The Travels of Critiques of Neoliberalism: Urban Experiences from the “Borderlands”

This article contributes to the ongoing scrutiny of the travels of critiques of neoliberalism in urban studies. Using the case of a state-led urban regeneration program implemented in Portugal since 2000, the Polis Program, the article weighs in on meta-analytical discussions about the hegemonic status of neoliberalism as a theoretical concept and as an analytical framework and on discussions about the travels of dominant critiques of neoliberalism beyond the sites of epistemological production. The article argues that the current analytical overinvestment in neoliberalism may obscure important drivers of contemporary urbanization and that recourse to a diversity of concepts may be a more profitable line of inquiry. The article suggests that current efforts at epistemological renewal within urban studies benefit from taking up cities in the “borderlands” of urban theory as relevant cases in their own right. The article offers further considerations on the purchase of neoliberalism in contemporary urban literature.[Key words: neoliberalism, critiques, urban theory, urban planning and policy, Portugal, Polis Program]     

Resource economies and neoliberal experimentation: the reform of industry and community in rural British Columbia

This paper argues that the current literature on neoliberalism in advanced capitalist societies has concentrated primarily on urban issues, and has thus failed to see resource economies and regions as theoretically significant sites of neoliberal reform. Using research from British Columbia, Canada, we argue that resource regions are often targets of intense neoliberal experimentation. The neoliberal project in British Columbia involves an extreme shift in state policy from a strong Fordist-Keynesian programme to recent efforts to 'liberate' corporate actors from non-market social and spatial obligations (to environment, labour and community). We argue that such policy shifts have exceptional consequences in resource regions due to strong and direct state influence in corporate-resource and community-level economies. We draw several theoretical lessons from this research for the mainstream literature on neoliberal reform.     

Bringing globalization to the countryside: Special Economic Zones in India

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are important vectors of neoliberal globalization in India. Despite facing widespread resistance against the proposed land acquisition for these zones, they are still being promoted across the country. We argue that the wealth redistribution to the country's elites and the fractured resistance movements enable neoliberalism and its practices to grow in the countryside. Using a private sector SEZ in Gurgaon as a case study, this article explores how special economic zoning, as a neoliberal policy, has been implicated in the spatialized production of poverty. We also show that the main actors who promote neoliberalism in India (the state and the large‐scale urban private sector) have found a seemingly unlikely ally in rural India in the form of farmers with large landholdings, rural elites who are willing to let go of their land under certain conditions. The data for the article was collected in India in 2009–10.     

Reconsidering neoliberal urban planning in times of crisis: urban regeneration policy in a “dense” space in Lisbon

In this article, I contribute to recent debates about the concept of neoliberalism and its use as an explanatory concept, through the analysis of urban planning and regeneration policy in Lisbon amidst crisis and austerity. Suggesting a look at neoliberalization from a threefold perspective—the project, governmentalities, and policymaking—I analyze how current austerity-policy responses to the European economic crisis can be understood as a renewed and coherent deployment of neoliberal stances. The article presents implications for urban planning in Lisbon and thus suggests an exploration of the negotiations and clashes of hegemonic neoliberal governmentalities and policies with the local social and spatial fabric. For this exploration, I select a “deviant” case—the Mouraria neighborhood, a “dense” space in which the consequences of policies diverge sharply from expectations. In conclusion, I suggest that neoliberalization (in times of crisis) should be understood as a coherent project compromised by a set of highly ambiguous governmentalities, which bring about contradictory policymaking at the local level.     

新自由主义城市空间重构的批判视角研究

中国自1978年改革开放以来,城市与区域空间就已经在具有自我特色的新自由主义实践中发生了重大变革,目前研究仍然处于摸索阶段。在介绍国际自由主义城市研究基础上,将改革开放以来中国沿海和内地两种城市与区域地带内新自由主义的实践纳入中国新自由主义之城市批判研究:①城市场所内管制环境和权力结构;②阶层结构重构的原因、过程、特征;③未来区域发展导向与全球化相伴随的地理分异现象。在此基础上提出一些研究假设和相关方法论上的尝试,期盼给予国内新自由主义城市研究一些启示。     

