Geography

Recovering the politics of the city: From the ‘post-political city’ to a ‘method of equality’ for critical urban geography

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This paper uses Jacque Rancière's understanding of politics to ask what makes cities political entities. We review existing urban geography debates to identify some of the defining features of urban politics and then subject them to critical questioning: are they actually political? The paper seeks to develop existing interpretations of Rancière's philosophy within geography to develop his ‘method of equality’ in order to recover the politics of the city. This identifies three necessary components of critical urban scholarship in order that it transcends critique and works towards making democratic politics possible.

Publication Title

Progress in Human Geography

Publication Date

10-30-2015

Volume

39

Issue

5

First Page

543

Last Page

559

ISSN

0309-1325

DOI

10.1177/0309132514535284

Keywords

critical theory, democracy, Rancière, urban geography, Urban politics

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