[Urbanstudy] CFP AAG 2017 Boston "Uncertainty in the city: Issues of planning, governance and citizenship"

[Swetha Rao Dhananka]

Uncertainty in the city: Issues of planning, governance and citizenship
CALL FOR PAPERS:
American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, 5-9 April 2017

Organisers: Sai Balakrishnan (Harvard University), Champaka Rajagopal (University of Amsterdam), Swetha Rao Dhananka (University College London & Indian Institute for Human Settlements)
Economic liberalization is leading to a re-valuation and re-commodification of increasingly scarce resources like land and water and new public contracting. At the same time, the demands for infrastructure and adequate services and amenities in rapidly urbanizing regions outpace planning and financial capacities of urban local bodies. In an era where profit maximization is sought globally, but the effects of this quest is experienced locally, old and new power brokers operating at different scales are actively involved in amending and creating new institutions/rules. Under these conditions of uncertainty, information becomes power. For example, preferential access to urban plans gives first-mover advantage to those who are at the negotiating table when these plans are being made, often leaving the most vulnerable residents with the least resources to carry the brunt of the new plans.
Following Peter Marris’ work on “the politics of uncertainty,” this panel opens up the question of planning under conditions of deep uncertainty, when existing institutional frameworks are being amended, re-interpreted or breached and new modi operandi are being put in place to govern a newly liberalizing economy. Within the context of new public contracting and outsourcing of plans and projects, the effects of uncertainty are often divorced from planning initiatives, as the actual workings of urban projects take place through serial and informal arrangements between state and non-state actors. The current research of the session organizers speaks to information asymmetry and institutional change that can shed light on how the new planning for the regulation of land and water is ultimately re-shaping territory, authority and voice.
We invite papers from across geographical latitudes to reflect these aspects:

  *   Who has what kind of access to information about urban development, how does information circulate and how is it validated?
  *   How do different regulatory frameworks collide in these contexts of uncertainty?
  *   What role do private contracts play in reordering public governance?
  *   How is this space for uncertainty exploited by the different actors (government, private players, civil society) engaging in the development of the city and what are the dialectics between the actors in remaining included or strategically excluded?
  *   What types of citizenship practices are developed to challenge information asymmetry?
  *   Within the context of regulatory and institutional uncertainty, how are planning outcomes and social, economic and financial risks measured?
  *   Is there a proportional relationship between the urbanization growth rate and the inadequacies in service delivery and municipal/ public finance?

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to the session co-organisers:

  *   Sai Balakrishnan, sbalakrishnan at gsd.harvard.edu<mailto:sbalakrishnan at gsd.harvard.edu>
  *   Champaka Rajagopal, champaka_tr at yahoo.com<mailto:champaka_tr at yahoo.com>
  *   Swetha Rao Dhananka, s.raodhananka.edu at gmail.com<mailto:s.raodhananka.edu at gmail.com>

Deadlines:

  *   16.Oct. 2016: Send abstracts to session organisers
  *   21.Oct. 2016: Accepted submissions will be intimated
  *   27.Oct. 2016: Register and submit abstract online on AAG website and forward your registration code to us

Indicative References:

  *   Allen, A., Lampis, A., & Swilling, M. (2016). Untamed Urbanisms. Oxon: Routledge.
  *   Marris, P. (1996). The Politics of Uncertainty: Attachment in Private and Public Life. London: Routledge
  *   Miraftab, F. (2012). Chapter 38 Planning and Citizenship. In R. Weber & R. Crane (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning (pp. 1180–1204). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  *   Purcell, M. (2003). Citizenship and the right to the global city: reimagining the capitalist world order. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(3), 564–590.
  *   Spiller, P. (2008). An institutional theory of public contracts: Regulatory implications. NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge.

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Swetha Rao Dhananka, PhD
swetha.raodhananka at unil.ch<mailto:swetha.raodhananka at unil.ch>

SNSF fellow at:
Development Planning Unit UCL, London
Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore

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