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Southern Urbanism

Module description

This module engages advanced thinking on, and application of, urban theory with respect to cities in the Global South.  Engaging cutting-edge scholarship exploring subaltern urbanism, infrastructures, urban informality, Chinese urbanism, global China, and the global urban agenda, this module builds on knowledge and skills gained in GEO2132 Global Urban Futures. The module provides the opportunity for advanced study of postcolonial urban theory and global south cities.  The assessments centre student led study though an independent research paper developed through the entirety of the term. The module follows on from GEO2132 Global Urban Futures and is recommended for interdisciplinary pathways.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module includes a theoretical basis in urban studies theorizing from the global south.  The module topics are informed by instructor research, and includes expert guest lecturers. The assessments centre student-led, independent research. 

The module will:

• introduce various theoretical traditions for understanding cities and urban processes
• introduce issues of geographical reasoning associated with urban social science
• introduce issues that are traditionally or newly understood as having urban causes, conditions, or resolutions
• provide a framework for engaging critically with contemporary urban issues by selecting and applying specific analytical approaches
• provide a framework for critically assessing multiple theoretical approaches to the study of Southern urbanism
• provide a framework for critically analysing why urban processes are often seen as both the cause and solution to so many issues

The module involves in-depth workshops and class debates that seek to develop the following graduate attributes:

• confidence in assessing the robustness of social scientific evidence and in presenting textual and audio-visual material in written format
• problem solving through interdisciplinary reasoning and analysis of issues-based urban case studies and urban policies at different scales
• articulating social scientific concepts and evidence with confidence through enquiry-led research on the topic of the research plan; including providing peer feedback on topics during class time
• being an effective team member in assessment workshop-based paired and/or group discussions

The teaching contributions on this module include elements of research-informed teaching based on research undertaken by module staff, including infrastructure, postcolonial urbanism and theory, urban political ecology, Chinese urbanism, neoliberal urbanism, the informal city.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Critically discuss key theories of global South urbanism.
• 2. Investigate the key challenges and issues facing Southern cities, applying theoretical knowledge on Southern urbanism to the analysis of specific urban issues

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Illustrate and discuss the contested and provisional nature of knowledge on the Southern city.
• 4. Identify a range of approaches to the generation, analysis, and application of knowledge of Southern urbanism and Southern urbanism research.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Develop a sustained and reasoned argument, communicating complex ideas clearly, accurately and concisely both verbally and in writing.
• 6. Work independently and to identify and critically analyse information from a range of sources, to achieve sustained attainment.

Syllabus plan

Indicative topics may include:

• Theorizing from the South
• Colonial, postcolonial, and neoliberal cities
• Subaltern urbanism and apartheid cities
• Infrastructures
• Informality
• Global China and Africa
• Chinese urbanism
• Global urban agendas and climate change

