ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE on Urban Entanglements /348
Photo of a bustling market in downtown Cairo, Egypt courtesy of Stephen Akpakwu.
What does it mean to settle, to be in a settled place? This week’s guest, AbdouMaliq Simone has dedicated his work to investigating the specifics of urban organization as they are created by people. In this erudite and globally-positioned conversation, Ayana and AbdouMaliq meditate on how the design of our environments shapes us.
Considering how to make marginalized places and groups more visible but not more vulnerable, AbdouMaliq offers a nuanced perspective of the “global majority.” Detailing specific places like Cairo and Jakarta, he maps the specifics of locations and the sympathies between them. Through these examples, AbdouMaliq explains many of the theoretical aspects of his work. Life blurs the lines of compartmentalization and urban politics are often a messy contestation. The theories that AbdouMaliq discusses offer a way to make sense of these complex realities.
AbdouMaliq talks us through the uncertain, vulnerable, and dynamic positions in the choreography of global cities, and contemplates what it means to live an urban life. From the entanglements of resistance and protest, to surveillance and governance, to the effects of climate change on the city environment, AbdouMaliq brings nuance and depth to this vital conversation. As humanity shapes the city, it shapes us in turn, and as the world rapidly urbanizes, AbdouMaliq calls listeners to think about what an urban politics could be.
“Urban politics is a kind of messy contestation—multiple forms of affiliation and relationships that are always feeling each other out, always in a process of being rearranged.”
Photo of AbdouMaliq Simone
AbdouMaliq Simone is Senior Professorial Fellow at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield and co-director of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab, Polytechnic University of Turin.
♫ The music in this episode is “Lomo’Opay” and “Sad and Cute” by Jahawi.
Episode References
The Surrounds: Urban Life Within and Beyond Capture
“Counting the Uncountable: Revisiting Urban Majorities”
“Majority Urban Politics and Lives Worth Living in a Time of Climate Emergencies”
“Urban Popular Economies: Territories of Operation for Lives Deemed Worth Living”
DIVE DEEPEr
WE ACT for Environmental Justice
A Guide to the Global Municipalist Movement
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For The Wild Podcast is an anthology of the Anthropocene; focused on land-based protection, co-liberation and intersectional storytelling rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth and consumerism.