The populist eruption and the urban question

Generalizing the recent experience of the United States, the common wisdom associates today’s ‘populist explosion’ with a deepening urban-rural divide, in which small towns and rural regions are seen as reservoirs of populist anger while large cities in the most prosperous areas are portrayed as strongholds of multicultural coexistence and liberal democracy. In challenging this representation, this paper underlines the ‘urban roots’ of today’s populist phenomenon in Western societies, using Italy as illustrative evidence. It is argued that cities – far from being pacified enclaves of happiness and democracy – are central to the contradictions of contemporary societies and their degenerations, reflecting an ambivalent relationship with the nation-state: potential sites of post-national democracy, on the one hand, but also spaces contributing to the current populist-white-revanchist wave sweeping Western societies, on the other hand. In doing so, the paper shows how the intersected housing and refugee crises have fomented impulses of ethnic-majority revanchism within Italy’s cities and towns in a context of late neoliberalism.     

Cities on edge: Smuggling and neoliberal policies at the Iguazú triangle

The vision of a borderless world, of people, ideas and products freely circulating within a self‐regulating market, is one that clashes with the emerging legal regime based on the punitive force of the state. After a period of liberalization, seen in the opening of national economies and the promotion of regional trade projects and free‐trade zones, the ambivalence of neoliberalism is manifest in a borderless capitalism that ambiguously depends on the securitization of national borders. Such a changing regime of state intervention is clearly seen at the Iguazú triangle – the tri‐border urban conglomerate that straddles Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina – where the illegality of informal cross‐border trading has been tolerated for decades. Recently stepped up police raids and controls hinder the passage of people and goods, while a new fiscal regime introduced in 2009 in Brazil attempts to regularize cross‐border trafficking by turning petty smugglers into micro entrepreneurs. Petty smugglers – dubbed sacoleiros– can hardly be defined as entrepreneurs and do not constitute an identifiable category of entrepreneurship but, as typical in the informal sector, act on opportunity and need. Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper contextualizes the programmes for border controls and regularizing smuggling inspired by neoliberal ideology in South America.     

The Sustainable and Entrepreneurial Park? Contradictions and Persistent Antagonisms at Sydney's Olympic Park

Urban parks have long been used by policy makers to achieve specific policy goals. In recent years, two sets of policy goals have become commonly associated with park planning. The first set of goals can be characterized as being neoliberal, where parks have been built and reformed to generate certain economic and governmental outcomes. The second set of policy goals is associated with sustainability, where parks have been utilized as tools in such things as the mitigation of climate change and community building. The aim of this paper is to examine how these two sets of policy goals have come to coexist. The paper draws upon the case study of Sydney Olympic Park, a self-proclaimed exemplar of both entrepreneurial urban development and sustainability. The paper traces out the functional and institutional changes at the Park in order to read the relationship between neoliberal and sustainability policy goals. While predictable inconsistencies are found between the two sets of policy goals, the paper argues in conclusion that their contradictions have not generated a necessity to resolve their antagonistic relations. [Key words: Sydney, Olympic Games, neoliberalism, sustainability, parks.]     

Do social meanings matter? How and how much social meanings influence everyday transport practices?

We live among a throng of social meanings. In a transport context, cars are described as symbols of status, bicycles as the toys of Middle Aged Men in Lycra, and buses as ‘loser cruisers’. This study asks ‘Do these social meanings matter?’ Do they influence people's transport practices, and if so, how and how much? The participants in this research reported that social meanings had widespread influences, particularly on their transport mode choices, vehicle choices, and travel performances. This research has implications for the ways that social meanings are incorporated into transport policy and future transport research.     

Competing narratives for the future of European agriculture: the agri-environmental consequences of neoliberalization in the context of the Doha Round

Whatever their eventual outcome, the current round of international trade negotiations taking place as part of the Doha Development Round offers a clear demonstration of the growing influence of a neoliberal agenda for international agricultural policy reform. Despite being powerfully supported by an alliance of agribusiness interests and country groupings, neoliberalism is far from universally accepted as the model for the future governance of an agriculture which is both commodifying and market led. This paper assesses the nature of the resulting debate and the range of alternative visions being proposed. It analyses the development of the European negotiating stance within the current round of trade talks and compares the merits of a decoupled policy approach to managing the rural environment with one much more closely linked to the practice of farming. The paper concludes by suggesting that an outcome of the continuing liberalization of agricultural policy will be a more demarcated countryside, in which productive and internationally competitive operators will increasingly be removed in space and in terms of policy treatment from the large number of economically marginal producers whose role will be to supply the public environmental goods under contract from the state.     

