Critical Reviews on Latin American Research - CROLAR

Kemmer, Laura

      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 67
in die Zentren der US-amerikanisch 
dominierten Stadtforschung. Die Stärke 
des Buches liegt darin, über die Verbindung 
des Themenkomplexes Kulturpolitik mit der 
Kritik an strategischen Repräsentationen 
und „ethnisierten“ Imaginarien nicht ein 
einheitliches Argument zu verfolgen. 
Vielmehr wird Raum für eine Vielzahl 
kritischer Perspektiven geschaffen, welche 
die Amerikas als „Labor pluriethnischer 
urbaner Kulturen“1 an den Ausgangspunkt 
eines neuen interdisziplinären Forschungs-
programms innerhalb der transnationalen 
Regionalstudien stellt.
Unter dem Titel „The Spectacular City and 
Performance of Ethnicity“ (23-87) werden 
in der ersten Sektion etablierte Formen des 
Zelebrierens ethnokultureller Vielfalt wie 
Mardi Gras in New Orleans (John 
Gold) und Blues Clubs in Chicago mit 
aktuellen Phänomenen der gewaltsamen 
Aushandlung (Juliana Ströbele-Gregor) und 
1 “It is not only the massive urbanization processes, 
but also the (post)colonial condition of the 
societies of the Americas and the related drawing 
of boundaries between the ‘first’ and ‘third’ world 
which […] marks the American continent. Such 
interactions have turned the urban and metropolitan 
regions of the Americas into a laboratory for the 
emergence and development of pluriethnic urban 
cultures” (3)
Für die Produktion von Theorie- und 
Praxiswissen werden westliche urbane 
Räume und Gesellschaften seit einigen 
Jahren als Konzentrationspunkte von 
ethnischer Vielfalt entdeckt. Der von Olaf 
Kaltmeier herausgegebene Sammelband 
ermöglicht ein Hinterfragen dieser Ansätze. 
Das eurozentrische Ideal der sozialräumlich 
„homogenen Metropole“, deren Wettbe-
werbsfähigkeit über die Vermarktung 
ethnischer und kultureller Diversität als 
„neues“ Phänomen gesteigert werden kann, 
wird hier aus einer beachtlichen Varianz 
human- und sozialwissenschaftlicher 
Perspektiven dekonstruiert. Als äußerst 
bereichernd erweist sich die Auswahl der 
Fallbeispiele, welche in den vier für diese 
Rezension im einzelnen besprochenen 
thematischen Sektionen organisiert sind und 
zwischen Sucre (Bolivien) und Vancouver 
(Kanada) nicht nur ein geografisches 
Spektrum auffächern: Der Fokus auf urbane 
Räume des gesamten amerikanischen 
Kontinentes bedeutet in diesem Fall auch 
das Wandern von theoretischen Konzepten 
– wie dem der „Kreolisierung“ – von der 
für ihren hohen Grad an Urbanisierung 
bekannten lateinamerikanischen Region 
Olaf Kaltmeier (ed.) (2011)
Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas
Surry, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 291 S.
Rezensiert von Laura Kemmer
Freie Universität Berlin
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 68
künstlerischen und alltäglichen Praxis (55). 
Keinesfalls beschränkt auf „Subkulturen“, so 
betont Kastner, biete Graffiti aufgrund seiner 
massiven Verbreitung die Möglichkeit der 
Denormalisierung politischer Performanz 
(67) und somit ein Aufdecken ebensolcher 
ethno-sozialer Hierarchien, welche Ströbele-
Gregor beschreibt.
Die zweite Sektion zu „The Use of Ethnicity 
in the Imagineering of Urban Landscapes“ 
(91-163) verbindet Beiträge mit äußerst 
unterschiedlichen method(olog)ischen 
Zugängen: von den Wechselwirkungen 
von Architektur und Religion im Falle 
einer jüdischen Gemeinde in Detroit (Julie 
TelRav), über die „narrativen Landschaften“ 
(137) des literarisch konstruierten 
„indigenen“ Seattle (Ruxandra Rădulescu) 
bis hin zu einer Analyse eines 
Dokumentarfilms über Los Angeles (Jens 
M. Gurr und Martin Butler). Der Beitrag des 
Herausgebers (171-189) sticht hier insofern 
hervor, als er nicht nur das Gemeinsame 
der genannten Fallbeispiele vor dem 
Hintergrund urbaner Identitätspolitiken 
herausarbeitet, sondern auch unter dem 
Begriff des Imagineering beschreibbar 
macht. Als „roter Faden“ findet sich 
einleitend zu Sektion zwei somit ein erneuter 
Verweis auf Canclini, dessen Beschreibung 
der Megacity als fragmentierte „urbane 
Imaginarien“ (García Canclini 1997) 
Kaltmeier höchst anschaulich mit dem 
durch die Disney Corporation etablierten 
Neologismus des Imagineering verknüpft, 
um die Überlagerung von wirtschaftlichen 
und „retro-kolonialen“ (99) Interessen am 
Beispiel eines Einkaufszentrums in Quito zu 
beschreiben. 
Aneignung urbaner Räume (Jens Kastner) 
zusammengebracht. Die argumentative 
Stärke des Buches wird insbesondere 
über diesen ersten Abschnitt transportiert, 
zu dessen Gehalt die Beiträge der beiden 
letztgenannten Autor_innen beitragen. 
Die dort präsentierten detaillierten 
Analysen der Konstruktion dichotomer 
Differenzkategorien wie „weiß-indigen“; 
„Klasse-Ethnizität“; „urban-rural“ gehen über 
die von Kaltmeier (einleitend zu der Sektion) 
vorgestellte neo-marxistische Kritik eines 
Profitdenkens urbaner Eliten (23) hinaus. 
Ströbele-Gregor präsentiert eine Analyse 
der Gewaltausbrüche während des 199. 
Jahrestages der Revolution von Chuquisaca 
in Sucre (2008). Die Stratifizierung der 
urbanen bolivianischen Gesellschaft wird 
auf die Reartikulation kolonialistischer und 
rassistischer Muster des blanqueamiento 
(71) zurückgeführt, also der Invisibilisierung 
der indigenen Bevölkerung über die Ideologie 
der Criollos. Diesem Prozess (gewaltsamer) 
Differenzkonstruktionen zwischen „ruralen 
Indios“ und „urbanen, weißen Eliten“ 
(72) stellt die Autorin jedoch gekonnt das 
Potenzial eines strategischen 
Essentialismus’ der „indigenen Bewegung“ 
(82) seit den 1990er Jahren entgegen. 
Während Ströbele-Gregor mit einer 
kritischen Einschätzung der durch Evo 
Morales repräsentierten Bestrebungen 
hin zu einem „multinationalen“ Bolivien 
schließt, liest sich der Beitrag von Kastner 
deutlich optimistischer. Als Ausdruck 
„hybrider Kulturen“ beschreibt der Autor 
mit Néstor García Canclini (García Canclini 
2005, 243) das Phänomen „Graffiti“ im 
mexikanischen Oaxaca und begründet 
so das transformative Potenzial dieser 
      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 69
äußerst empfehlenswerten Buches. 
Im Gegensatz zu der sorgfältigen 
Herangehensweise, welche der 
Heterogenität der im Band vertretenen 
Städte gerecht wird, schlägt Kaltmeier ein 
einfaches Übertragen der aus einem US-
amerikanischen Kontext entwickelten, 
klassenbasierten Kategorie der gentry vor. 
Werden die o.g. drei Beiträge zwar dem 
Anspruch des Buches weiterhin gerecht, 
so lässt die Kontextualisierung durch den 
Herausgeber hier eine kritische Distanz 
missen. Diese wird bedauernswerterweise 
auch nicht in einem Fazit relativiert, in 
dessen Rahmen die Frage nach der Kritik 
eines selling „EthniCity“ jenseits seiner 
ökonomischen Dimension hätte verhandelt 
werden können. 
Angesichts seines Anspruches, zur 
Transnationalisierung der Regionalstudien 
beizutragen, wäre eine Reflektion der 
theoretischen und methodischen Reichweite 
des Sammelbandes wünschenswert 
gewesen. Fragen danach, inwiefern die 
untersuchten Phänomene ethnischer 
und kultureller Vielfalt spezifisch für die 
Amerikas sind, worin ihr Potential für die 
Untersuchung von Städten in anderen 
Weltregionen läge oder inwiefern es sich 
um Prozesse handelt, die urbane Räume 
über die Amerikas hinaus verbinden, bleiben 
somit der/m Leser_in überlassen.
Auf den Punkt gebracht wird die Frage 
nach kultureller Kommodifizierung in der 
dritten Sektion zu „Ethnic Heritage“ (167-
235). Diese beschreibt den Einfluss von 
so unterschiedlichen Akteuren wie der 
UNESCO und den „Weltkulturerbe-
Tourist_innen“ (168) im historischen 
Zentrum Quitos (Fernando Carrión Mena 
und Manuel Dammert Guardia) bis hin 
zu „Expert_innen“ in Stadtplanung und 
-marketing in Vancouver (Alicia Menéndez 
Tarrazo). Perspektivwechsel werden in 
letztgenanntem Beitrag über die Analyse 
der Positionen von Kulturproduzent_
innen und Nachbarschaftsorganisationen 
eingeleitet, während die Studie des 
strategischen Einsatzes von Ethnizität 
in Mérida (Ricardo López Santilán) die 
agency der dort lebenden Maya betont. 
Konzeptionelle Anhaltspunkte bietet 
insbesondere der Beitrag von Nina Möllers, 
welcher Bedeutungen von „kreolisch“ in New 
Orleans mit dem lateinamerikanischen und 
karibischen criollo kontrastiert. 
Das Buch schließt mit einer vierten Sektion, 
für welche die Beiträge zu sozialräumlicher 
Segregation in Guadalajara (Ulises Zarazúa 
Villaseñor), sowie zur ökonomischen 
Nutzung von Ethnizität in ausgewählten 
US-amerikanischen Stadtteilen (Eric C. 
Erbacher) und Chinatowns (Selma Siew 
Li Bidlingmaier) thematisch unter dem 
Stichwort gentrification (239-291) 
gebündelt werden. Hier zeigt sich die erste 
Schwäche dieses sonst so nachvollziehbar 
strukturierten und insbesondere aufgrund 
der in den vier einleitenden Kapiteln 
des Herausgebers vorgenommenen 
theoretischen Einbettung für die Lehre 


