Jenny Robinson

The geopolitics of South African cities

Political Geography, 1997

Much of the research concerning the stark spatiality of South African cities has focused upon the... more Much of the research concerning the stark spatiality of South African cities has focused upon the empirical history of segregation and apartheid. this paper offers a theoretical interpretation of the historical meaning of the racially segregated residential spaces that have made up South Africa&amp;amp;#x27;s urban areas and then considers their changing significance within the transitional post-apartheid urban order. The focus

Starting from anywhere, making connections: globalizing urban theory

Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2016

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(Post-)colonial geographies at Johannesburg's Empire Exhibition, 1936

... James D. Sidaway, John Wylie. Item Type: Book Section. ISBN: 0-8264-6082-8, 978-0-8264-6082-0... more

Introduction: Cultural Geographies Beyond the West

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Administrative strategies and political power in South Africa's black townships 1930–1960

Urban Forum, 1991

&#39;Native administrators &#39;1 and other state officials directly responsible for the ... more &#39;Native administrators &#39;1 and other state officials directly responsible for the daily supervision of African people in particular &#39;locations&#39; are appearing in the pages of South African history with increasing regularity. But a sustained concern with the nature and meaning of these officials has been sadly lacking although a few authors have paid more attention to them than have others

Comparisons: colonial or cosmopolitan?

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 2011

It is based on the plenary presentation of 3 September at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geog... more It is based on the plenary presentation of 3 September at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geography Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) held in London in 2010. In the search for a more international approach to theorizing cities, comparative methods hold considerable promise, although one concern might be that in their theoretical ambitions they foster a universalising approach rather than one appreciative of diverse and sometimes divergent urban experiences. The potentially universalizing ambitions of comparative methods lead some postcolonial theorists to question the extent to which comparativism carries the marks of colonial histories. Critics argue that some aspects of formal comparative methods can be traced to ambitious and geographically encompassing intellectual projects from the colonial era, when the interest and capacity to bring different parts of the world together within the same intellectual frame advanced significantly. This paper explores the complexities of these colonial lineages of comparative research with a view to assessing their implications for postcolonial comparative urbanism. It concludes by assessing the potential for more modest comparative experiments in a postcolonial vein through attending to the diverse vernacular cosmopolitanisms of cities. Following the spatialities of cities themselves has the potential to offer non-universalizing but variously internationalizing theoretical engagements with different places.

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Urban geography: world cities, or a world of cities

Progress in Human Geography, 2005

... serv-ices. There have also been concerns that the interest in global networks has undermined ... more

Octavia Hill Women Housing Managers in South Africa: femininity and urban government

Journal of Historical Geography, 1998

Women trained in a system of housing management developed by Octavia Hill in Victorian England we... more Women trained in a system of housing management developed by Octavia Hill in Victorian England were employed in South Africa's Coloured and European townships from the mid-1930s. They were also involved in training South African women in this tradition which emphasized the mutual responsibilities of landlords and tenants and rested upon the formation of trusting relationships or friendships between women housing managers and the tenants. Octavia Hill's followers worked hard to make a place for women in the field of housing management and claimed that their femininity gave them special expertise in this area, especially in terms of training housewives in domestic skills and in building up the relations of trust required by Octavia Hill's system. This paper describes the implementation of this system of management in South Africa and considers the implications of the role of women in housing management for our thinking about the gendered character of the state. My main argument is that rather than being a precedent for the value of incorporating femininity and women into the state, Octavia Hill's management tradition had already incorporated both historically masculine and historically feminine practices. In so far as she and her followers (and perhaps other female reformers) played a role in shaping the nature of the state, then it could be argued the state reflected a mediation of masculinity and femininity rather than a dominant masculinity and a subordinated or segregated femininity.

