In February 2019 the prestigious journal Urban Studies published a new special issue on Transcending (in)formal urbanism, co-edited by Prof Michele Acuto (University of Melbourne), Dr Cecilia Dinardi (ICCE-Goldsmiths) and Dr Colin Marx (Bartlett-UCL).
Taking up the challenge of producing an evidence-based framework on how informal practices contribute to social life and urban revitalisation, and seeking a balance between views (and papers) on the North and the South, as much as on cultural, planning, geographical and political science perspectives, the issue aims to shed light on how informality poses major challenges for urban planning and how both city leaders and scholars can approach the encounter with the ‘informal’ city.
The 12 papers cover a variety of geographical regions, adopt different methodological lenses and engage with a range of urban issues – from cultural production, squatting and material infrastructures to street vending, informal politics and arts practices – to unpack, but not always privilege, the intricate relationship between the formal and the informal.
How can informal urbanism be a catalyst for urban theorising? What does an engagement with urban informality across approaches reveal for the community of urban studies and urban practitioners? These are some of the questions discussed by the special issue, seeking to create a dialogue that addresses the multi-layered manifestation of informal urbanism across cultural, social, economic, urban and political boundaries.
Of particular interest for the ICCE community are the article by renowned anthropologist and cultural studies Professor Néstor Garcia Canclini (Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana de Mexico) on the ‘culture of informality’ in Mexico City; a paper on cultural governance in the global South examining informality and cultural policies in African and Latin American contexts by Dr Jenny Mbaye (City University) and Dr Cecilia Dinardi (ICCE), and a study of freelancing and co-working in creative labour markets by Dr Janet Merkel (TU Berlin). There are also commentaries by key experts in the urban field, such as Prof Andy Pratt (City University London), Prof Colin McFarlane (Durham University) and Prof AbdouMaliq Simone (Goldsmiths), among many other contributions. Full table of contents can be found here.