German

Olaf Kaltmeier (ed.) (2011): Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas

Groll, Constantin

      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 93
des strategischen und institutionellen 
Handelns lokaler Regierungen und erweisen 
sich als erstaunlich persistent. Obwohl 
die Souveränität subnationaler Autokraten 
durch die nationalstaatliche Einbettung nie 
vollkommen ist und diese deshalb neben 
der Opposition von „Unten“ auch mit 
Widerstand von „Oben“ rechnen müssen, 
kann es ihnen, abhängig von ihrer 
institutionellen Autonomie gelingen, die 
„Grenzen“ (daher der Buchtitel) zu den 
subnationalen politischen Arenen zu 
schließen und ihre Herrschaft zu festigen. 
Gleichwohl ist diese These kaum neu. 
So stellt das Buch, das mit dem Anspruch 
antritt, die „Fixierung auf die Nation“1 in 
der Demokratieforschung zu überwinden, 
das Ergebnis einer seit mehr als einem 
Jahrzehnt geführten Debatte über das 
Phänomen subnationaler autokratischer 
Regime in demokratischen Föderalstaaten 
dar, auf die der Autor maßgeblich eingewirkt 
hat. 
Gibson wählt für seine komparativ-historisch 
angelegte Untersuchung nicht grundlos 
den Aufstieg und Fall subnationaler 
1	 	„nation	fixation“	(33)
Die jüngsten Proteste in Brasilien und 
Chile zeigen die Unzufriedenheit breiter 
Bevölkerungsteile mit den politischen 
Systemen ihrer Länder und wecken 
gleichzeitig bei einigen Beobachtern die 
Hoffnung auf ein erstarktes demokratisches 
Bewusstsein und erweiterte Möglichkeiten 
der politischen Partizipation. Gleichwohl 
sind viele lateinamerikanische Staaten, 
besonders auf lokaler und regionaler 
Ebene, trotz der Existenz prozeduraler 
Wahlstandards weit von dem 
demokratischen Versprechen einer 
gleichwertigen politischen Beteiligung 
entfernt und autokratisch regierte Enklaven 
bestehen weiterhin fort. Die Hoffnung, dass 
diese mit der Zeit von allein verschwinden, 
indem die demokratischen Systeme in 
Lateinamerika langsam „erwachsen“ 
werden, muss spätestens nach der 
Lektüre des Buches von Edward Gibson, 
Politikwissenschaftler an der Northwestern 
University (USA), zumindest in Bezug auf 
Föderalstaaten überdacht werden.
Subnationale autokratische Regime, 
so Gibsons Hauptthese, sind innerhalb 
demokratischer Föderalstaaten das Produkt 
Edward Gibson (2012)
Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 202 S.
Rezensiert von Constantin Groll
Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 94
Konflikt	 nationalisiert	wird	und	oftmals	eine	
Absetzung der subnationalen Regierung 
und	 eine	 Modifikation	 der	 subnationalen	
„Spielregeln“ verbunden ist. Oder mittels 
eines erhöhten Parteiwettbewerbs innerhalb 
bestehender subnationaler Regeln, die 
meist	 erst	 durch	 den	 Einfluss	 und	
die Unterstützung nationaler Akteure 
erfolgt. Dabei hat die Ausgestaltung des 
Föderalismus auf die möglichen Szenarien 
einen	 entscheidenden	 Einfluss:	 So 
entwickelt Gibson in einem sehr 
überzeugenden theoretischen Kapitel 
(Kapitel 1) die These, dass in Provinzen 
mit hoher (politischer) Autonomie eine 
Intervention des Zentrums wahrscheinlicher 
ist, während bei geringer Autonomie 
eine Transition via eines verstärkten 
Parteienwettbewerbs eher zu vermuten ist. 
Auch die Autonomie der Gemeinden kann 
eine entscheidenden Rolle spielen: Hohe 
Autonomie wird subnationale Autokraten 
dazu veranlassen, ihre Herrschaft über 
legale Mittel zu sichern, während sie bei 
höherer Abhängigkeit auf illegale Mittel 
zurückgreifen (32). 
Diesen Strategien und Demokratisierungs-
szenarien geht Gibson in den drei 
empirischen Kapiteln mittels einer 
historischen Institutionenanalyse Analyse, 
basierend auf Primär- und Sekundärquellen 
nach. So beschreibt er den Versuch und das 
letztliche Scheitern der US-amerikanischen 
Regierung, die Partizipationsrechte für 
die afro-amerikanische Bevölkerung in 
den südlichen Bundesstaaten nach dem 
Bürgerkrieg durchzusetzen. Darauf folgt 
eine detaillierte Analyse des Aufbaus 
der autokratischen Regierungen in 
autokratischer Regierungen in je drei 
Föderalstaaten: Den „Solid South“ in den 
Vereinigten Staaten nach dem Bürgerkrieg 
im 19. Jhd., die Provinzregierungen 
in Santa Cruz, La Rioja, Santiago del 
Estero und San Luis in Argentinien nach 
der Demokratisierung 1983 und den 
Bundesstaat Oaxaca in Mexico ab dem Jahr 
2000. Vielmehr analysiert er – und hier liegt 
das Innovative seines Ansatzes – Bildung 
und Fortbestehen subnationaler Autokratien 
in Verbindung mit der Ausgestaltung des 
Föderalismus in den Ländern. Basierend auf 
klassischen Autoren der Humangeographie 
(Sack, Paddison) argumentiert Gibson, 
dass subnationale Autokratien nur 
„überleben“ können, wenn diese nicht 
nur ihre Herrschaft in der subnationalen 
Arena monopolisieren, sondern auch die 
Verbindungen zwischen der subnationalen 
und nationalen politischen Arena 