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Global and world cities: a view from off the map

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2002

There are a large number of cities around the world which do not register on intellectual maps th... more There are a large number of cities around the world which do not register on intellectual maps that chart the rise and fall of global and world cities. They don't fall into either of these categories, and they probably never will-but many managers of these cities would like them to. Some of these cities find themselves interpreted instead through the lens of developmentalism, an approach which broadly understands these places to be lacking in the qualities of city-ness, and which is concerned to improve capacities of governance, service provision and productivity. Such an approach supports some of the more alarmist responses to mega-cities, which are more commonly identified in poorer countries. But for many smaller cities, even the category mega-city is irrelevant. My concerns in this article extend beyond the poor fit of these popular categories, though. I would like to suggest that these widely circulating approaches to contemporary urbanization-global and world cities, together with the persistent use of the category 'third-world city'-impose substantial limitations on imagining or planning the futures of cities around the world. Part of the adverse worldly impact of these urban theories is, I argue, a consequence of the geographical division of urban studies between urban theory, broadly focused on the West, and development studies, focused on places that were once called 'third-world cities'. This division might simply be an innocent acknowledgement of difference (Szelenyi, 1996). However, apart from the value-laden historical meaning of these categorical ascriptions, the persistent alignment of a 'theory'/'development' dualism with the 'West'/'third world' division in urban studies, suggests otherwise. 1 One of the consequences of these overlapping dualisms, is that understandings of city-ness have come to rest on the (usually unstated) experiences of a relatively small group of (mostly western) cities, and cities outside of the West are assessed in terms of this pre-given

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Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2011

Cities exist in a world of cities and thus routinely invite a comparative gesture in urban theori... more Cities exist in a world of cities and thus routinely invite a comparative gesture in urban theorizing. However, for some decades urban studies have analytically divided the world of cities into, for example, wealthier and poorer, capitalist and socialist, or into different regional groupings of cities, with subsequently very little comparative research across these divides. Interest in drawing comparisons among different cities has escalated in an era of 'globalization', as economic and social activities as well as governance structures link cities together through spatially extensive flows of various kinds and intense networks of communication. Nonetheless, scholars of urban studies have been relatively reluctant to pursue the potential for international comparative research that stands at the heart of the field. Where an interest in globalization has drawn authors to explicit exercises in comparison, both the methodological resources and the prevalent intellectual and theoretical landscape have tended to limit and even undermine these initiatives. This article seeks, first, to understand why it is that in an intrinsically comparative field with an urgent contemporary need for thinking across different urban experiences, there has been relatively little comparative research, especially comparisons that stretch across the global North-South divide, or across contexts of wealthier and poorer cities. Secondly, through a review of existing strategies for comparing cities, the article considers the potential for comparative methodologies to overcome their limitations to meet growing demands for international and properly post-colonial urban studies. Finally, it proposes a new phase of comparative urban research that is experimental, but with theoretically rigorous foundations. This article was written over quite a long period, during which my colleagues at The Open University offered me a stimulating and hugely supportive environment for research and thinking. I would like to thank them for their practical support as well as their input and advice at various stages of the preparation of this article. John Allen commented directly on the article and helped to focus the argument. Questions and discussion on various occasions when I presented the article helped to clarify many points. The three referees for the IJURR were very generous, and their advice helped enormously to finalize the article.

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?Progressive port Elizabeth?: Liberal politics, local economic development and the territorial basis of racial domination, 1923?1935

Geojournal, 1990

The growth of state capacity with respect to African people in South Africa's cities, while a... more The growth of state capacity with respect to African people in South Africa's cities, while an ambition of many local and central state managers, was secured only in the face of conflicts within the state and between the state and the people. This paper examines some of the specific social processes which shaped the segregated form of African settlement and administration in Port Elizabeth between 1923–35. The aim is to interpret how the unique configuration of social and economic conditions in Port Elizabeth both fed into and depended upon an as yet imperfectly implemented strategy for the government and control of the city's African populace. Issues of concern include the nature of the administration in the New Brighton ‘Location’, the influence of liberal politics on ‘Location’ strategy and the impact of the local council's efforts at place entrepreneurialism on residential development and urban government.

