest in environmental imaginaries; the second is a closer engagement with the extensive literature on urban governance; the last is a new form of engagement with post‐humanism, specifically the theoretical implications of including non‐human agency into accounts of urban political ecologies.

Linear Parks and the Political Ecologies of Permeability: Environmental displacement in São Paulo, Brazil

“…The entangling of water and inequality that makes up São Paulo's landscape requires an approach that is attentive to the complex, overlapping dynamics of governance that materialize in the city. This article draws extensively from urban political ecology (UPE) to consider how the benefits and burdens of the city's watery landscape are mediated by broader political and social dynamics in the city (see, for instance, Swyngedouw and Heynen, ; Swyngedouw, ; Bakker, ; Rademacher, ; Heynen, ; Gabriel, ; Ranganathan, ). An approach drawn from UPE highlights the differentiated results of environmental interventions into cities, and considers the forms through which urban ecologies are mediated along lines of race, class, gender and geography.…”

Urban Systems: A Socio-Ecological System Perspective

“…28,[60][61][62][63][64][65][66] Urban water, pollution, gentrification, food and ecological security, among other themes, have been explored in light of urban metabolism and power relations to understand the unevenness of urban areas. 62,64,67 Contestation over water and the creation of uneven urban hydroscopes exemplifies how managing water supplies in cities often has been considered as a bio-political issue rather than an ecological matter. 68,69 Hence, uneven power distribution and socio-natural interactions have been used as lenses to explore urban infrastructures, social cohesion and urban ecological security.…”

Ponds, Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City

“…We recognize that cities of the global South (though not these cities exclusively) are particularly marked by the ‘parallel existence of different cityscapes … a plurality of Urban Political Ecolog ies ’ (Zimmer, : 350, original emphasis). In order to engage with this pluralism, we focus not on the historical‐material nature of the pondscape as part of the broader uneven hydroscape, but rather on how various ponds are governed in very different ways (see also Monstadt, ; Gabriel, ). Our case study offers insights into the hydroscape of a small Indian city, permitting us to complement and enrich empirical evidence from the much more frequently researched large metropolises.…”