kontrollieren	 und	 an	 Einfluss	 auf	 relevante	
föderale Regierungsentscheidungen 
gewinnen können (Kapitel 1). Dafür 
bemächtigen sie sich laut Gibson dreier 
Strategien, die jeweils auf die subnationale 
Ebene (lokale Beschränkung der Macht), 
die nationale Ebene (Ausweitung ihres 
Einflusses	im	nationalen	politischen	System)	
und die Verbindungen zwischen den 
Regierungseinheiten (Vereinnahmung der 
Verbindungen zwischen Nation und ihrer 
Provinz) abzielen (24 f.). 
Lediglich unter zwei Szenarien hält 
Gibson ein Aufbrechen der Grenzen 
der subnationalen politischen Systeme 
und eine Transition zur Demokratie für 
möglich (32): Durch eine direkte föderale 
Intervention, womit der lokale politische 
      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 95
ebenen in Föderalstaaten und der 
Verknüpfung der Wirkungsmacht 
formal-föderaler Institutionen mit dem 
strategischen Handeln politischer Akteure. 
Dieser Beitrag ist sicherlich auch für 
weitere Fragestellungen mit Bezug auf 
Föderalstaaten unter Abstrichen für die 
Analyse parlamentarischer Systeme nutzbar. 
Allerdings	 ist	 Gibsons	 Demokratiedefinition	
kritisch zu hinterfragen und offenbart die 
Grenzen der politikwissenschaftlichen 
Institutionenanalyse. Zwar ermöglicht 
die	 Definition	 eine	 relativ	 einfache	
Operationalisierung, da lediglich die effektive 
Umsetzung des politischen Wettbewerbs 
und der politischen Partizipation betrachtet 
wird (14), sie wird aber einem weiteren 
oder gar normativen Anspruch an 
Demokratie kaum gerecht. Auch verleitet 
dieses Demokratiekonzept Gibson zu der 
impliziten Annahme, dass die Regierungen 
auf	der	nationalen	Ebene	zwangsläufig	den	
demokratischen Maßstab in den Ländern 
bildeten. Dies muss allerdings angesichts 
des Forschungsstands über die Funktions-
weise der Föderalregierungen in Ländern 
wie Argentinien oder Mexiko in Frage 
gestellt werden. Nichtsdestotrotz ist das 
Buch auch für Praktiker und Einsteiger 
abseits der Demokratie- und Föderalismus-
debatte zu empfehlen. Es bietet eine 
kenntnisreiche Erklärung, warum in 
Lateinamerika auf lokaler Ebene bis heute 
demokratische Beteiligungsrechte effektiv 
beschnitten werden und die Demokratie 
ohne sozialen und politischen Druck 
auf subnationale Eliten auch in Zukunft 
flächendeckend	nicht	zu	erreichen	ist.	
den Südstaaten, vorangetrieben durch 
Änderungen der Provinzverfassungen, 
des subnationalen Wahlrechts, sowie der 
steigenden Bedeutung der Südstaaten 
auf der föderalen Ebene (Kapitel 3). Auch 
in den Fallbeispielen in Argentinien ist es 
subnationalen autokratischen Regimen dank 
der hohen Autonomie der Bundesstaaten, 
der Abhängigkeit der Gemeinden und 
Überrepräsentation der Provinzen auf der 
Bundesebene gelungen, ihre Herrschaft 
mittels legaler Maßnahmen zu festigen. Und 
auch nach föderalen Interventionen kam es 
oftmals nicht zu einer Öffnung der autoritären 
Systeme, da keine Veränderungen der 
formalen institutionellen Regeln erwirkt 
wurden (Kapitel 4). Anders liegt dagegen 
der Fall des politischen Regimes in Oaxaca 
ab dem Jahr 2000. Gibson zeigt, wie es der 
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) 
trotz geringer bundesstaatlicher Autonomie 
dank illegaler und informeller Praktiken 
gelang, das subnationale politische System 
zu	 kontrollieren,	 ihren	 Einfluss	 auf	 der	
föderalen Ebene auszuweiten und auch 
föderale Interventionsversuche abzuwehren, 
wie die Partei schließlich jedoch dem 
subnationalen politischen Wettbewerb 
nachgeben musste (Kapitel 5). 
Insgesamt besticht das Buch durch eine 
klare Argumentationslinie, die empirisch 
kenntnisreich an den Fallbeispielen 
dargestellt wird. Gibson vermag es, eine 
überzeugende Theorie mittlerer Reichweite 
der subnationalen Demokratisierung zu 
entwickeln. Dabei liegt die große Stärke 
seines Ansatzes in der Betonung der 
Relevanz formeller und informeller 
Verbindungen zwischen den Regierungs-


Edward Gibson (2012): Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies

Huffschmid, Anne

Lob (und Kritik) der Straße.  Manuel Delgado zum öffentlichen als konfliktivem Raum

Müller, Frank

Schwarz, Anke

      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 5
The editorial team of CROLAR – Critical 
Reviews on Latin American Research – is 
pleased to present its fourth volume, “Lo 
Urbano”. As the title indicates, “the urban” 
and urban phenomena in and from Latin 
America are in the focus of this volume. 
As a place of anonymous cohabitation and 
social diversity (Simmel 1903), as a sphere 
of capitalist reproduction and collective 
consumption (Castells 1974), from the 
imaginarios urbanos (García Canclini 1996) 
to the “Rebel Cities” (Harvey 2012) the 
city has inspired systematic analysis of the 
tight linkages between public space and 
collective culture, between space and capital 
accumulation, and of social discontent. 
 
