Contesting Urban Metabolism: Struggles Over Waste‐to‐Energy in Delhi, India
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In this paper, the authors argue that through the conceptualization of urban metabolisms advanced by ecological economists and industrial ecologists, materialist and critical perspectives can be mutually enriching, and argue that the materiality and political economy of cities are co-constituted.Abstract:
Recent scholarship on the materiality of cities has been criticized by critical urban scholars for being overly descriptive and failing to account for political economy. We argue that through the conceptualization of urban metabolisms advanced by ecological economists and industrial ecologists, materialist and critical perspectives can be mutually enriching. We focus on conflict that has erupted in Delhi, India. Authorities have embraced waste-to-energy incinerators, and wastepickers fear that these changes threaten their access to waste, while middle class residents oppose them because of their deleterious impact on ambient air quality. We narrate the emergence of an unlikely alliance between these groups, whose politics opposes the production of a waste-based commodity frontier within the city. We conclude that the materiality and political economy of cities are co-constituted, and contestations over the (re)configuration of urban metabolisms span these spheres as people struggle to realize situated urban political ecologies.read more
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Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale (Reprint)
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors set out the contours of Marxian urban political ecology and called for greater research attention to a neglected field of critical research that, given its political importance, requires urgent attention.
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The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability
TL;DR: The Global Atlas of Environmental Justice as discussed by the authors is a unique global inventory of cases of socio-environmental conflicts built through a collaborative process between academics and activist groups which includes both qualitative and quantitative data on thousands of conflictive projects as well as on the social response.
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The Politics of Sustainability and Development
TL;DR: In this paper, a review examines the relationships between politics, sustainability, and development, highlighting how politics are articulated through regimes of truth, rule, and accumulation, and how understanding such political processes has implications for institutional and governance responses.
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Towards a paradigm of Southern urbanism
Seth Schindler,Seth Schindler +1 more
TL;DR: The authors argue that cities in the global south constitute a distinctive "type" of human settlement and propose three tendencies that, when taken together, serve as the basis of an emergent paradigm of Southern urbanism.
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Ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability: an overview and conceptual framework.
TL;DR: A conceptual framework is presented that schematically maps out the linkages between patterns of (unsustainable) social metabolism, the emergence of ecological distribution conflicts, the rise of environmental justice movements, and their potential contributions for sustainability transitions.
References
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Book
Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things
TL;DR: The Force of Things and the Agency of Assemblages as discussed by the authors are the main sources of inspiration for our work. But neither Vitalism nor Mechanism is a suitable vehicle for self-interest.
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The Culture of Cities
TL;DR: In this article, the first broad treatment of the city in both its historic and its contemporary aspects is presented, and the authors offer an overview of its history and its present state.
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The Changing Metabolism of Cities
TL;DR: In this paper, data from urban metabolism studies from eight metropolitan regions across five continents, conducted in various years since 1965, are assembled in consistent units and compared, together with studies of water, materials, energy, and nutrient flows from additional cities, providing insights into the changing metabolism of cities.
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Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
TL;DR: Carbon Democracy as discussed by the authors argues that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil, and argues that the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy.