URBAN STUDIES SEMINAR SERIES
Date: Thursday 16th November, 3pm to 4.30pm
Venue: Adam Smith Building (Room 718), Unviersity of Glasgow.
Professor Kevin Ward (The University of Manchester)
Recent years have seen the emergence of two inter-related strands of work in the field of English-speaking urban studies. The first has centred on re-thinking notions of place along relational lines. The second centres on re-thinking what an attention to the city in the world might mean for understanding the arriving at and the making-up of urban policy. Taking its cue from the intersection of these two strands, this paper explores the forging of Edinburgh’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) policy. It highlights the means through which those in the city drew upon experiences from elsewhere, both relatively close and far, in assembling the policy and the particular “local” politics over its translation/adoption/failed introduction. It argues for an approach to urban policy mobility studies, which is sensitive both to the ephemeral, indeterminate and open-ended ways in which policies are arrived at and made up and the segmented and structured contexts that inform how policies appear and reappear in multiple locations.
Kevin is Professor of Human Geography and is the School of Environment’s Director of External Relations and the Faculty’s Director of cities@manchester at the University of Manchester. He is a geographical political economist with interests in urban politics and policy on the one hand, and work and employment on the other. His current work explores urban policies to see where they come from, how they travel, where they end up and what these journeys mean for the cities the policies pass through. Theoretically, this involves rethinking what is meant by ‘the urban’ in urban politics, as elements of different places are assembled and reassembled to constitute particular ‘urban’ political realms. Methodologically, this involves doing fieldwork in a range of sites inside and outside of the cities that are the objects of study, literally seeking to reveal the circuits, networks and webs in and through which policies are moved. His co-edited book (with Eugene McCann) Mobile Urbanism: Cities and Policymaking in the Global Age (Minnesota University Press) was published in 2011. He is currently exploring the constitution of financial ‘models’ that have emerged in different areas of the world and that have been circulating as a means of funding infrastructure in the current economic condition.
No advance booking is necessary.
There will be an informal reception afterwards at Urban Studies, 25 Bute Gardens. All welcome!