Today, Latin America is at once the most 
urbanized continent and home to the most 
striking social inequalities. Since the 1960s, 
private and public research on these topics 
has increased and regional governments 
have reacted by installing urban planning 
authorities. The long interdisciplinary 
tradition of Urban Studies in Latin America 
has predominantly focused on issues such 
as (extreme) poverty, segregation, insecurity, 
and violence. And yet, a questioning of the 
EDITORIAL CROLAR 4  
Frank Müller and Anke Schwarz 
Lo Urbano: Current Urban Research in and from Latin America
specificity of Latin American cities has only 
recently begun and with it a debate on the 
universality of urbanization processes, 
theories, and methodologies. What is more, 
beyond the dystopic image that generalizes 
peripheral “slums” to be an essential 
characteristic of the continent’s major cities, 
Urban Studies in and from Latin America 
increasingly access the potential and plurality 
of urbanization processes and approaches 
for their analyses. 
Hence the question that drives the Focus 
section of CROLAR’s current volume: With 
respect to “the urban”, what can and has 
been learned from Latin America? We found 
several overlapping topics and lines of 
inquiry in current research in and from Latin 
America: (1) an interest in the translatability 
and mobility of concepts and methods 
and, connected to this, the question of 
hierarchies in knowledge production, which 
undermine global horizontal exchanges; 
(2) a persistent focus on how urban space 
is appropriated not only materially, but also 
on a symbolic level; (3) an opening-up 
towards the study of fragmented political 
sovereignties in the management and 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 6
work of one of the key urban thinkers on 
socio-spatial structuring in Buenos Aires and 
his theoretical conceptualization of urban 
space. 
 
Undoubtedly, urban fragmentation, 
residential segregation, and socio-spatial 
differentiation are “classic” topics in Urban 
Studies in and from Latin America. The 
current state of research is represented in 
compilations edited by Emilio Pradilla Cobos, 
Thomas Maloutas and Kuniko Fujita, and by 
Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques’ study of São 
Paulo. Taking a more general perspective, 
Desarrollo Urbano y Regional [Series: Los 
grandes problemas de México] by Gustavo 
Garza and Martha Schteingart compiles 
a variety of studies on contemporary 
processes of inter- and intra-urban 
development.
 
Urban informality – a concept “born” in 
Kenya, which traveled via the urban South 
and North back to Latin America – has been 
a major concern for planning authorities and 
researchers for more than four decades. 
The publications by Felipe Hernández et al. 
and Janice Perlman are re-reading urban 
informalities in Latin America by broadening 
the concept’s scope from its tight link to 
marginality to questions of empowerment 
and post-structural explanations. Partially 
related to these debates, metroZones’ 
anthology Urban Prayers centers on the 
rarely-studied relation between politics, 
religion and urban space, covering religious 
urban movements in the peripheries of Latin 
American, African, Asian, and European 
cities.
 
distribution of resources; (4) new methods 
for the analysis of urban segregation; (5) 
promising critical approaches to the long-
lasting debate on urban informality; and (6) 
how commodification of cultural diversity and 
cultural expressions transform the space of 
America’s cities.
 
CROLAR 4 traces these topics from Tim 
Edensor’s and Mark Jayne’s Urban Theories 
Beyond the West; to Anne Huffschmid’s 
and Kathrin Wilder’s translation of Latin 
American approaches and concepts such 
as territories, public space, and imaginarios; 
and Gisela Heffes’ Utopías urbanas. 
Geopolíticas del deseo en América Latina. 
Paola Alfaro d’Alençon et al.’s anthology 
Lateinamerikanische Städte im Wandel also 
addresses the question of the geography of 
knowledge production. 
The production of (urban) space is 
conceptualized from various angles in 
several publications reviewed in this 
journal: the (literal) writing of space in 
Vivane Mahieux’ Urban Chroniclers in 
Modern Latin America, its making through 
policing in Markus-Michael Müller’s Public 
Security in the Negotiated State, and the 
spatial embeddedness of urban (and rural) 
movements of social resistance in Raúl 
Zibechi’s Territorien des Widerstands. 
Using the example of a public university 
in Rio de Janeiro, André Cicalo’s Urban 
Encounters examines how differentiation 
along categories such as “race” is inscribed 
in and reproduced through urban space 
– and how it can be altered by affirmative 
action. Horacio Torres y los mapas sociales 
by Artemio Pedro Abba et al. presents the 
      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 7
world of identity politics and is reminiscent of 
Simmel’s notion of the “blasé attitude”. 
With a review of Pedro Moctezuma’s La 
Chispa the section Interventions is devoted 
to an account of the “city as practice”. The 
grassroots activist and researcher provides 
a most detailed insight into the surge and 
achievements of Mexico City’s Movimiento 
Urbano Popular over the last three decades. 
Recounting local experiences, practices, 
and strategies of political activism and 
organization, this book is less of a hands-
on manual for social movements, but highly 
recommended for all who are susceptible to 
the spark of confidence in social struggle. 
 
