Actually Existing Geopolitics of Urban Knowledge Production. Questioning the ‘From Anywhere’ of Urban Theorising

Abstract

This article addresses the geopolitics of urban knowledge production by focussing on articles published in the past six years (2018–2023) in six ‘international’ journals. It aims to contribute to ongoing debates on the questioning of Anglo-American hegemony and the decolonisation of geographic scholarship through the analysis of the where of urban knowledge production in terms of the location of the authors and the places studied. Our analyses clearly highlight the highly selective nature of the geopolitics of urban knowledge production. And yet, this selectivity is not only based on, and related to, the North-South divide, but also develops between cities and universities, defining an unequal and multiscalar geography of who and from where one can speak and be heard. Moreover, the geography of the places studied contradicts any claims of post/decolonising urban theory, of ‘urban theorising from anywhere’, of Southern, subaltern, alternative urban perspectives, and so on. As it emerges in ‘international’ publishing, the current situation of urban knowledge production clashes with the calls for a global urban knowledge and asks for a common effort to go beyond it.