The persistent water problems of Lima,Peru: Neoliberalism,institutional failures and social inequalities

The contingent relation between water governance and nature neoliberalization has defined most interventions in the water sector around the world in recent years. In the case of the Peruvian capital Lima, the provision of water and sanitation services in the last two decades has been the object of investments and institutional reforms strongly influenced by economic neoliberalism. This essay examines the evolution of these neoliberalizing tendencies, noting the internal disputes, necessary adjustments and underlying problems of water sufficiency in the metropolitan region. The empirical results suggest that, rather than a straightforward process, the neoliberalization of water in Lima has advanced according to political opportunities and technico‐operational constraints. The water reforms implemented in the 1990s – when the goal of privatization met political opposition – can be contrasted with the more recent phase in the 2000s, when more flexible mechanisms, such as public‐private partnerships, have facilitated public acceptance. Despite the renovation of the infrastructure, the modernization of the water sector has failed to address persistent water management problems, namely the discriminatory treatment of low income residents, the chaotic expansion of the metropolitan area and the risk of future water shortages.     

Regimes of spatial ordering in Brazil: Neoliberalism,leftist populism and modernist aesthetics in slum upgrading in Recife

This paper shows how regimes of spatial ordering in Brazil are produced by the entangling of neoliberalism, leftist populism and modernist visions. The paper focuses on Prometrópole, a slum upgrading project in Recife funded by the World Bank, which commenced in 2007. In this project, the neoliberal dimension manifests in the idea that the state, private companies and citizens together are responsible for (re)constructing urban space, and further, that beneficiaries should behave as autonomous citizens, taking responsibility for their new living environment. The leftist political dimension is seen in participatory procedures to involve the target population from project design through to implementation, in expectation of their cooperation with the government. The modernist aesthetics – of straight lines, open spaces and visible order – informs the project design with the requirement to use the new houses and public spaces according to the standards of ‘modern civilization’. As our research shows, such a regime of spatial ordering clashes with the livelihoods of the urban poor, whose quality of life might even deteriorate as a result of the intervention. Furthermore, so‐called participatory procedures fail to grant the target population any real influence in creating their environment. Consequently, these residents of the new housing estate drastically reconstruct their private and public areas, reappropriating the urban space and contesting the regime of spatial ordering imposed upon them.     

The politics of urban greening: an introduction

ABSTRACT

Global enthusiasm for nature in cities is at high point. Australia is no exception, where there is a great deal of policy momentum and research interest in urban greening. The challenges presented by increasing urban heat associated with climate change, greater awareness of the potential social, physical and psychological benefits of exposure to ecologies for people, and recognition of cities as vital habitats for more-than-humans are central tenants of urban greening enthusiasm. Yet, there is a need for a more critical lens on urban greening in Australia. One that interrogates the purported normative, apolitical and instrumental benefits of greening, to position greening within a trajectory of the power relations, settler-colonialism, socio-ecological processes and capital flows that constitute the urban. This editorial introducing the special issue on urban greening politics explores how different conceptions of urban natures – green space, urban forestry and green infrastructure – have been put to work, before outlining the potential of ‘urban greening’ as the terminology for a more politically sensitive and process-orientated framing. The editorial concludes with a summary of the contributions to the special issue.     