In Current Debates the present volume of 
CROLAR assembles three publications, 
which make important contributions to their 
respective fields, even though they are 
not directly linked to the urban: using the 
examples of Ecuador and Peru, Mobilizing 
Ethnic Identity in the Andes by Lisa M. 
Glidden elaborates how the construction of 
ethnic identities is employed as a strategy of 
collective representation within and beyond 
national constraints. In another contribution 
to Political Science, Edward Gibson’s 
Boundary Control provides a comparative 
historical analysis of the way subnational 
autocratic regimes operate within federal 
states in the Americas. 
Literary production in post-dictatorship 
Argentina – the so-called “New Argentine 
Narrative” – is the subject of Elsa Drucaroff’s 
widely received Los prisioneros de la torre. 
The book is both an overview and criticism 
of young Argentine literature, and a political 
How cultural diversity and ethnicity work in 
urban politics, regeneration policies, and 
imaginaries motivates the volume Selling 
EthniCity edited by Olaf Kaltmeier, as well as 
John T. Way’s The Mayan in the Mall. Here, 
the commodification of cultural expressions, 
as well as a strategic essentialization of 
ethnicity deployed by movements of 
resistance to urban displacement are 
discussed. Arlene Dávila’s Culture 
Works broadly discusses the concept of 
“neoliberalism”. Despite the pitfalls of an 
excessive and imprecise analytic use of the 
term, the author successfully demonstrates 
its usefulness in criticizing uneven effects 
of cultural and urban policies reshaped by 
neoliberal economic logics. Treating similar 
uneven effects, an omnibus review of three 
publications by Rebecca E. Biron, Richard 
Young and Amanda Holmes, and Helmut 
Anheier and Yudhishthir Raj Isar deals with 
the links between art, culture and the urban 
in Latin America. 
Anne Huffschmid dedicates the Classics 
Revisited section to the eponymous concept 
of “Lo Urbano”, which stems from the work 
of Manuel Delgado. In his conceptualization 
of Street Anthropology, the urban is defined 
through public actions, as “city in practice” – 
not to be confused with “the city”. Delgado 
proposes a set of particular empirical 
methods to grasp these urban practices: first 
and foremost through direct observation. 
Similar to the Lefebvrian tradition, urban 
space is thus produced through its use and 
appropriation. Delgado’s reading of the 
Right to the City as a Right to Indifference 
– to be treated as common, as same, as 
equal – also seems rather refreshing in a 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 8
statement on the role of literature, writers, 
and critics in processes of social change. 
All in all, the anthologies and monographs 
reviewed in CROLAR 4 contribute to a broad 
field of knowledge production, which is not 
only transdisciplinary, but also transnational. 
An analysis of “Lo Urbano” in particular 
cannot be reduced to cities in Latin America. 
Beyond the geographic essentialism of a 
“Latin American” specificity, the contributions 
to the present volume provide critical 
perspectives on related processes in cities 
all over the Americas and the urban South. 
In doing so, they strive to overcome 
hierarchies of knowledge production. As this 
volume demonstrates, the very production of 
the urban – be it through everyday practices, 
chronicles, policing, or social resistance – 
provides the focal point for many of these 
works. 
In this sense, Urban Studies bear the 
potential to transcend the boundaries of 
Area Studies and to focus on the social, 
political, and economic processes that 
produce and connect (urban) spaces 
around the globe. We hope to inspire further 
attempts to relocate and translate 
concepts and methods between and within 
geographical regions.
We wish you a pleasant and inspiring read.


Portuguese

Editorial

Williamson, Guillermo

Paulo Freire: ¿Extensión o Comunicación? Sobre los profesionales y el conocimiento en el (no) diálogo de saberes