Developing ordinary cities: city visioning processes in Durban and Johannesburg

Environment and Planning A, 2008

This paper adopts a perspective which views all cities as unique combinations of social, politica... more This paper adopts a perspective which views all cities as unique combinations of social, political, and economic configurations-which sees all cities as ‘ordinary’, and which resists attempts to determine hierarchical relations amongst cities as potentially damaging to rich and poor cities alike. While current urban theories tend to draw attention to the dynamism of globalising economic sectors, much urban policy directed at poorer countries is preoccupied with the delivery of basic services. Both urban theory and urban policy need to be reframed to address the diversity of activities and interests in cities, and to support a more inclusive and hopefully redistributive form of urban development. In the process of formulating citywide visions, urban managers in the two cities discussed here, although drawn to compete with other cities in a global arena, have also had to find ways to address diverse economies and unequal societies. This paper draws on the examples of city visioning pr...

A world of cities

The British Journal of Sociology, 2004

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Global and world cities: a view from off the map

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2002

There are a large number of cities around the world which do not register on intellectual maps th... more There are a large number of cities around the world which do not register on intellectual maps that chart the rise and fall of global and world cities. They don't fall into either of these categories, and they probably never will-but many managers of these cities would like them to. Some of these cities find themselves interpreted instead through the lens of developmentalism, an approach which broadly understands these places to be lacking in the qualities of city-ness, and which is concerned to improve capacities of governance, service provision and productivity. Such an approach supports some of the more alarmist responses to mega-cities, which are more commonly identified in poorer countries. But for many smaller cities, even the category mega-city is irrelevant. My concerns in this article extend beyond the poor fit of these popular categories, though. I would like to suggest that these widely circulating approaches to contemporary urbanization-global and world cities, together with the persistent use of the category 'third-world city'-impose substantial limitations on imagining or planning the futures of cities around the world. Part of the adverse worldly impact of these urban theories is, I argue, a consequence of the geographical division of urban studies between urban theory, broadly focused on the West, and development studies, focused on places that were once called 'third-world cities'. This division might simply be an innocent acknowledgement of difference (Szelenyi, 1996). However, apart from the value-laden historical meaning of these categorical ascriptions, the persistent alignment of a 'theory'/'development' dualism with the 'West'/'third world' division in urban studies, suggests otherwise. 1 One of the consequences of these overlapping dualisms, is that understandings of city-ness have come to rest on the (usually unstated) experiences of a relatively small group of (mostly western) cities, and cities outside of the West are assessed in terms of this pre-given

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Introduction to a Virtual Issue on Comparative Urbanism

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2014

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(Dis)locating Historical Narrative: Writing, Space and Gender in South African Social History

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 02582479408671788, Jan 14, 2009

... 3. 4. As outlined by R. Young, White Mythologies: Writing HirtOry und the West (London, 1990 ... more ... 3. 4. As outlined by R. Young, White Mythologies: Writing HirtOry und the West (London, 1990 ... For some general contributions on this issue, see D. Hamway, &#x27;Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective&#x27;, Feminh Sntdies, 14, 3 ...

Identity and the Changing Politics of Gender in South Africa

South Africa in Transition, 1998

Apartheid subjects and post-colonialism: native administrators in Port Elizabeth, 1945-1970

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Melancholia and Transformation

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 1997

... Guest Editorial Melancholia and transformation. Jenny Robinson. PDF Full-text PDF size: 607 K... more

Act of Omission

Low representation of women, inadequate investigation into addressing gender issues and overwhelm... more Low representation of women, inadequate investigation into addressing gender issues and overwhelmingly male local bureaucracies do not augur well for women in the transitional period. Jenny Robinson suggests mobilisation to ensure women&#39;s representation and the inclusion of women&#39;s concerns at local level government

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