Claims about a global ‘urban age’ or ‘planetary urbanization’ necessitate re-thinking of what is urban and what is not, and demand attention to differentiated urban experiences. The lecture engages debates on comparative urbanism and the portability of western urban theory by using the example of India, where economic growth of recent decades has not been accompanied by accelerated urban growth as conventionally measured. The lecture employs the notion of ‘emergent urban formations’ to underscore the possibility of genres of urbanization that do not fit existing (western) theory.
About the speaker:
Jan Nijman is a Professor of Urban Studies and the founding Director of the Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. The author of five books and more than a hundred scholarly publications, he spent more than two decades of his professional career in the United States and 15 years of research in India. His expertise is in urban theory and comparative urbanism with special interests in Amsterdam, Miami, and Mumbai. Professor Nijman’s research has been funded by various grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He was a recipient of the Nystrom Award for best doctoral dissertation in Geography in the United States (1991) and the J.B. Jackson book award from the Association of American Geographers (2011). He is a former Guggenheim Fellow (2003). He also was a member of the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society from 2001 to 2011 and presently he is the Chair of the Society’s Global Exploration Fund in Europe.
On December, 2, Professor Nijman also will give a lecture "Dutch Wednesday Lecture: Urban Revolutions" in the Nederlands Instituut in Sint-Petersburg. More information on the NIP website.