Det urbana rummets in- och utsidor. Teoretiska utmaningar för forskning om urban politik

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to contribute to new thinking regarding research on urban politics in, and beyond, Sweden. We do this by arguing for a multi-disciplinary conversation on space, politics and governance, building on theoretical developments in disciplines such as geography, sociology and political theory. By developing a conceptual understanding of space as relational, the political in terms of contingency, and governance as governmentality we suggest that the concept of ‘the urban’ could be theorized and analyzed as a governmental assemblage. This approach opens up for new questions regarding where urban politics takes place, how it govern us and with what efects. One important implication of this proposed approach is that the urban produce both insides and outsides relationally and hence that the urban also can be studied out side cities and city regions.