University of California, Berkeley.
Int J Urban Reg Res. 2011;35(2):223-38. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01051.x.
This article is an intervention in the epistemologies and methodologies of urban studies. It seeks to understand and transform the ways in which the cities of the global South are studied and represented in urban research, and to some extent in popular discourse. As such, the article is primarily concerned with a formation of ideas - "subaltern urbanism" - which undertakes the theorization of the megacity and its subaltern spaces and subaltern classes. Of these, the ubiquitous ‘slum’ is the most prominent. Writing against apocalyptic and dystopian narratives of the slum, subaltern urbanism provides accounts of the slum as a terrain of habitation, livelihood, self-organization and politics. This is a vital and even radical challenge to dominant narratives of the megacity. However, this article is concerned with the limits of and alternatives to subaltern urbanism. It thus highlights emergent analytical strategies, utilizing theoretical categories that transcend the familiar metonyms of underdevelopment such as the megacity, the slum, mass politics and the habitus of the dispossessed. Instead, four categories are discussed — peripheries, urban informality, zones of exception and gray spaces. Informed by the urbanism of the global South, these categories break with ontological and topological understandings of subaltern subjects and subaltern spaces.
这篇文章是对城市研究的认识论和方法论的一种干预。它试图理解和改变在城市研究中以及在一定程度上在大众话语中对南方国家城市进行研究和表述的方式。因此，本文主要关注一种思想的形成——“底层城市主义”——它对大都市及其底层空间和底层阶级进行了理论化。在这些空间和阶级中，无处不在的“贫民窟”最为突出。底层城市主义反对对贫民窟的世界末日和反乌托邦的叙述，为贫民窟作为居住、生计、自我组织和政治的场所提供了描述。这是对大都市主导叙事的重要甚至激进的挑战。然而，本文关注的是底层城市主义的局限性和替代方案。因此，它强调了新兴的分析策略，利用了超越不发达等熟悉代名词的理论范畴，如大都市、贫民窟、群众政治和被剥夺者的习惯。相反，本文讨论了四个范畴——边缘地区、城市非正式性、例外区和灰色地带。这些范畴受到南方国家城市主义的启发，打破了对底层主体和底层空间的本体论和拓扑学理解。
