Urban Theory Seminar: CRITICAL THEORY beyond-the-urban

Abstract

Building on the previous sessions, we continue the enquiry into 21st-century extended urbanisation, exploring intertwined systems of spatial production; infrastructure, agriculture and wilderness. We critique the binaries of the urban and the rural, the natural and the cultural, to partially decenter urban and human perspectives, and to introduce a foundation for critical theory beyond-the-urban.

Objective

Through this course, participants will cultivate a critical understanding of urban theories and urban change in three systems of spatial production; infrastructure, agriculture, and wilderness The course will explore agrarian change, political economy, urbanisation, social and ecological concerns in diverse geographies. It aims to build tangible links from theory to spatial practice through the discussion of case-studies and field work from current research. Active engagement with recommended literature is expected, encouraging participants to present, discuss, and debate key concepts in urban and environmental humanities. The seminar aims to: 1. Foster a critical understanding of urban theories and practices and other related fields such as agriculture, hydrology, ecology, environmental humanities, 2. Enhance participants' skills in reading, presenting, and debating academic texts. 3. Inspire ideas and build a theoretical basis for architectural and urban design practices in diverse territories.

Content

Agriculture A rich body of theory has developed around agriculture, in particular recent research on extended urbanisation reveals how the agrarian and the urban question are closely connected and mutually constitutive, for example through the “enclosure of land away from social purposes in favor of privatised, exclusionary, and profit-driven modes of appropriation. whether for resource extraction, agribusiness, logistics functions, or other purposes” (Brenner & Schmid, 2015,167). This module explores agriculture as a critical lens for examining the relationship between urbanisation and ecology. It considers agricultural practices as spatial and environmental systems that shape contemporary territories at multiple scales. Through discussions on urban agroecology, green infrastructure, and broader territorial processes, the module engages both Western and Latin American perspectives on food production, land use, and environmental governance. By situating agriculture within debates on ecological crisis and alternative futures, the module invites students to critically reflect on how agricultural systems intersect with urban theory, design, and care for living environments. Infrastructure Infrastructure is a key agent of extended urbanisation. This module focuses on two types of infrastructure: the hydrosocial infrastructure of dams, and the digital infrastructure that is reshaping both digital and physical territories. Each of these envirotechnical infrastructural systems concentrate and direct resource flows into capital, while transforming power relations and depleting and peripheralising local economies and landscapes. The module also investigates potentials for commoning & reappropriation around infrastructure. Wilderness Definitions of nature are ambiguous and contested to the extent that terms such as wilderness can be understood as a form of extended urbanisation- something exotic and consequently in need of conservation. This narrative continues to position humans outside nature: either destroying it or protecting it. Questioning this paradigm, initiatives around the world are now examining concepts such as environmental personhood and the rights of nature, often drawing on Indigenous epistemologies that reject the nature–culture divide. This module explores the contested definitions of nature and ground this within a longer historiography. We formulate our discussion from Southern contexts, specifically Kenya-Tanzania and Colombia-Ecuador. We interrogate the categories of what is natural and extend this to problematic and contested terms such as wilderness to question the mobility of narrative, power and knowledge that casts and categorizes people and place as natural, exotic and consequently in need of preservation. This session demands sitting with contested realities such as the geographies of preserved and conserved natures, the entanglement of nature and urbanization, imperial pasts and presents, mobility of capital, the location of indigenous peoples and the interrogation of alternative futures. The course is structured around a public introductory lecture at LUS ONA DidLab, three core thematic modules of 3 sessions each and a concluding open debate led by students . Each module brings theory input, a guest lecture discussing applied practices and case studies and a collective exercise applying theories and research methods: How to think and write through the beyond-the-urban theories and practices learnt further into other cases? Two collaborative sessions are part of the course: with the NSL Colloquium International Forum on Pedagogies for Urban Transformation (NEWROPE 12-13.03.26) and the LUS doctoral Seminar Critical Walking (Dr. Nazli Tümerdem 30.04.26).

Resources