Reflections on current developments in contemporary urban geography

Abstract

The UGRG post-graduate conference held at the University of Reading on 30 November 2002 provided a forum for PhD students from various UK universities to come together to discuss not only their own research but to reflect on current developments in contemporary urban geography in the UK and elsewhere. The format of the day-long meeting was divided into a morning devoted to group discussions of three recent publications (Amin and Thrift 2002; Dear and Flusty 2002; Ethington and Meeker 2002), and an afternoon session wherein each post-graduate presented a poster reflecting how their own research incorporates elements of 'the urban'. The objective of the day was to engage critically with the readings and to stimulate discussion surrounding current thinking in 'urban geography' and the role we as new researchers might play in shaping the sub-discipline. Following this event, a smaller group of students participated in a lively (often heated) internet-based discussion. The collective commentary which follows is the result of this on-line forum and it aims to summarize some of the points raised at the Reading event, and also to review the issues with which the participants of the smaller group were grappling. In general, these focused on the ways in which 'the urban' is currently being theorized within geography. The discussion commenced with an evaluation of Amin and Thrift's (2002) book, which promotes a 'reimagining' of the way in which the urban is viewed, studied and theorized. Many participants welcomed the manner in which Amin and Thrift's writings recognized the complexity of cities. Others favoured the authors' emphasis on the relevance of structured and unstructured processes intrinsic to the connectivity and porosity of cities as an antithesis to totalizing conceptualizations which imply an 'immanent logic' to urban life. However, the 'com plexity' argument also drew some criticism from some participants who feared that a view of the urban as complexity and mixity may obscure urgent issues of inequality, power imbalance and social injustice within cities. In particular, concern was raised regarding how such an approach can be operationalized in the field as the subject of 'socially relevant' empirical research. These concerns were countered by other participants who felt that Amin and Thrift's work was not merely promoting unchecked pluralism, but an understanding of the urban as a site of complexity, openness and encounter. These participants stressed how Amin and Thrift also see the city as a regulated site in which lived practices are engaged through formal and informal institutions, conventions, rules and physical barriers. Thus to engage in urban research grounded in 'complexity' and in theoretical and methodological pluralism is not to obscure issues of inequality and social relevance, but rather to engage with them as part of the 'systematized network' that