Urra, Oscar Gabriel Vivallo

      CROLAR, Vol. 3 (2013): Resistance and Social Movements | 7
Editorial CROLAR 3 - English version
Oscar Gabriel Vivallo Urra & Editorial Committee CROLAR 
The American continent has a long tradition 
of anticolonial forms of resistance, which 
were established in the Conquista period 
and revived during the independence 
processes. More recently, especially in the 
context of free-trade agreements (FTA) and 
the establishment of neoliberal models in 
the region, Latin-American actors have been 
some of the first in self-organizing against 
these natural resources and labor exploitation 
models, besides opposing dependency and 
oppression based on traditional powers 
and knowledge asymmetries. Later on, in 
1994, the Chiapas Zapatistas were the most 
prominent and inspiring representatives of a 
significant variety of other subsequent social 
resistance processes.
From this perspective, one can find a wide 
variety of publications about Resistance 
and Social Movements, the central theme of 
this third volume of CROLAR. In this sense, 
the journal offers as its thematic focus an 
analytic reflection on many contentious 
movements that have adopted the form of 
social protests, presenting a high level of 
organization, in Latin America and the United 
States (North America). All of these protest 
and social resistance movements present a 
similar axis of political contestation against 
neoliberal development models, as well as 
against the concentration of economic and 
political power, its causes and historical 
roots. Beyond the wide experience of social 
struggles in Latin America, the subject has 
received more attentionfrom 2011, when 
the world has witnessed the emergence 
of many social movements, from the 
Occupy movement and the Chilean student 
movement, to the “le Républiquenatives” and 
the activists of the so-called “Arab Spring”. 
Confronted with the economic crisis and 
social precariousness, these actors have 
articulated important critiques of political 
and economic models, in different parts of 
the world. Theanalytical focus is centered 
on multiple protest and social resistance 
movements, which present a similar axis 
of political contestation against neoliberal 
development models, as well as against 
the concentration of economic and political 
power, its causes and historical roots.
It is because of this that the reviews in this 
third volume constitute an important critical 
debate resource, in relation to the most recent 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 8
and proposing the concept of publicización 
as an analytical tool, he tries to establish 
a direct relation between the contentious 
phenomenon of the Revuelta and the political 
crisis that happened in Ecuador. 
The Argentinean case is dealt with in the book 
by Marina A. Sitrin, “Everyday Revolutions – 
Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina”, 
where the emergence of new social 
movements are analyzed, from the rupture 
generated by the economy’s collapse, the 
State’s debt crisis and the famous corralito. 
Moreover, in the fields of discourse and 
literature, the books “La Comuna de Buenos 
Aires. Relatos al Pie del 2001”, by writer 
and feminist activist María Moreno, and “La 
Tendencia Materialista. Antología Crítica 
de la Poesia de los 90”, edited by Violeta 
Kesselman, Ana Mazzoni and Damián 
Selci, are commented upon. The value of 
the first consists in retrospectively revealing 
the discursive tension that underlay the 
economic, political social commotion with 
which the Argentinean neoliberal model 
ended up collapsing. The second focuses on 
a group of Argentinean poets that received 
and channeled – by means of writing – all 
the disappointment that spread across youth 
in the 90s, on the basis of the reality that this 
South-American country was going through. 
Nina Elsemann’s book, “Umkämpfte 
Erinnerungen: Die Bedeutung 
lateinamerikanischer Erfahrungen für die 
spanische Geschichtspolitik nach Franco”, 
is centered, on the one side, on the ties 
between the political histories of Argentina 
and Chile and, on the other, the protracted 
and controverted transition process in Spain. 
publications focused (directly or indirectly) 
on conflict and resistance processes, as well 
as the origin and development of countless 
social movements. From a general viewpoint, 
Eleonora Rabinovich, Ana Lucía Magrini and 
Omar Rincón integrate a series of interviews, 
testimonials and texts, about experiences of 
social struggle and mobilization in various 
Latin-American countries in their book “Vamos 
a portarnos Mal”. Prevost Gary, Carlos Oliva 
Campos and Harry E. Vanden are the editors 
of the book “Social Movements and leftist 
Governments in Latin America: confrontation 
or cooptation?”, in which they try to analyze 
the complex relationship between leftist 
governments and social movements in Latin 
America. In the same way, still focused 
on the theoretical academic debate, the 
German translation of Walter Mignolo’s 
“Desobediencia Epistémica” is commented 
upon, where editors Tom Waibel and Jens 
Kastner intervene in an academic debate by 
proposing a broad discussion on decolonial 
thought in Germany. Their proposals suggest 
strategies for the decentering of Western 
thought, on the basis of a critical reflection 
on the interdependence of the “rhetoric of 
modernity” and the “logic of coloniality.” 
Besides the commentaries to publications 
of theoretical reach, which deal with the 
Latin-American situation in a general 
manner, the third volume of CROLAR 
includes reviews that summarize scientific 
contributions, in national or local contexts. In 
the Ecuadorean case, Marco Navas Alvear’s 
book “Lo público Insurgente” analyzes the 
contentious process, called the Revuelta de 
Los Forajidos, which happened in 2005 in 
Ecuador. From the perspective of the public 
      CROLAR, Vol. 3 (2013): Resistance and Social Movements | 9
linking themselves to social movements 
and to farmer and native cooperation 
movements, with the purpose of giving way 
to sustainable, democratic, and associative 
development strategies, which contribute to 
improving farmer and native life, taking care 
of the natural environment and democratizing 
rural life, from the standpoint of grass-roots 
participation.
In the Interventions section, two books that 
thematized two social movements of high 
impact in the last years are commented 
upon. On the one side, Alberto Mayol’s “No al 
lucro. De la Crisis del Modelo a la Nueva era 
de la Política” deals with the 2011 Chilean 
student mobilizations. Mayol offers a strong 
critique of the Chilean development model, 
presenting in his text the controversial 
concept of politizaciónso as to deal with a new 
sociopolitical trajectory for Chilean society. 
On the other side, Carla Blumenkranz et 
al.’s book “Occupy! Die ersten Wochen in 
New York. Eine Dokumentation” consists 
of the German translation of some of the 
first interventions published by Occupy 
Wall Street (OWS) movement actors. The 
book offers a written testimonial of the 2011 
United States’ movement, as well as the 
editors’ analysis, which – along with various 
leftist intellectuals, such as Slavoj Žižek – 
contextualizes, analyzes and prognosticates 
the protests of the so-called “99 percent”.
Finally, in the Current Debates section, 
the book by Evelyne Huber and John D. 
Stephens, “Democracy and the Left. Social 
Policy and Inequality in Latin America” is 
reviewed. In this publication the trajectory of 
Latin-American social policy from the import 
She indicates that the unexpected height 
of the culture of memory in Spanish public 
opinion cannot be explained only by internal 
political changes at the national level, but also 
by the transfers and translations between the 
debates in Spain and those that take place 
in other societies related to Spanish culture 
and language.
The Chilean reality is expressed in the 
books by Hugo Fazio, “Indignación: 
Causales económicas”, and Gabriel Salazar, 
“Movimientos Sociales en Chile”. The first two 
grant a prevalent role to the mobilizations that 
took place in Chile in 2011; the first finds their 
causes in the socio-economic field and in the 
hegemony of the market, while the second 
conducts a detailed examination of Chilean 
constitutional and social history, filling an 
important gap in the understanding of social 
movements in Chile with his analysis.
In the Classics Revisited section we 
remember Paulo Freire, with the 1969 edition 
of his book “¿Extensión o Comunicación? 
Sobre los Profesionales y el Conocimiento en 
el (no) Diálogo de Saberes”, which analyzes 
the role of the knowledge of professionals 
and technicians in social change, from the 
standpoint of the critical analysis of rural 
extension as the unidirectional expansion of 
knowledge and culture invasion. His notion 
of communication, understood as a liberating 
pedagogy to professional praxis in the 
human-nature, human-technology and 
knowledge-nature relationships, is 
commented upon here. In Freire’s reflection 
it is possible to recognize the topicality of 
his ideas for countless of Latin-American 
actors, men and women, responsible for 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 10
substitution industrialization (ISI) period until 
today is evaluated, including the retreat that 
characterized the Washington Consensus 
period. The idea that reduction of poverty and 
inequality indexes in democratic contexts is 
constituted as an argument for the application 
of redistributive social policies, by leftist 
governments, is critically commented upon.
Moreover, James McGuires’ publication 
“Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East 
Asia and Latin America” is situated at the 
intersection of political sciences and public 
health. Although it seems to defy the thematic 
focus of this volume, it isrecognized asa 
perspective of development-as-capabilities, 
where the author observes the development 
of capabilitiesthat avoid premature deaths, 
in the specific contexts of public policy and 
politicsitself.
Ultimately, “Resistance and Social 
Movements” constitutes CROLAR’s new 
commitment to critically dialogue with 
academic and non-academic proposals 
that relate to contentious social processes 
– past and present – in the Latin-American 
context. There is no doubt that the richness 
of presented publications and their 
respective reviews offers a multiplicity of 
analytic and reflective perspectives. This is 
the satisfaction that critical debate offers: 
to introduce into the dialectics of dialogue 
a fruitful exchange of viewpoints, with 
relation to the agency of peoples for political 
resistance and social mobilization against 
the imbricated articulations of power.


Lempp, Sarah

André Cicalo (2012): Urban Encounters: Affirmative Action and Black Identities in Brazil

This review discusses the book 'Rethinking the informal City. Critical perspectives from Latin America', edited by  Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett and Lea K. Allen from a political science perspective considering broader research on formality, informality and city governance in Latin America