Neoliberal Globalisation, "Exotic" Agro-exports, and Local Change in the Pacific Islands: A Study of the Fijian Kava Sector

The economically vulnerable and geographically isolated states and territories of the Pacific Islands find themselves increasingly powerless to resist the recent accelerated diffusion of globalisation and the economic options that this entails. Neoliberal policy has arrived in the ocean region later than elsewhere in the tropical world and in the developing world in general. However, it now almost exclusively frames regional and state policy agendas, and is profoundly restructuring economies and societies across the region. Agriculture, by far the leading economic sector in Pacific Island countries, has been targeted specifically for reform. The cultivation of non-traditional agricultural exports has formed the centrepiece of the evolving strategy. As well as "staple" exports such as sugar, copra, and taro going to non-traditional markets, "exotic" niche products are being developed for export to high income markets in Europe, Asia and North America. A major example of such a product is kava – a "traditional" crop used in the preparation of a ceremonial and/or social drink. Psycho- and physiological properties have been identified in the plant by the pharmaceutical industry that is marketing a range of kava products. Produced widely across the Pacific, Fiji is the major export source. This paper traces the evolution of globalisation in the Pacific Islands, placing the current wave of neoliberalism in its historical context. It goes on to outline the evolution of the Fijian kava export sector, and investigates some of the local socio-economic impacts of recent market growth. Given the evidence presented in this study, the paper asks if the power relations evolving under contemporary neoliberal globalisation are likely to be any different from those that existed during colonial globalisation.     

Loose threads: The translocal making of public space policy in Hanoi

This paper analyses the recent developments in public space policy in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. It has three aims. The first is to look at a potentially progressive urban policy in contrast to most work on ‘policies in motion’ that has primarily been concerned with neoliberal policies. The second is to put the process of public space policymaking in Hanoi in historical and cultural perspective. We therefore describe public space in Hanoi as historically constituted by different layers of meaning and physical urban patterns. The paper's third aim is to analyse the translocal connections involved in a policy that is still in the making, and therefore characterized by a series of ‘loose threads’. We show how different types of connections – policy mobility, topological relations and inter‐referencing – relate Hanoi to multiple locales elsewhere. The conclusion reflects on the ‘politics of reception’ showing how analysing a policy in the making develops a critical analysis of policies in motion.     

Securing the Neoliberal City: Discourses of Creativity and Priority Neighborhoods in Toronto,Canada

This paper examines the convergence between the discourse of the creative city and the discourse on priority neighborhoods within urban policy imaginaries in Toronto, Canada. In particular, it examines the development of a number of arts programs targeted at low-income neighborhoods in the city. The twin objectives of these programs are to (a) foster creative and entrepreneurial subjectivities among “at-risk” youth, and (b) reduce the risk of violence that is presumed to be associated with youths living in poor neighborhoods. The paper analyzes how these two discourses are intertwined in a neoliberal politics devoted to enhancing regional quality-of-life competitiveness and to branding Toronto as an attractive creative-class destination. [Key words: creative city, poverty, low-income neighborhoods, neoliberalism, Toronto.]     

社会科学和公共政策的空间化和GIS的应用

近年来社会科学的发展出现三大潮流,即“科学化”(强调借用自然科学的计量分析方法和模型)、“空间化”(关注社会经济现象的空间变化和相互作用) 和“应用化”(侧重于政策性规划性强的实用课题)。空间化的社会科学,尤其是应用研究离不开地理信息系统(GIS) 方法的应用,因为GIS 在整合、分析各种数据尤其是空间数据方面有独特优势。本文举例演示GIS 在相关领域(如经济学、语言历史、社会学特别是犯罪学、公共卫生和规划)的广泛应用。选取的案例来源于笔者多年研究的经验,包括美国联邦政府多家研究机构(NSF、NIH、NIJ) 资助的多项研究成果,旨在说明GIS在社会科学和公共政策研究中的应用价值。     

Managing artisanal and small-scale mining in forest areas: perspectives from a poststructural political ecology

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is an activity intimately associated with social deprivation and environmental degradation, including deforestation. This paper examines ASM and deforestation using a broadly poststructural political ecology framework. Hegemonic discourses are shown to consistently influence policy direction, particularly in emerging approaches such as Corporate Social Responsibility and the Forest Stewardship Council. A review of alternative discourses reveals that the poststructural method is useful for critiquing the international policy arena but does not inform new approaches. Synthesis of the analysis leads to conclusions that echo a growing body of literature advocating for policies to become increasingly sensitive to local contexts, synergistic between actors at difference scales, and to be integrated across sectors.