Urban Studies and Practice of Theory

Deploying an interdisciplinary approach that draws on geography, anthropology, archival and historical research, as well as perspectives from literary criticism and cultural studies, this project refocuses the discussion of Accra, New York, London, and Hong Kong in ways that have so far gained scant attention.

We marry theoretical concepts to everyday research practice by attending to the relationships between high streets and business districts, street life, spatial morphologies, and the character of inequalities that are inextricably entangled with these cities. We study how high streets and other urban phenomena intersect with various elements and vectors of urban life such as restaurants, ethnic food stores, transport systems, parks, and the real estate market, among other phenomena, even when these do not appear to be obviously related to one another in the first instance. The project also has an interest in the apparent messiness of migration and settlement for understanding the different ways in which globalization has been sedimented in these cities in the 20th and 21st centuries. The project aims at a full-spectrum and multi-scalar approach to cities, starting from high streets and their adjacent neighborhoods, and expanding in concentric circles to embrace other urban phenomena.