Graf, Patricia

 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 58
The book consists of two parts. The first 
part, “Critical perspectives”, is dedicated 
to research while the second part, “Critical 
practices”, subsumes participation in urban 
planning practices and the evaluation of 
public housing programs. The two parts are 
headed by an introduction of the editors who 
show that informality is no modern concept: 
the duality of formality and informality has 
existed throughout Latin American history. 
Hernández and Kellett also point to missing 
research and the stereotyping of the colonial 
city as a story of formal planning: “most 
Portuguese cities were mostly irregular in 
an attempt to respond to the topographical 
features of their location” (3). They also 
note that it was conquista that displaced 
indigenous settlements; changing them from 
formality to informality and to a life at the 
periphery. These forgotten formalities, as 
well as the informal and subtle changes in 
formal city architecture by black slaves, are 
still an understudied phenomenon. 
The historical insights are not used to 
attempt a new definition or approach to the 
term, but rather to give a collection worthy 
of observation. The editors point out that 
“People don’t know how to cook any more”, 
said a friend of mine some years ago in 
Mexico City, complaining about local food 
cultures. He was referring to the many small 
mobile eateries and grills you can find on 
every corner of the city that make cooking 
at home redundant. As the book on the 
informal city in Latin America shows, this 
meeting at lunchtime between the operators of 
mobile food stands and their customers (that 
range from bank assistants to plumbers) is 
only one example of the complementary 
relationship between the formality and 
informality of capitalism. The object of the 
book is ambitious, as the Indian architect 
and urban designer Rahul Mehrotra points 
out in his foreword (xi-xiv). On the one hand, 
we find a call for a redefinition of the term 
informal: going beyond the understanding 
of many social assistance programs of the 
informal city as the “city of the poor and 
marginalized” (xiii) or as something unstable, 
as informal housing is often stereotyped. 
On the other hand, the book reaches for 
an understanding of “the process of what 
makes up informal urbanism in the Latin 
American context” (xiii). 
Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett and Lea K. Allen (eds.) (2012)
Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America
Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books [Hardback 2009], 249 p. 
Reviewed by Patricia Graf 
Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Industriesoziologie, BTU Cottbus
      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 59
policies, a top-down style of policy making 
dominated. From an actor’s perspective 
it can be read as a continuance of the 
contribution of Lima and Pallamin, as Jirón 
shows; in other words, how the dweller’s 
movement soon got incorporated by an 
omnipotent state. Furthermore, it sheds light 
on the stereotyping that was prevalent in 
leftist housing policies: state-sponsored self-
building programs were stopped by Allende 
as they were seen as discriminatory and 
occupying too much of the citizens’ labor 
force. Instead, state-led building projects 
were launched to make housing a universal 
right. Jirón’s contribution, as well as chapter 
6 by Margarita Greene and Eduardo Rojas, 
also tell the story of relocating informality 
from the center to the periphery due to real-
estate market development. This is a story 
of gentrification that is repeated day after 
day in many cities around the world, and that 
may be more hidden (and not with means of 
physical violence) but still with a social, and 
especially cultural, cleansing effect. 
What are the implications for practical 
planning? The second part of the book 
is made up of three city cases (Caracas, 
Havanna and Rio) and two overarching 
contributions on urbanity and exclusion 
(Jorge Mario Jáuregui) and an urban 
manifesto (Claudio Vekstein). Brillembourg 
and Klumpner treat this question with their 
Urban Think Tank by studying the example 
of Caracas. They introduce two modes 
of city planning: to accomplish best-case 
scenarios or to avoid worst-case scenarios. 
The authors recommend the second choice, 
as “considering ideal conditions is a waste 
of time; the point is to avoid catastrophe” 
the term is quite new “in architecture as 
well as in other disciplines within the social 
sciences” (3). From the perspective of 
a political scientist dealing with regional 
and city governance in Latin America, this 
sounds a bit odd. This is especially so when 
one bears in mind elementary works on 
informal institutions and informality in city 
governance. A more interdisciplinary point of 
view certainly would enrich the concept. 
The second chapter focuses on revisiting 
housing policies and planning in Brazil 
and Chile. With a broader perspective on 
Brazilian Cities Fernando Luiz Lara deals 
with the design of the informal. He identifies 
both formal and informal housing as being 
inspired by modernist design and shows that 
elements have disseminated to buildings 
of medium height as well as to favela 
buildings. However, the buildings have been 
variegated due to the availability of space, 
material and the moral concepts of the 
inhabitants. 
The next two chapters analyze São Paulo 
and Brasilia. The contribution of Lima 
and Pallamin provides an actor centered 
perspective on housing in Downtown São 
Paulo. They show that the history of housing 
policy cannot be told without making 
reference to strong social movements. The 
contribution is also a good example of the 
shortcomings of decades of Brazilian social 
policy that just recently led to new protests. 
Jirón’s contribution offers a long-term 
perspective on planning in Santiago de 
Chile. Paola Jirón shows that from Allende 
through Pinochet, to contemporary housing 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 60
(129-130). They also recognize the formal 
logic of informal housing: “roofs in the 
barrio are designed to allow for another 
house to be erected on top, usually by the 
future inhabitants” (130). With their Urban 
Think Tank they develop examples, such 
as the vertical gym that enriches social life 
or the palafitos, a kind of variable stilts that 
protect houses from rain and make houses 
adaptable to the hilly ground. One could 
expect that the next chapter on Barrios 
in Havanna by Ramírez shows a similar 
picture, as Cuban politics often served as 
a development foil for Venezuela under 
Chávez. But the contribution of Ramírez, 
based on analysis of six community projects 
shows a much richer picture. Despite being 
partly located at the margins of, or opposed 
to, the state; these projects could be carried 
out successfully. This also raises questions 
of regime type, policy-making and informality. 
These questions could potentially open an 
almost untouched field. 
“The formal cannot survive without the 
informal” (228). This quote of Claudio 
Vekstein’s City Manifesto is the essence 
of why this book is a very worthy piece of 
city research and practice: it makes us 
rethink and remap concepts and categories 
of the city, its shape, its inhabitants and its 
governance.


English

Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett and Lea K. Allen (eds.) (2012): Rethinking the Informal City

