Speakers
Description
Cities in the Global South are experiencing profound processes of urban renewal that, like to capitalism, need to be understood in their inherent dualities and tensions. These processes involve transformations that simultaneously produce and destroy, accumulate and dispossess, and oscillate between dominant narratives and dissident practices. This paper examines three neighbourhoods in the Argentinean cities of Córdoba, Resistencia, and Villa María, where urban development prioritises the production of capitalist value at the expense of diverse ways of life and the conflicts inherent in urban spaces. From a critical perspective, we explore modernisation in the Güemes neighbourhood, historical reparation in the Toba neighbourhood, and sustainability in the Ecobarrio, Villa María. Using a qualitative approach, we analyse the different characteristics of the urban transformations in each case through three dimensions: (a) neo-colonial urbanism as a manifestation of capital’s influence under varying socio-historical conditions; (b) political discourses where the state assumes diverse hegemonic roles to legitimise neighbourhood interventions; and (c) the production of urban commons as an everyday resistance tactic used by the inhabitants of the Global South. By critically engaging with these dimensions, we aim to deepen understanding of how urban renewal unfolds and is challenged in intermediate cities.
| Keywords | Intermediate cities, neo-coloniality, critique of value, urban commons, Global South |
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