Julie-Anne Boudreau - Böcker

Global Urban Politics: Informalization of the StateIn what ways has global urbanization affected the political process? This book offers a reflection on the transformations of urban politics worldwide in the past four decades, from interpersonal street-level politics to transnational governing institutions.Organized thematically, the book examines urban social movements, diversity politics, environmental politics and security politics at a global level and argues that living in an urban world calls for a profound rethinking of how we act politically. Through ethnographic incursions into the worlds of youth activists, domestic workers, rioters, barrio bandits and peripheral villagers, among others, from Mexico City and Hanoi to Montreal and New York, the book makes a number of theoretical propositions to redefine the field of urban political studies.Extending the view of urban politics beyond municipal and metropolitan institutions to the broader political process in cities, this book will be invaluable to advanced students and scholars interested in our urban future. For, as Boudreau convincingly suggests, global urban life is political life.

Global Urban Politics: Informalization of the StateIn what ways has global urbanization affected the political process? This book offers a reflection on the transformations of urban politics worldwide in the past four decades, from interpersonal street-level politics to transnational governing institutions.Organized thematically, the book examines urban social movements, diversity politics, environmental politics and security politics at a global level and argues that living in an urban world calls for a profound rethinking of how we act politically. Through ethnographic incursions into the worlds of youth activists, domestic workers, rioters, barrio bandits and peripheral villagers, among others, from Mexico City and Hanoi to Montreal and New York, the book makes a number of theoretical propositions to redefine the field of urban political studies.Extending the view of urban politics beyond municipal and metropolitan institutions to the broader political process in cities, this book will be invaluable to advanced students and scholars interested in our urban future. For, as Boudreau convincingly suggests, global urban life is political life.

Both theoretically informed and empirically rich, Youth Urban Worlds explores how urban cultures affect political action amongst youth. Argues that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political processIncludes ethnographies, delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestorsTheorizes that aesthetics are an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting and explains the impact of aesthetics on the politicalExamines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experience of being in the worldExplains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior

Both theoretically informed and empirically rich, Youth Urban Worlds explores how urban cultures affect political action amongst youth. Argues that urban cultures challenge the very meaning and contours of the political processIncludes ethnographies, delving into the perspectives and knowledges of racialized youth, urban farmers, and “voluntary risk takers,” like dumpster divers, building climbers, and student protestorsTheorizes that aesthetics are an increasingly crucial form of political action in the contemporary urban setting and explains the impact of aesthetics on the politicalExamines the centrality of fun, warmth, aesthetics, and embodiment to these youth’s experience of being in the worldExplains how youth are able to practically and concretely impact the political process through the performance of risky and disruptive behavior

By exploring the formative years of the New City of Toronto (between 1995 and 2005, the period just before, during, and after metropolitan amalgamation), Changing Toronto analyzes the political, social, and environmental challenges of living in, and governing, a major metropolitan city region that bills itself as a multicultural, world-class city.

Cities are now on the front line of dangers associated with the climate crisis, health emergencies, uncontrolled artificial intelligence, escalating warfare, growing authoritarianism and capitalist profligacy. This is especially so for their unprotected populations who, in large numbers, now face a dire future of precarity as powerful elites seek to turn urban assets to their advantage in confronting an uncertain future. For the vast majority of people living in cities, the future is one of foreclosure – a future of dispossession and impoverishment that is lacking a horizon of hope.What pathways remain open for cities to avert a future of foreclosure for people leading modest lives in modest neighbourhoods? To answer this question, this book looks to the popular practices and knowledges that exist within urban communities and neighbourhoods, finding within them elements that are potentially reparative and curative. Here the engagement with time is different, involving repertoires of horizontal relations, affinities of place and restive knowledge capable of making something out of nothing, of bending adversity towards other goals. Here, rich yet neglected ecologies of urban inhabitation – with all their wiles and improvisations – emerge as the ground of future-making. The book offers a body of concepts to encapsulate this threatened yet resistant urbanism, exemplifies its workings in the streets of Kinshasa, Lagos, Mexico City and Naples, and outlines an infrastructural and aesthetic politics to bring out its potential, thereby enabling another future to shine through urban foreclosure.

Cities are now on the front line of dangers associated with the climate crisis, health emergencies, uncontrolled artificial intelligence, escalating warfare, growing authoritarianism and capitalist profligacy. This is especially so for their unprotected populations who, in large numbers, now face a dire future of precarity as powerful elites seek to turn urban assets to their advantage in confronting an uncertain future. For the vast majority of people living in cities, the future is one of foreclosure – a future of dispossession and impoverishment that is lacking a horizon of hope.What pathways remain open for cities to avert a future of foreclosure for people leading modest lives in modest neighbourhoods? To answer this question, this book looks to the popular practices and knowledges that exist within urban communities and neighbourhoods, finding within them elements that are potentially reparative and curative. Here the engagement with time is different, involving repertoires of horizontal relations, affinities of place and restive knowledge capable of making something out of nothing, of bending adversity towards other goals. Here, rich yet neglected ecologies of urban inhabitation – with all their wiles and improvisations – emerge as the ground of future-making. The book offers a body of concepts to encapsulate this threatened yet resistant urbanism, exemplifies its workings in the streets of Kinshasa, Lagos, Mexico City and Naples, and outlines an infrastructural and aesthetic politics to bring out its potential, thereby enabling another future to shine through urban foreclosure.