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The paper aims to contribute to debates on the mobilities of policies (Peck, 2011, 2012; McCann, 2007, 2012; Ward and McCann 2011) by providing a detailed empirical study focused on how mobilities and fixities of policies occur. It seeks to provide empirical description of the organising of a particular learning network or 'translocal assemblage' (McFarlane 2011) and to deploy an understanding of intricacies of learning such as training and the creation of an organisational memory. The network of cities researched here is part of a wider European Union programme called URB-al that consists in a series of thematic networks of Latin American and European cities and experts around urban issues. The paper investigates the fabrics of one particular network of cities on participatory budgeting that involves a wide range of actors (city officials, civil servants, academics, members of social movement and NGO's). Drawing upon theories of governmentality (Foucault 1976) and translation (Callon 1986; Latour 2005), the paper explores what it is traveling (Policies? Best practices? Accounts of practices and experiences?) and how it is traveling. Drawing upon an ethnographic of circulations (Lesley 2006; Roy 2012) based on a multi-sited fieldwork, interviews, short thicker observations at training, events and observatories, and document analyses, the research will interrogate the various circuits, spaces, actors, moments and modalities that aim to lubricate the mobility of ideas and facilitate learning.

Paper short abstract:

We discuss the conflicts emerged from the overlapping of some spatial practices of Brazilian “roofless” movement (“sem-teto”) and the reproduction practices of the real estate market on two urban fronts in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro’s metropolis: periurban fringes and central obsolescence zones.

Paper long abstract:

In Brazilian metropolis, the global increasing spatial segregation receives the contours of a socio-political fragmentation of space, differing and articulating the diffusion of the self-segregation with aspects related to the violent criminality. The conflictive character of the urban space production is highlighted in both spaces considered as main fronts of expansion of real estate market practices oriented to expand its capital reproduction: the new urban expansion areas (periurban fringe), and the "renewed" obsolescence zones. However, most part of the actions of urban social movements concerned with social housing take place exactly in these areas. The strong sense of spatial selectivity on the spatial practices of the organizations that compose the sem-teto movement (literally: "roofless" movement) in Brazil is also associated with current internal organization of Brazilian metropolis. Our work seeks to reflect, therefore, about some spatial tactics adopted by this social movement in face of some real estate market practices. We are based on a key case study and an auxiliary "contrast" case, respectively focusing on: the spatiality of four building occupations in Rio de Janeiro's city centre initiated by one organization called Frente de Luta Popular (FLP); and some spatial practices of another organization (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto - MTST) that take place in São Paulo. Finally, we raise some challenges of the practices of this social movement, regarding the location of their actions.

Paper short abstract:

Building on Henri Lefebvre’s notion of planetary urbanisation, the paper intends to analyse the political economy of the commodity boom in South America in order to assert that the proliferation of resource extraction projects has created new forms of urban centrality and cityness.

Paper long abstract:

The current commodity boom can be regarded as one of the most significant and disruptive economic events in recent world history, as it has fuelled a massive wave of mining and energy megaprojects throughout the world with the purpose to supply the raw materials demanded by escalating industrialisation rates at the global scale. In light of the above, and on the basis of fieldwork conducted during 2013 in Colombia and Chile, the proposed paper intends to argue that in South America, this "boom" has set into motion an unprecedented pattern of production and transformation of space in the form of dams, power stations, mines, railways, ports and so forth, creating new forms of urban centrality that render obsolete the traditional urban/non-urban divide. Building on Henri Lefebvre's notion of planetary urbanisation, the paper will make an inquiry into the political economy of the commodity boom in order to recast resource extraction sites and their material infrastructures -usually regarded as non-urban-, as part and parcel of an urban fabric that spreads thickly and unevenly throughout the region, fostering a contradictory tension between global integration and territorial differentiation. Those contradictory movements, the paper will contend, are a core determinant of the highly unjust and fractured urban landscapes that have been emerging since the turn of the century around extraction sites. Most of these exploding settlements challenge conventional notions of cityness, and are marked by proletarianisation, environmental degradation, violence, displacement and systematic impoverishment of local communities, among others.