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

A single Research Essay constitutes the re-assessment. The single Research Essay will be of a maximum 2,500 words in length. It is weighted at 100%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Appel, H (2014) ‘Walls and white elephants: oil, infrastructure, and the materiality of citizenship in urban Equatorial Guinea’, in Mamadou Diouf and Rosalind Fredericks(eds) The arts of citizenship in African cities: infrastructures and spaces of belonging, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pages 253-276
• Barnett, Clive & Susan Parnell (2016) ‘Ideas, implementation and indicators: Epistemologies of the post 2015 urban agenda’ Environment and Urbanisation, 28(1), 87–98. 
• de Boeck, F and Baloji, S (2016) Suturing the city: living together in Congo’s urban worlds, Autograph ABP, London
• Bryceson, Deborah Fahy, Katherine V Gough, Jesper Bosse Jønsson, Crispin Kinabo, Michael Clarke Shand, Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues and Paul W K Yankson (2022) ‘Mineralized urbanization in Africa in the twenty-first century: becoming urban through mining extraction’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 46, 3, 342-269
• Datta, A. and Söderstrom, O. eds. (2023). Data Power in Action: Urban Data Politics in Times of Crisis. Bristol, Bristol University Press
• Du, J. (2020) Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Goldman, M., V. Gidwani, and C. Upadhya. (2024) Living the Speculative City: Bengaluru as Urban Future. University of Minnesota Press. 
• Goodfellow, T (2020) ‘Finance, infrastructure and urban capital: the political economy of African ‘gap-filling’’ Review of African Political Economy, 47, 164, 256-274
• Goodfellow, Tom (2022) Politics and the urban frontier: transformation and divergence in late urbanizing East Africa OUP, Oxford
• Goodfellow, T and Z Huang (2021) ‘Contingent infrastructures and the dilution of ‘Chineseness’: reframing roads and rail in Kampala and Addis Ababa’, Environment and Planning A: Society and Space, 53, 4, 655-674
• Guma, Prince Karakire (2021) ‘Recasting provisional urban worlds in the Global South: shacks, shanties and micro-stalls’, Planning Theory and Practice, 22, 2, 211-226 
• Harms, E. (2016) Luxury and Rubble: Civility and Dispossession in the New Saigon.  UC Press, Berkeley
• Kikon, D. and Mcduie-Ra, D. (2021) Ceasefire City: Militarism, Capitalism, and Urbanism in Dimapur. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Kirschner J and Baptista I (2023) Corridors as empty signifiers: The entanglement of Mozambique’s colonial past and present in its development corridors. Planning Perspectives. Epub ahead of print 3 February 2023: 1–22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2023.2173636.
• Lawhon, M. (2020) Making Urban Theory: Learning and Unlearning through Southern Cities. London, Routledge.
• Mbembe, A and S Nuttall (2004), ‘Writing the world from an African metropolis’ Public Culture 16, 3, 347-372
  • Mitchell, T. (2002) The Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity.  Berkeley, UC Press.
• Nam, Sylvia. 2017. “Urban Speculation, Economic Openness, and Market Experients in Phnom Penh.” positions 25(4): 645-667.
• Njoh, Ambe J (2008) ‘Colonial philosophies, urban space, and racial segregation in British and French colonial Africa’, Journal of Black Studies, 38, 4, 579-599
• Nuttall, S and A Mbembe (2005) ‘A blase? attitude: a response to Michael Watts’, Public Culture 17, 1, 193-201
• Parnell, S. and Oldfield, S. (Eds) (2014) The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South.  London, Routledge.
• Penvenne, JM (1983) ‘Here everyone walked with fear': The Mozambican labor system and the workers of Lourenc?o Marques, 1945-1962', in Frederick Cooper (ed.), Struggle for the city: migrant labor, capital, and the state in Africa, Sage, Beverly Hills, pp. 131-66.
• Pieterse, Edgar.  2011.  "Grasping the unknowable: coming to grips with African urbanisms."  Social Dynamics 37(1): 5-23.
• Pieterse, E and S Parnell (2014) ‘Africa’s urban revolution in context’, in Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse (eds) Africa’s urban revolution, London: Zed, pp1-17
• Potts, Deborah (2017) ‘Urban experiences ‘beyond the West’: comparing cities in Southern African and BRIC countries’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 5, 949-960
• Quayson, A (2014) Oxford Street, Accra: city life and the itineraries of transnationalism, Duke University Press, Durham
• Robinson J (2006) Ordinary cities: between modernity and development, Routledge, Abingdon
• Roy, A. and Ong, A. (eds.) (2011) Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Blackwell.
• Toma?s, A (2022) In the skin of the city, Duke University Press, Durham Werthmann, Katja (2022) City life in Africa: anthropological insights, Routledge, London
• UN Habitat (Pieterse, Parnell and Haysom) (2015) Towards an Africa Urban Agenda, UN Habitat and UNECA
• Watson, Vanessa (2013) ‘African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares?’ Environment and Urbanization, 26, 1, 215-231
• Watts, Michael (2005) ‘Baudelaire over Berea, Simmel over Sandton?’ Public Culture 17, 1, 181-92

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• https://www.african-cities.org
• https://www.africancentreforcities.net

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Edgar Pieterse – beyond slum urbanism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhfgiZBfeA https://issuu.com/cohre/docs Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
• Parnell, S. (University of Bristol and African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town) on Africa’s urban revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGT2g7QlClc  

Key words search

Southern urbanism, cities, informal settlements, postcolonial cities, urban infrastructures, off-grid city, human geography, space, urban theory, urban development, urban issues, urban policy, urban politics, urban and regional studies, urbanisation.