Stefan Kipfer - Böcker

In the past fifteen years, Henri Lefebvre’s reputation has catapulted into the stratosphere, and he is now considered an equal to some of the greats of European social theory (Bourdieu, Deleuze, Harvey). In particular, his work has revitalized urban studies, geography and planning via concepts like; the social production of space, the right to the city, everyday life, and global urbanization. Lefebvre’s massive body of work has generated two main schools of thought: one that is political economic, and another that is more culturally oriented and poststructuralist in tone. Space, Difference, and Everyday Life merges these two schools of thought into a unified Lefebvrian approach to contemporary urban issues and the nature of our spatialized social structures.

In the past fifteen years, Henri Lefebvre’s reputation has catapulted into the stratosphere, and he is now considered an equal to some of the greats of European social theory (Bourdieu, Deleuze, Harvey). In particular, his work has revitalized urban studies, geography and planning via concepts like; the social production of space, the right to the city, everyday life, and global urbanization. Lefebvre’s massive body of work has generated two main schools of thought: one that is political economic, and another that is more culturally oriented and poststructuralist in tone. Space, Difference, and Everyday Life merges these two schools of thought into a unified Lefebvrian approach to contemporary urban issues and the nature of our spatialized social structures.

This unique collection is the first to bring attention to Antonio Gramsci’s work within geographical debates. Presenting a substantially different reading to Gramsci scholarship, the collection forges a new approach within human geography, environmental studies and development theory. Offers the first sustained attempt to foreground Antonio Gramsci’s work within geographical debatesDemonstrates how Gramsci articulates a rich spatial sensibility whilst developing a distinctive approach to geographical questionsPresents a substantially different reading of Gramsci from dominant post-Marxist perspectives, as well as more recent anarchist and post-anarchist critiquesBuilds on the emergence of Gramsci scholarship in recent years, taking this forward through studies across multiple continents, and asking how his writings might engage with and animate political movements todayForges a new approach within human geography, environmental studies and development theory, building on Gramsci’s innovative philosophy of praxis

This unique collection is the first to bring attention to Antonio Gramsci’s work within geographical debates. Presenting a substantially different reading to Gramsci scholarship, the collection forges a new approach within human geography, environmental studies and development theory. Offers the first sustained attempt to foreground Antonio Gramsci’s work within geographical debatesDemonstrates how Gramsci articulates a rich spatial sensibility whilst developing a distinctive approach to geographical questionsPresents a substantially different reading of Gramsci from dominant post-Marxist perspectives, as well as more recent anarchist and post-anarchist critiquesBuilds on the emergence of Gramsci scholarship in recent years, taking this forward through studies across multiple continents, and asking how his writings might engage with and animate political movements todayForges a new approach within human geography, environmental studies and development theory, building on Gramsci’s innovative philosophy of praxis

What do struggles over pipelines in Canada, housing estates in France, and shantytowns in Martinique have in common? In Urban Revolutions, Stefan Kipfer shows how these struggles force us to understand the (neo-)colonial aspects of capitalist urbanization in a comparatively and historically nuanced fashion. In so doing, he demonstrates that urban research can offer a rich, if uneven, terrain upon which to develop the relationship between Marxist and anti-colonial intellectual traditions. After a detailed dialogue between Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon, Kipfer engages creole literature in the French Antilles, Indigenous radicalism in North America and political anti-racism in mainland France.

The region is back in town. Galloping urbanization has pushed beyond historical notions of metropolitanism. City-regions have experienced, in Edward Soja's terms, ""an epochal shift in the nature of the city and the urbanization process, marking the beginning of the end of the modern metropolis as we knew it.""Governing Cities Through Regions broadens and deepens our understanding of metropolitan governance through an innovative comparative project that engages with Anglo-American, French, and German literatures on the subject of regional governance. It expands the comparative angle from issues of economic competiveness and social cohesion to topical and relevant fields such as housing and transportation, and it expands comparative work on municipal governance to the regional scale.With contributions from established and emerging international scholars of urban and regional governance, the volume covers conceptual topics and case studies that contrast the experience of a range of Canadian metropolitan regions with a strong selection of European regions. It starts from assumptions of limited conversion among regions across the Atlantic but is keenly aware of the remarkable differences in urban regions' path dependencies in which the larger processes of globalization and neo-liberalization are situated and materialized.

Working with key concepts from theorist and human geographer Gillian Hart, this book argues for an ethnographic and geographic approach to critically engage contemporary political-economic processes in the context of real world struggles.