Imagining a new—human and nonhuman—grammar of urban life.

“There is always some moment when other-than-human life bursts into presence amid the clamor of urban routine.” —Maan Barua, Lively Cities

One of the fundamental dimensions of urbanization is its radical transformation of nature. The book Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology departs from conventions of urban studies to argue that cities are lived achievements forged by a multitude of entities, drawing attention to a suite of beings, human and nonhuman, that make up the material politics of city making. From macaques and cattle in Delhi to invasive parakeet colonies in London, author Maan Barua examines the rhythms, paths, and agency of nonhumans across the city. Barua is joined here in conversation with Sandra Jasper.

Maan Barua is a university lecturer in human geography at the University of Cambridge.

Sandra Jasper, a geographer and urbanist, is assistant professor of geography and gender at Humboldt University of Berlin.

References:

Matthew Gandy

Tom Fry

Garry Marvin

Vinciane Despret

Anindya Sinha

ARCH+ exhibit Cohabitation: A Manifesto for the Solidarity of Non-Humans and Humans in Urban Space (https://archplus.net/de/cohabitation-EN/)

Yi-Fu Tuan

Deleuze

Charles Elton

Marx

Laura Fortunato

Sylvia Federici

Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology is available from University of Minnesota Press.