Introduction—Exploring Urban ‘Southernness’: Praxes and Theory(s)

Abstract

Abstract This volume stems from the call for a Southern urban theory, one that foregrounds both the specificity and generalizability of the Southern city. Reflecting this standpoint, this chapter validates the volume’s conceptualization of the Global South as a simultaneously homogeneous and heterogeneous geography. The homogeneous South refers to a relational geography of shared colonial histories and postcolonial development narratives, marked by formal institutional practices that seek to control, codify and categorize through a process of drawing boundaries onto empirical space. The heterogeneous South is the empirical space of urban realities that adopt, adapt, reject and transform boundaries ‘drawn onto’ into boundaries ‘drawn by’ and are marked by their temporal, incremental and flexible dynamics. Framing the Southern city as a result of the interaction between the two states—homogeneous and heterogeneous, the chapter discusses the interlinkages within and between the two along dimensions of power, intention and modality. In doing so, it highlights the potential for mutual learning as a conduit to developing a praxis-oriented theory that is capable of simultaneously constructing and deconstructing questions of the Global South.

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