In the last two decades, the notion of the third world has been slowly put aside and the global south has emerged as its replacement, although not without questioning.  Simultaneously, a strong critique in the broad field of urban studies has claimed that urban theory needs to be reframed to address the specificities of processes of urbanization in the global south.  This reframing is not only a matter of focus or better comparisons, but rather of producing and using other archives and crafting new epistemologies.  This course starts by re-tracing these shifts and debates.  Moreover, it analyzes processes of urbanization in cities of the global south from the middle of the twentieth century to the present on the basis of new archives and a certain understanding of the specificities of processes of urbanization in the global south.

This understanding is anchored on the notions of transversal logics and new modes of politics. Transversal logics alludes to the fact that processes of urbanization in the global south frequently unsettle official logics – for example, those of legal property, formal labor, state regulation, and market capitalism. Nevertheless, they do not contest these logics directly as much as they operate with them in transversal ways. The political consequences of these engagements are remarkable. Additionally, the course understands that processes of urbanization in the global south, although sharing some common features – such as the transversal logics or a high level of social inequality – are basically heterogeneous and generate quite distinctive cities and spatial formations. Thus, it does not make sense to talk in terms of a general “southern urbanism.” Rather, heterogeneous processes of urbanization in the global south have to be analyzed through the study of cases. Therefore, the course is structured according to main themes that reveal the transversal logics and the modes of politics in cities of the global south and through the analysis of cases. The themes include autoconstruction, the ambiguities of land tenure and the law, informality, the creation of urban land, spectacular urbanism, insurgent citizenship, new formations of labor, gender, and place, political ecologies, and new formations of time, space and practice. The cases will be diverse, but the course returns several times to a few cities in Brazil, Chile, Congo, India, South Africa, and Turkey. The course also makes a point of incorporating analyzes by authors from the global south.