Agata Skórzyńska

Urban Resilience or Critical Theories of Change? Disputes on Urban Studies in the Context of Pandemic Crisis

The aim of the article is critical reconstruction of a current dispute in the field of urban studies. Recent dabates and polemics between researchers related to such approaches, as planetary urbanisation thesis, urban political ecology, assemblage urbanism, urban postcolonial studies and – last but not least – well known Los Angeles School – showed that the expieriencie of the urban cirisises is closely related to the search for the new knowledge and concepts, that can bring visons of change and sollutions. At stake is, however, the recognition that some theoretical proposals have the potential to develop critical knowledge, while others tend to become just new urban ideologies, attractive, but often reactive, ineffective or exclusive. The climate change, as well as recent pandemic crisis shows clearly that well-established theoretical criticism is just as nessecary as cultural activity or political action, if urban studies are to continue to provide us with knowledge that responds to the challenges of the future. Theoretical disputes are sometimes just a „family war”, but they often show the most sensitive problems to which scientific knowledge must answer. Urban crisises in turn, as COVID-19 pandemic clearly shows – are often unexpected pracitical tests of theories.

We make up the rules as we go along? Projectification, ‘smart’ cities, and the spectres of emergence

Abstract

The paper discusses the issues of the so-called projectification of reality from the perspective of the praxis philosophy. This point of view triggers the reflection upon the profound transformations of social reality resulting from the proliferation of “projects” as methods of operation and organizational forms. However, due to such transformations, it is necessary to move on from the deliberations inaugurated predominantly based on management sciences to a more humanistic (philosophical) reflection and the associated ontological issues. As a consequence, a “project” is understood not only as an educational method, a method of (e.g. creative) work in general, or an organizational form (e.g. in business) but, above all, as a property of social reality. Due to the projectification processes of the modern world, such fundamental variables of our functioning in reality in general as time, space, and social relations are evolving. This approach, proposed by Anders Fogh Jensen, for instance, records the fundamental transformation of modern disciplinary societies into contemporary project societies. Nevertheless, it prompts the following query in a critical plan: What are the consequences of this process? What is the post-project reality like? What are the effects of such temporary activities: flexible tools for the transformation of the world, emergent interventions into social reality? These questions are raised in relation to a specific case: the Oasis Little India project implemented in the historical Indian district of Singapore. This case perfectly fits into one of the most “projectified” ideologies of urban development—the notion of smart city.

Karolina Charewicz-Jakubowska „Nimfa Post/Post Moderna. Działanie obrazów”, Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Warszawa 2016, s. 316.