Paper short abstract:

An exploration of the factors determining diversity across Rio’s favela population and of the implications of current physical, economic and institutional changes to these dynamics, based on a comparison of two contrasting case studies.

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The undoubted economic and social exclusion and lack of rights experienced by residents of Rio de Janeiro's favelas often leads to generalised accounts of the poverty and violence that are assumed to prevail within them. However the degree and nature of challenges face by favelas across the city vary enormously. These are determined by factors such as local economic context, degree of access to public services and political representation, and local dynamics of security and conflict. Furthermore, all of these factors are currently in flux as Rio undergoes dramatic and spatially uneven physical, economic and institutional transformations ahead of the upcoming 2016 Olympics. This paper will examine some of the key variations and transformations through a comparison of two contrasting favelas.

Favela Asa Branca was established in the 1980s in the rapidly urbanising suburb of Jacarepaguá, and lies just one kilometre from the future Olympic Park. Tuiuti, meanwhile, is an historic favela in the central, industrial zone of São Cristóvão - an area close major regeneration projects in the port zone and Maracanã stadium. The favelas contrast starkly in terms of historic and current patterns of economic development, public intervention and security dynamics, including the instalment of a Police Pacification Unit (UPP) in Tuiuti in 2011. The key differences between them point to some of the complex underlying dynamics that shape life across Rio's large favela population, while similarities highlight the persistent barriers they collectively face to meaningful social and economic development and full citizenship.

Paper short abstract:

My research examines the processes through which city governments across global north and south have adopted strategic planning and responded to socioeconomic pressures in times of crisis.

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My research examines the processes through which city governments across global north and south have adopted strategic planning and responded to socioeconomic pressures in times of crisis. The paper interrogates the extent to which some policy experiments developed in Latin America and Europe are [un]suitable to deal with the cyclical nature of hegemonic economic models.

Argentina's history of fiscal imbalances and Spain's ongoing debt issues will help to place recent crises into context, thinking across time from a comparative and historical perspective. The governments of Valencia and Mar del Plata will serve as case studies. Following multiple macroeconomic reforms, debt and financial crises, as well as democratisation and decentralisation, these cities have gained similar levels of autonomy in their respective national contexts and considerable power to set up their own policies.

My project involves policy research. However, unlike extensive literature dealing with the consequences of adjustment programmes in the global south OR the impact of austerity urbanism in the global north, I explore the structures, processes and actors involved in devising, negotiating, adapting and deciding upon economic development agendas and responses to crises at the local level. Theoretically, the project engages with comparative urbanism and its potential to stretch conventional ideas and concepts from urban theory, institutional economics and regulation theory.

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Medellin has transformed from the world's most violent city to a reference point for innovative inclusive development:'social urbanism'. This paper explores the politics - in particular the gendered politics - behind that transformation.

Paper long abstract:

Medellin, Colombia, is fast shedding its reputation as the most violent city on earth and becoming a reference point for socially informed, inclusive economic development. The dramatic fall in violence and insecurity in the city over the last two decades - 'the Medellin Miracle' - has been attributed to extensive social investment and the creation of public spaces that 'changed the skin' of the city - policies which are known collectively as 'social urbanism'. In the last ten years there have been conspicuous investments in the poorest areas and excluded comunas. This paper explores the elite coalitions, alliances and processes that have enabled these policies, with a focus on how emerging ideas of leadership are gendered. Although the story often told is that the commitment from elite actors in the city is due to a recognition of the historical 'social debt' owed to marginalised areas of the city, the policies promoted can also be understood as continuing the paternalistic culture of elites and co-opting the participation of the populace with the aim of extending and legitimating elite power. Through a close analysis of the processes leading up to the development of social urbanism, this paper argues that critical spaces that represent feminine and/or feminist values have opened up within the institutional structures of Medellin and are challenging the masculinist constructions of the elite power there. This research is based on interviews with business, political and civil society leaders in Medellin in 2012, and was funded by the Development Leadership Program.