Pascuti, Leonardo Moreira

      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 17
As propostas dos organizadores são 
primeiramente, discutir recentes avanços 
nas investigações contemporâneas 
relacionadas à cidades ao redor do mundo 
e, segundo – muito mais audacioso – 
criar um ponto de partida para uma “re-
imaginação” das teorias urbanas que vão 
além daquelas produzidas pelo “Ocidente”. 
Os estudos urbanos foram dominados por, 
predominantemente, teorias ocidentais que 
criaram a partir de si mesmas perspectivas 
e afirmações que condicionaram todo um 
corpo de investigadores no “Oriente” a 
partir de propostas já preestabelecidas em 
espaços “ocidentais”.
Sem sombra de dúvidas, as novas 
investigações estão bem representadas 
no livro a exemplo de textos que tratam de 
forma crítica a noção de “pós-socialismo” 
e estudos sobre o imaginário em cidades 
na América Latina, ainda que algumas 
discussões, principalmente relativas ao 
continente asiático, ainda insistam na 
importância da consideração do Estado 
para a compreensão do espaço, algo já 
bastante explorado pelas Ciências Sociais 
em geral. Quanto ao segundo objetivo, ele 
Urban Theory Beyond the West é uma 
compilação interdisciplinar de textos de 
vinte e um autores de diferentes partes do 
globo – os quais grande maioria ligados a 
instituições de ensino de nível superior – que 
possui como proposta inicial a discussão de 
teorias, planejamento e imaginário relativo a 
espaços urbanos singulares e excluídos do 
que se diz hoje o West, ou mais popularmente 
o “Ocidente”, não só como espaço físico 
mas também como centro de produção 
de conhecimento. O livro está dividido em 
quatro partes que contém entre quatro e 
seis capítulos cada uma. Essas partes são 
respectivamente: 1. Descentralizando a 
cidade; 2. Ordem/desordem; 3. Mobilidades; 
4. Imaginários. Ainda que não seja uma 
compilação endereçada a leitores com 
nenhum ou pouco contato com o objeto de 
estudo e corpo teórico, (vide a complexidade 
teórica da abordagem) favorece o leitor ao 
perseguir seu próprio objetivo ambicioso: 
criar uma alternativa aos modos de 
compreensão de espaços particulares 
através do rompimento com as tradições 
Européias e Estado-Unidenses.
FOCUS: “Lo Urbano”
Tim Edensor and Mark Jayne (eds.) (2012)
Urban Theories Beyond the West: A World of Cities
Oxon and New York: Routledge, 382 p. 
Resenhado por Leo Pascuti 
Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin 
 CROLAR - Critical Reviews on Latin American Research | 18
ocasionada pelas imigrações do fim do 
século XIX e início do século XX. Enquanto 
a criação do parque novaiorquino está 
relacionada à prevenção de manifestações 
operárias, o jockei bonairense oferecia 
conforto e luxo para que a elite rural do país 
seguisse contribuindo para a formação da 
Nação argentina. Dois projetos distintos 
e fadados ao fracasso pela premissa de 
serem projetos urbanísticos destinados ao 
interesse de classes dominantes. Numa 
direção oposta, o artigo de Denis Rodgers 
analisa a capital Manágua como atriz 
fundamental no processo de formação 
política e econômica do período pós-
revolucionário em Nicarágua, justificando 
como o desenvolvimento da cidade pode 
ser muito mais definido como patologia do 
que como progresso, como afirma Charles 
Tilly (1994) no caso de cidades européias. 
Seguindo a linha de muitos outros textos 
da coletânea o autor define a dinâmica da 
generalização exatamente na importância 
do princípio de univocidade ocasionado por 
contextos específicos. 
No artigo de Christina M. Jiménez, a autora 
trata processos de modernização na América 
Latina utilizando como exemplo a cidade de 
Morelia no México e mostrando processos 
de negociação do espaço urbano e no 
espaço urbano relativos à “modernidade”. 
O resultado otimista revela a importância 
do espaço público (“Plaza”) como espaço 
de criação de identidades, articulação de 
demandas e espaço de negociação de 
classes distintas. De forma mais ampla, o 
artigo faz uma crítica a modelos binários 
de divisão (tradicional x moderno, nativo 
x estrangeiro) normalmente utilizados na 
é parcialmente alcançado: a coletânea de 
textos rompe com propostas ocidentais na 
forma de compreensão da cidade e da vida 
urbana, - principalmente propostas centro-
européias e norte-americanas – instigando 
a compreensão do espaço geo-político 
através de teorias pós-coloniais, a exemplo 
de Jennifer Robinson e Dipesh Chakrabarty. 
Porém a crítica ao segundo objetivo dos 
autores está relacionada à própria atualidade 
dos estudos pós-coloniais e sua aplicação 
em espaços urbanos “não ocidentais” mas 
de “projeção ocidental”. Nessa direção, 
grande parte dos artigos buscam em teorias 
ocidentais a motivação da discussão sobre 
a particularidade, o que torna a compilação 
num campo de batalhas produtivas ainda 
que, nesse caso, a volta ao “Ocidente” seja 
quase que uma prerrogativa.
Com relação à produção sobre América 
Latina, seis dos dezenove artigos tratam 
diretamente centros urbanos da região. 
Mais uma vez, a atenção está direcionada 
às grandes cidades – com exceção do 
artigo de Christina M. Jiménez que trata a 
transformação do projeto urbanístico de 
Morelia no México – como Buenos Aires, 
Manágua, Rio de Janeiro e Santiago. 
O artigo de Nora Libertun de Duren trabalha 
com um paralelo entre dois projetos 
urbanísticos de parques – o Central Park e o 
Jockey Club de San Isidro – nas cidades de 
Nova Iorque e Buenos Aires mostrando como 
a diferença de uma elite industrial e uma 
elite agrária respectivamente, interferiram 
diretamente nos processos urbanísticos e 
governamentais de ambas as cidades em 
seus momentos de explosão populacional 
      CROLAR, Vol. 4 (2013): Lo Urbano | 19
artigo ilustra a interação de comunidades 
carentes com a natureza e a forma com a 
qual essas comunidades mudam a própria 
natureza de seu espaço doméstico de acordo 
com suas necessidades. Considerando 
as mulheres como ponto central, a autora 
mostra as relações entre natureza e gênero 
e instigando as relações entre público e 
privado que contesta teorias baseadas em 
casos de estudo de cidades no Ocidente 
entre eles Roger Keil (2003, 2005) e Karen 
J. Bakker (2003)/Alex Loftus (2007) que 
possuem análises centradas na produção e 
distribuição de recursos naturais.
Urban Theory Beyond the West é um 
projeto ambicioso e bastante relevante para 
os estudos relativos a espaços urbanos. 
Principalmente com relação à América 
Latina, a proposta interdisciplinar e “pós-
colonial” do projeto pode incentivar avanços 
em pesquisas e a criação de grupos de 
estudos relativos à temática proposta pelos 
organizadores; assim como, também amplia 
o espaço à crítica de teorias universais no 
intuito de propor uma nova compreensão 
através de particularidades. Todavia, 
ainda que a proposta seja ir “mais além 
do Ocidente”, grande parte dos artigos 
aproximam-se dessas teorias ocidentais 
como forma de crítica à sua universalidade 
antes mesmo de propor a discussão sobre 
a particularidade. O resultado pode levar à 
compreensão de espaços marginalizados 
não na sua particularidade e diferença, mas 
sim na sua interdependência com conceitos 
preestabelecidos ainda que de forma crítica.
compreensão de espaços europeus e norte-
americanos. 
Jorge Inzulza-Contardo utiliza o bairro de 
Bellavista em Santiago, Chile, como exemplo 
de processo de gentrificação que questiona 
o modelo de análise de cidades européias 
e norte-americanas que associam o término 
com o deslocamento da classe operária; 
aumento do valor imobiliário; e a emergência 
de um setor urbano pós-industrial. Opondo tal 
conceito de gentrificação a conceitos como “la 
reconquista urbana” e “renovación urbana” 
defende a importância da particularidade 
latino-americana em planejamentos urbanos 
relacionados à ocupação estética do bairro 
 e ao papel de mecanismos de exclusão social 
(ex. gated communities) na marginalização 
da cultura e identidade do bairro. 
O paradoxo entre a imagem da “favela 
carioca” como local de cultura, diversidade 
e folclore nacionais (parte da propaganda 
internacional do Brasil) e a disparidade 
econômica e violência presentes no espaço, 
é o eixo central do artigo de Beatriz Jaguaribe 
e Scott Salmon que utiliza o conceito de 
“realitiy tours” para localizar as recentes 
mudanças na organização social das favelas 
após a implantação de UPPs e o também 
recente desejo do setor público e privado de 
inclusão da “Favela” na reestruturação da 
imagem da “Cidade Maravilhosa”. 
Os conflitos ecológicos latino-americanos 
estão representados no artigo de Laura 
Shillington que analisa, através de 
dados etnográficos, espaços urbanos 
marginalizados e sua influência na questão 
sócio-ecológica da cidade de Manágua. O 


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Olaf Kaltmeier (ed.) (2011): Selling EthniCity: Urban Cultural Politics in the Americas

Edward Gibson (2012): Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies

Lob (und Kritik) der Straße. Manuel Delgado zum öffentlichen als konfliktivem Raum

Editorial

Paulo Freire: ¿Extensión o Comunicación? Sobre los profesionales y el conocimiento en el (no) diálogo de saberes

Editorial

André Cicalo (2012): Urban Encounters: Affirmative Action and Black Identities in Brazil

Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett and Lea K. Allen (eds.) (2012): Rethinking the Informal City

Tim Edensor and Mark Jayne (eds.) (2012): Urban Theories Beyond the West: A World of Cities

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