EPISTEMOLOGIES OF COMPARISON IN THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZED URBANIZATION

Speaker: Neil Brenner

Brenner’s presentation aims to clarify the nature, limitations and potential of “comparative” modes of analysis in the field of urban studies. First, he surveys previous uses and abuses of comparative methods during the last three decades of research on globalized urbanization. Then he outlines what he calls the major methodological limitations of some of the dominant contemporary approaches to comparative urban studies, arguing that a more explicit engagement with meta-theoretical issues, greater methodological reflexivity, and a reconceptualization of “globalization” itself, are required to transcend these problems. Finally, he builds on critical realist philosophies of social science, outlining the rudimentary elements of a revitalized, reflexively comparative approach to the study of globalized urbanization. Such an approach can, Brenner argues, clarify the stakes of several prominent controversies in the literature on globalizing cities. It also opens up new analytical and political horizons for critical research on the contemporary global urban condition.