City/University interplays amidst complexity

Journal title TERRITORIO
Author/s Edgar Pieterse
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/66
Language English Pages 7 P. 26-32 File size 358 KB
DOI 10.3280/TR2013-066005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

This article discusses how, in an African city - Cape Town - the African Centre for Cities has attempted over the last six years to develop a research method and facility able to respond to a series of pressing problems, by combining methods of scientific research with a deep immersion in the field of urban practices. The article critically explores the assumptions and first results of this experience and then discusses the dialectical tension which binds practices - and the search for increasingly more precise and effective tools for intervention - to the need to bring complex forms of the comprehension of reality into play which, in the conflictual and contradictory context of Cape Town, can only emerge from careful theorisation of the reality.

Keywords: Cape Town; city-university; knowledge

  1. Anderson P.M.L., Brown-Luthango M., Cartwright A., Farouk I. and Smit W., 2013, «Brokering Communities of Knowledge and Practice: Reflections on the African Centre for Cities City Lab programme», Cities, vol. 32, n. 2, pp. 1-10, DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2013.02.002
  2. Banck G.A., 1986, «Poverty, Politics and the Shaping of Urban Space: A Brazilian Example», International Journal of Urban Regional Research, vol. 10, n. 4, pp. 522-540, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.1986.tb00027.x
  3. Brown V.A., 2010, «Collective Inquiry and its Wicked Problems», in Brown V.A., Harris J.A. and Russel J.Y. (eds.), Tackling Wicked Problems. Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination, Earthscan, London.
  4. Brown-Luthango M., 2013, «Community-university Engagement: The Philippi CityLab in Cape Town and the Challenge of Collaboration Across Boundaries», Higher Education, vol. 65, n. 3, pp. 309-324, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-012-9546-z
  5. Cartwright A., Oelofse G., Parnell S. and Ward S., 2012, «Climate at the city scale: the Cape Town Climate Think Tank», in Cartwright A., Parnell S. Oelofse G. and Ward S. (eds.), Climate Change at the City Scale: Impacts, Mitigation and Adaptation in Cape Town, Routledge, Abingdon, UK.
  6. Cornwall A. and Brock K., 2005, «What do Buzzwords do for Development Policy? A Critical Look at ‘Participation’, ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Poverty Reduction’», Third World Quarterly, vol. 26, n. 7, pp. 1043-1060, DOI: 10.1080/01436590500235603
  7. Escobar A., 1995, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton U.P., Princeton.
  8. Evans P., 1996, «Introduction. Development Strategies Across the Public-Private Divide», World Development, vol. 24, n. 6, pp. 1033-1037, DOI: 10.1016/0305-750X(96)00014-9
  9. Ferguson J., 1992, The Anti-Politics Machine Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
  10. Holston J., 1991, «Autoconstruction in Working-class Brazil», Cultural Anthropology, vol. 6, n. 4, pp. 447-465, DOI: 10.1525/can.1991.6.4.02a00020
  11. Jones R., 2012, «State Encounters», Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 30, pp. 805-821, DOI: 10.1068/d9110
  12. Mamdani M., 2008, «Higher Education, the State and the Marketplace», Journal of Higher Education in Africa, vol. 6, n. 1, pp. 1-10.
  13. Mbembe A., 2011, «Democracy as a Community of Life», The Johannesburg Salon, vol. 4, pp. 5-10.
  14. Mbembe A. and Nuttall S., 2004, «Writing the World from an African Metropolis», Public Culture, vol. 16, n. 3, pp. 347-372, DOI: 10.1215/08992363-16-3-347
  15. Mbembe A. and Nuttall S., 2008, eds., Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis, Duke University Press, Durham.
  16. Miraftab F., 2004, «Making Neo-liberal Governance: The Disempowering Work of Empowerment», International Planning Studies, vol. 9, n. 4, pp. 239-259, DOI: 10.1080/13563470500050130
  17. Parnell S. and Pieterse E., 2010, «Realising the ‘Right to the City’: Institutional Imperatives for Tackling Urban Poverty», International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, vol. 34, n. 1, pp. 146-162, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00954.x
  18. Parnell S. and Pieterse E., eds., Africa’s Urban Revolution: Policy Pressures, Zed Books, London (in press).
  19. Parnell S., Pieterse E. and Watson V., 2009, «Planning for Cities in the Global South: A Research Agenda for Sustainable Human Settlements», Progress in Planning, vol. 72, n. 2, pp. 233-241.
  20. Pieterse E., 2010, «Cityness and African Urban Development», Urban Forum, vol. 21, n. 3, pp. 205-219.
  21. Pieterse E., 2012, «High Wire Acts: Knowledge Imperatives of Southern Urbanisms», The Johannesburg Salon, vol. 5, pp. 37-50 (http://jwtc. org.za/salon_volume_5.htm).
  22. Pieterse E., 2013, «Grasping the Unknowable: Coming to Grips with African Urbanisms», in Pieterse E. and Simone A. (eds.), Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities, Jacana Press, Johannesburg.
  23. Robinson J., 2008, «Being Undisciplined: Transgressions and Intersections in Academia and Beyond», Futures, vol. 40, pp. 70-86, DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2007.06.007
  24. Robinson J. and Parnell S., 2011, «Travelling Theory: Embracing Post-Neoliberalism through Southern Cities», in Bridge G. and Watson S. (eds.), The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.
  25. Roe E., 1993, «Against Power: For the Politics of Complexity», Transition, n. 62, pp. 90-104, DOI: 10.2307/2935205
  26. Simone A., 2010, City Life from Jakarta to Dakar: Movements at the Crossroads, Routledge, London and New York.
  27. Tavengwa T. and Pieterse E., 2013, «Designing Against the Grain: Confronting the Political Economy of Knowledge Production», in Pieterse E. and Simone A. (eds.), Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities. Jacana Press, Johannesburg.
  28. Watson V., 2009, «Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues», Urban Studies, vol. 46, n. 11, pp. 2259-2275, DOI: 10.1177/0042098009342598
  29. Watson V. and Odendaal N., 2012, «Changing Planning Education in Africa: The Role of the Association of African Planning Schools», Journal of Planning Education and Research, DOI: 10.1177/0739456X1245230

  • Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research Susan Parnell, Edgar Pieterse, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research /2016 pp.236
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12278
  • Co-producing city-regional intelligence: strategies of intermediation, tactics of unsettling Beth Perry, Warren Smit, in Regional Studies /2023 pp.685
    DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2022.2044464
  • Engaging geographies: negotiating positionality and building relevance Sophie Oldfield, Zarina Patel, in South African Geographical Journal /2016 pp.505
    DOI: 10.1080/03736245.2016.1217255
  • Sustainability Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa II Zarina Patel, Ntombini Marrengane, Warren Smit, Pippin M. L. Anderson, pp.189 (ISBN:978-981-15-5357-8)
  • Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization: the history and practices of urban knowledge production in South Africa Sylvia Croese, James Duminy, in Urban Geography /2023 pp.538
    DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2022.2079868
  • Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context Gareth Haysom, Jane Battersby, pp.355 (ISBN:978-3-031-23534-4)
  • Institutional inertia in a changing climate Anna Taylor, in International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management /2016 pp.194
    DOI: 10.1108/IJCCSM-03-2014-0033
  • The role of engaged scholarship and co-production to address urban challenges: a case study of the Cape Town Knowledge Transfer Programme S. M. Miszczak, Z. Patel, in South African Geographical Journal /2018 pp.233
    DOI: 10.1080/03736245.2017.1409649
  • Ricerca-azione e università. Produzione di conoscenza, inclusività e diritti Francesca Cognetti, in TERRITORIO 78/2016 pp.40
    DOI: 10.3280/TR2016-078004

Edgar Pieterse, City/University interplays amidst complexity in "TERRITORIO" 66/2013, pp 26-32, DOI: 10.3280/TR2013-066005