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Urban Theory Seminar: Agrarian Questions under Extended Urbanisation
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:08:38
Abstract
As the prospect of complete urbanisation increasingly becomes a concrete rather than abstract reality, architecture and urban studies is consistently confronted with the agrarian question. This research seminar introduces some of the key concepts and ideas around the agrarian question and extended urbanisation in agrarian territories.
Objective
Through this course, the seminar participants are expected to develop a critical understanding of the agrarian question, its political economy, and urbanisation in the agrarian territories. The participants are thus expected to actively engage in presenting, discussing, and debating the recommended literature for the seminar. Furthermore, the participants are encouraged to identify alternatives and imagine the possibilities for architectural and urban practice in the agrarian territories. In summary, the seminar aims to accomplish the following: - Allow the seminar participants to gain a critical understanding of the concepts, ideas, and debates around the agrarian question, agrarian ecology, and extended urbanisation. - Strengthen the ability of the seminar participants to read, present, and debate academic texts. - Develop ideas for architectural and urban practice in agrarian territories.
Content
This course attempts a systematic engagement with the agrarian questions in its many facets and intersections with architecture and extended urbanisation. It explores the agrarian questions under extended urbanisation in the 21st century through surveying some of its current discourses and debates. Each week, the seminar participants will be introduced to a new facet of the agrarian question organised along the various thematically designed sessions. The introductory sessions will bring the agrarian question in a world historical perspective through exploring land settlement under colonialism, and the various revolutions and counter-revolutions that emerged in its wake in the global countryside. A further set of sessions will explore the question of food through discussing food sovereignty, food regimes, urban farming, and the future of food. A central facet of the seminar will be the question of land and labour, which will be discussed through the themes of global depesentisation, migration, land enclosure, and primitive accumulation. Lastly, the seminar will explore the contemporary entanglements between the agrarian question and urbanisation through considering global supply chains, carbon forestry, and urbanism in the agrarian territories. Each of the thematic session will include at least three recommended readings. The course participants will prepare short presentations based on these readings in groups of two followed by a moderated discussion between the participants. Based on the readings, the participants are encouraged to identify alternatives and imagine the possibilities for architectural and urban practice in agrarian territories.
Resources
Lecture Notes
A seminar reader will be provided to the participants at the start of the semester.
Literature
Ecological crises and the agrarian question in world-historical perspective JW Moore - Monthly review, 2008 Is There an Agrarian Question in the 21st Century? Henry Bernstein, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 2006 Surveying the agrarian question: current debates and beyond AH Akram-Lodhi, C Kay - The Journal of Peasant Studies Ecology, land use and colonisation: the canal colonies of Punjab I Agnihotri Land. Milk. Honey Tamar Novick Fascism and agriculture in Italy: policies and consequences JS Cohen - The Economic History Review, 1979 Infrastructures of “Legitimate Violence”: The Prussian Settlement Commission, Internal Colonization, and the Migrant Remainder H Kennedy - Grey Room, 2019 The Long Green Revolution Raj Patel, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2013 The end of the road? Agricultural revolutions in the capitalist world‐ecology, 1450–2010 JW Moore - Journal of agrarian change, 2010 Land and liberation: the South African national liberation movements and the agrarian question, 1920s–1960s C Bundy - Review of African Political Economy, 1984 Pye, Oliver. 2021. ‘Agrarian Marxism and the Proletariat: A Palm Oil Manifesto’. The Journal of Peasant Studies 48 (4): 807–26. Chapter 5 - City and Country, from Sitopia: How can food save the world Carolyn Steel Pixel Farming, Countryside in your pocket, Lenora Ditzler Food sovereignty, social reproduction and the agrarian question P McMichael - Peasants and globalization, 2012 A critical account on food sovereignty: Li, Tania Murray. 2015. ‘Can There Be Food Sovereignty Here?’ The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (1): 205–11. Towards an agrarian question of circulation: Walmart's expansion in Chile and the agrarian political economy of supply chain capitalism M Arboleda - Journal of Agrarian Change, 2020 Castree, Noel. 2003. ‘Commodifying What Nature?’ Progress in Human Geography 27 (3): 273–97. Tsing, Anna. 2009. ‘Supply Chains and the Human Condition’. Rethinking Marxism 21 (2): 148–76. Von Palmölplantagen zu Dörfern, Hans Hortig, Archithese Cities without cities: an interpretation of the Zwischenstadt T Sieverts - 2003 The Emergence of Desakota Regions in Asia: Expanding a Hypothesis TG McGee Notes toward a history of Agrarian urbanism C Waldheim - 2012 Taking the Country’s Side. Agriculture and Architecture Sébastien Marot Urbs in rure: Historical enclosure and the extended urbanization of the countryside (Implosions-Explosions). A Sevilla-Buitrago The land question: special economic zones and the political economy of dispossession in India M Levien - The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2012 Li, Tania Murray. 2017. ‘Rendering Land Investible: Five Notes on Time’. Geoforum 82 (June): 276–78. Global Depeasantization, 1945–1990 FA Araghi - The Sociological Quarterly, 1995 The global reserve army of labor and the new imperialism JB Foster, RW McChesney, RJ Jonna Gangmastering Passata: Multi-Territoriality of the Food System and the Legal Construction of Cheap Labor Behind the Globalized Italian Tomato T Ferrando - FIU L. Rev., 2020 - HeinOnline Introduction from Into Their Labours, John Berger, 1991 Carbon forestry and agrarian change: access and land control in a Mexican rainforest TM Osborne - Journal of Peasant Studies, 2011 Grabbing “green”: markets, environmental governance and the materialization of natural capital C Corson, KI MacDonald, B Neimark - Human Geography, 2013 Pye, Oliver. 2019. ‘Commodifying Sustainability: Development, Nature and Politics in the Palm Oil Industry’. World Development 121 (September): 218–28. Radical, reformist, and garden-variety neoliberal: coming to terms with urban agriculture's contradictions. N McClintock - Local Environment, 2014 Nourishing the city: The rise of the urban food question in the Global North K Morgan - Urban Studies, 2015
Learning Materials (Links)
- Main link
- 25.02.2022
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- NDS
- Frequency
- Yearly recurring
Examination
- Type
- ungraded semester performance
Registration & Places
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture with exercise |
Urban Theory Seminar: Agrarian Questions Under Extended Urbanisation
Keine Lehrveranstaltung am 25.3. (Seminarwoche).
Course room 5.5.22: ONA E25 (see room reservations!)
|
|
30 h semesterly |