Towards the Great Transformation: (9) Where is the planet in ‘planetary urbanisation’?

Abstract

Where is the planet in much of the work on ‘planetary urbanisation’? Largely off-stage, it has to be said. This instalment seeks - drawing from some of the material introduced in this series, notably Patrick Keiller's film, Robinson in Ruins and David Abram's book, Becoming Animal, as well as from Adrian Atkinson's contribution in this issue, ‘Readjusting to reality 2 Transition?’, Andy Merrifield's recent book, The Politics of the Encounter: Urban theory and protest under planetary urbanisation, and pointing towards Marx's late agrarian-inclined work—to indicate some of the gaps and silences in the academic field, and to provide some necessary infilling and new/old orientations, developing a transdisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary, approach