Learning the City: Knowledge and Translocal Assemblage(RGS-IBG Book Series)

Learning the City: Translocal Assemblage and Urban Politics critically examines the relationship between knowledge, learning, and urban politics, arguing both for the centrality of learning for political strategies and developing a progressive international urbanism.   Presents a distinct approach to conceptualising the city through the lens of urban learning Integrates fieldwork conducted in Mumbai's informal settlements with debates on urban policy, political economy, and development Considers how knowledge and learning are conceived and created in cities Addresses the way knowledge travels and opportunities for learning about urbanism between North and South

Table of Contents:
Series Editors' Preface ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 Learning Assemblages 15 Introduction 15 Translation: Distribution, Practice and Comparison 17 Coordinating Learning 19 Dwelling and Perception 21 Assemblage Space 23 Conclusion 30 2 Assembling the Everyday: Incremental Urbanism and Tactical Learning 32 Introduction 32 Incremental Urbanism 33 Learning the Unknown City: Street Children in Mumbai 43 Learning, Rhythm, Space 47 Tactical Learning 54 Conclusion 59 3 Learning Social Movements: Tactics, Urbanism and Politics 62 Introduction 62 Knowing Social Movements 63 Global Slumming 66 The Housing Assemblage: Materializing Learning 69 Learning and Representation: Counting the Poor 74 Entrepreneurial Learning 85 Conclusion 90 4 Urban Learning Forums 92 Introduction 92 Uncertain Forums 93 Dialogic Urban Forums 98 Translocalism and Translation 105 Conclusion 113 5 Travelling Policies, Ideological Assemblages 115 Introduction 115 Translating Policy 117 Comparative Learning: Translation and Colonial Urbanism 122 Ideology and Postwar Urban Planning 128 Neoliberal Urban Learning Assemblages 134 Ideology and Explanation: Beyond Diffusionist Story-Making 145 Conclusion 151 6 A Critical Geography of Urban Learning 153 Introduction 153 The Actual and the Possible 155 Agency and Critical Learning 160 Assemblage and the Critical Learning Imaginary 164 Postcolonial Urban Learning? 167 Conclusion 172 Conclusion 174 References 185 Index 205

About the Author :
Colin McFarlane is Lecturer in Human Geography at Durham University, UK. His research focuses on urban geography, especially theorising the intersections between urban inequality, materiality, and knowledge.

Review :
“Readers who have ever puzzled over the movement of particular discourses or knowledge systems from one urban context to another, or between otherwise disparate groups, will find in this volume an exhaustive and compelling effort to theorize the development, movement, and effects of learning … Its revelatory power is arguably profound: for McFarlane, it promises nothing short of understanding the power to forge a different kind of city. In the 21st century city, the material and analytical stakes of learning could not be higher.” (Antipode, 1 September 2013) “This book is a significant step in bringing learning to the core of urban study … This volume’s detailed fieldwork effectively supports its desire to see learning occupy a central place in the production of more socially just urbanisms.”  (Area, 1 May 2013) “Learning the City is a critical academic contribution useful for scholars of the field ... It is sure to become indispensable for academics of the discipline.”  (Geography Helvitica, 1 December  2012) "Through Learning the City McFarlane has made a major contribution to our understandings of the urban. In its commitment to the diverse and lively practices through which the city is learned and known, in its engagement with the diverse forms of agency and political practices through which agency is assembled and re-assembled the book enlivens understandings of spatial politics. It is also a text that is animated by a powerful sense of hope that cities might come to bere-assembled in different ways that are more equitable and more open to different agentic forces and contributions." (Society and Space, 1 November 2012) "In Learning the City, McFarlane successfully manages to open the black box of urban learning in widening the perspective to acknowledge diverse urban learning practices, which may even bear a transformative potential in certain contexts." (International Planning Studies, 23 October 2012) "Learning the City is an important and theoretically sophisticated piece of work. It is like a good movie: you need to re-view it in your mind several times to position yourself ... McFarlane’s innovative theory of urban learning is very helpful to an understanding of contemporary urbanism and of how it can be changed for the better. Its great merit is to make us see cities as complex learning assemblages and milieus." (Urban Geography, 34.1) “A wonderfully insightful book that rewards careful attention and deserves a wide readership ... A powerful framework for re-thinking issues of poverty, urban informality and development in the Global South.” (Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 34 (2013)) “A rich and perceptive account of how we dwell in and learn about cities and what it takes to live an urban life … McFarlane’s book forces us to review the conceptual tools we have in the planning field for “getting to know” what cities are like and how urban life is experienced.” (Patsy Healey, Planning Theory & Practice, 14:2) “Urbanism, McFarlane believes, needs a theory of learning; throughout his book he builds a very sophisticated one…[he] brings us closer to the material stuff of urban life and politics…a kind of urbanism in motion, whereby what we come to term ‘knowledge’, ‘infrastructure’ and ‘resources’ are never simply ‘there’, but must be translated, distributed, coordinated, perceived and inhabited”. (International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 38.1, January 2014).