Decrypting the city: The global process of urbanisation as the core of capitalism, coloniality and the destruction of democratic politics of our times [chapter]

Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
2021 Cities, space and power  
Peer review declaration The publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African 'National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer Review of Scholarly Books.' The manuscript was subjected to rigorous two-step peer review prior to publication, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher and/or authors in question. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the
more » ... script be published. Where the reviewers recommended revision and/or improvements to the manuscript, the authors responded adequately to such recommendations. Research Justification The scholarly purpose of this manuscript is to provide a resource for academics and researchers looking into cities, space and power in emerging economies. It also takes into consideration the relationship between emerging economies and developing contexts and lessons that may be shared between them. This book presents a unique perspective and aims to highlight issues not addressed much in writing on the built environment. Based on substantiation and references to numerous other sources and authors, alternative theoretical frameworks for the study of the built environment are developed. This is a very relevant contribution at this time -especially as cities will most probably go through transformations in the post-COVID-19 era. Our first line of defence against this public health crisis will be in areas of poverty, with people who have generally been excluded and urban practices that have been undocumented or labelled as informal. The main thesis of the manuscript is that space and power are strongly linked in cities. Researchers are challenged to develop new theoretical frameworks and alternative approaches to teaching and practice to help achieve balance in these power dynamics. The book serves as a declaration of authenticity. The research results prevalent in the book are original and while the authors consult widely across disciplines, the themes are firmly rooted in the built environment fields -with a focus on the architectural discipline. Methodologies used are mostly deductive and this is applied differently between the chapters. The authors base their approaches on a postmodern understanding of reality as being complex and multi-layered. They use this understanding to construct new knowledge frameworks. They premise their research on relativist concepts and present new frameworks based on previous knowledge by analysing data in a systematic manner. A minor portion of one chapter has been based on a reworking of sections of a PhD thesis, with clear in-text citations. The new content is remarkably different from the original text and is fully aligned with the purpose of the book as a whole. What is used from the thesis has not been published before. This book represents a scholarly discourse. It is a book written by scholars for scholars. While it will have resonance for others, this book will be most useful for those in the academic fields in the built environment disciplines.
doi:10.4102/aosis.2020.bk159.01 fatcat:atmog56n3vapfgjdszlqx7zuja