Writing the Latin American city: Trajectories of urban scholarship

Abstract

Scholarship on urban Latin America is prolific and multifaceted. The region not only is the most urbanised in the world but also the most unequal. This distinctive feature makes it rich and relevant for urban theory-making. This essay introduces a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) on urban studies in Latin America that showcases a selection of articles from the journal’s archives from the mid-1970s to the present. It aims to locate urban studies scholarship in/about the region in the context of democratisation struggles and their urban implications. On the one hand, it traces the intellectual trajectories of some key urban debates bringing attention to their disciplinary, methodological and theoretical underpinnings. The VSI identifies four well-established strands: (1) Disputes around local governance; (2) Anatomy of uneven urbanisation; (3) Housing provision landscapes and infrastructural assemblages; and (4) Economic geographies and variegated gentrifications. On the other hand, it delineates a broad picture of the emergent debates and thematic, methodological and geographical absences in the pages of this journal. Through this analysis, the editorial concludes by identifying some potentially productive future directions for research.