Kipfer, Stefan Andreas

Quote

“The relation between city and countryside is the necessary starting-point for the study of the fundamental motor forces of Italian history” - Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebook 19, 1934

"Is it conceivable that the exercise of hegemony might leave space untouched?" - Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 1974

"Nobody colonizes innocently, nobody colonizes without punishment" - Aimé Césaire, Discourse on colonialism, 1955

“What is also forgotten in the dualist schema of colonization versus nationalism is that the discourse of tradition is at the same time, in the first instance, a part of colonial discourse” - Himani Bannerji, Demography and Democracy, 2011

Areas of Academic Interest

• Theories of society, politics and the city;
• Comparative urban-regional politics and planning;
• Urban social movements and restructuring;
• Colonization, racialization and urbanization in post-colonial times;
• Suburbanization, territorial relations and regional planning;
• Public housing: gentrification, privatization and redevelopment.

My empirical research has focused on urban-regional politics and planning in transnational and comparative context. In second-tier global cities in North America and Europe (Zurich, Toronto and Paris), I have researched the role of urban social movements and local-regional politics and planning in processes of transnational urban restructuring since the late 1960s. My research on Toronto has been particularly interested in the impasse of regional planning and the formation of a 'competitive city' planning regime characterized by neoliberalism, revanchism and cultural-differential aspects of 'diversity management' (including multiculturalism). More recently, I have been working on place-based policies of mixity/diversity and the redevelopment of public housing, with a focus on Toronto and Paris.

Theoretically, I have been influenced by authors like Henri Lefebvre, Antonio Gramsci, and Frantz Fanon. In this respect, I have also done interpretive work, co-editing the only volume of essays on Henri Lefebvre in English: Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre. I have and publishing a number of articles on the relevance of Lefebvre, Fanon and Gramsci for critical urban research as well as broader debates about the relationship between radical and revolutionary politics and spatial form.

Linking Gramsci with Lefebvre, I have stressed the importance of urbanization (and planning strategies) for the exercise of hegemony. To explore some of these themes, I just finished co-editing a manuscript for a collected volume on Gramsci: nature, space, politics (with Mike Ekers (Toronto), Gillian Hart (Berkeley), and Alex Loftus (London, U.K.). My contributions to this volume explore Gramsci’s writing on city and countryside and the relevance of his understanding of politics as “translation” for contemporary debates on politics and communism.

Inspired by radical urbanism, European marxism, and anti-imperial and anti-racist feminist traditions, my current writing also engages with debates about the relationship between imperialism, colonization and cities. In this regard, I have proposed an integration of Henri Lefebvre's concept of “colonization” with Frantz Fanon's view of racism and colonialism as spatial relation. This combination points to a materialist and urban approach to post-colonial studies, comparative analysis and debates about the relationship between ‘race’, class, gender and capitalism.

I am currently immersed in two comparative research projects. The first deals with relationships between central and peripheral spaces in two post-colonial and globalizing cities: Paris and Toronto. In this project (with Kanishka Goonewardena, Toronto), we are especially interested in contemporary articulations of imperial history to understand urban policy and opposition in after-colonial times. The second research project is concerned with regional governance in four Euro-American global-city regions: Paris, Frankfurt, Toronto, and Montreal. In this collaborative project with Roger Keil (Toronto), Julie-Anne Boudreau (Montréal) and Pierre Hamel (Montréal), we focus on housing, transportation and the future of metropolitan regionalism.

Select publications

(forthcoming, 2012) “‘Ghetto or Not’ is not the only question: Some remarks on ‘race’, space and state in Paris.”(in French) Race et Capitalisme. Eds. Félix Boggio Éwanjé-Épéé and Stella Magliani-Belkacem. Paris: La Fabrique. Les Cahiers de l’émancipation.

(forthcoming) Gramsci: Nature, Space, Politics (Co-edited with Mike Ekers, Gillian Hart, and Alex Loftus). London: Blackwell.

(forthcoming) “City, Country, Hegemony: Antonio Gramsci’s Spatial Historicism” in: Gramsci: Nature, Space, Politics.

(forthcoming) “Translating Gramsci in the Current Conjuncture” (principal author, with Gillian Hart) in Gramsci: Nature, Space, Politics.

(forthcoming) “Urban Marxism and the post-colonial question: Henri Lefebvre and ‘colonization’’ (Principal author, with Kanishka Goonewardena) Historical Materialism.

(forthcoming) “Henri Lefebvre: debates and controversies” (principal author, with Parastou Saberi, Thorben Wieditz) Progress in Human Geography.

(2011) “Decolonization in the heart of empire: some Fanonian echoes in France today” Antipode 43.4: 1155-1180.

(2011) “The times and spaces of (de-)colonization: Fanon’s counter-colonialism, then and now” in Nigel Gibson ed., Living Fanon (New York: Palgrave) 93-104.

(2009) ‘Tackling Urban Apartheid: The Social Forum of Popular Neighbourhoods in Paris’ International Journal for Urban and Regional Research 33.4.: 1058-1066.

(2009) “Colonization’ and Public Housing in the Competitive City: A Toronto Case Study” (Principal author, with Jason Petrunia) Studies in Political Economy 83: 111-39.

(2009) “Preface” to Henri Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press [1939]).

(2009) “Why the urban question still matters: reflections on rescaling and the promise of the urban”.Towards a Political Economy of Scale. Eds. Roger Keil and Rianne Mahon (Vancouver: UBC Press) 67-83.

(2008) ““Comparative perspectives on ’colonization’ and urbanization”. Contribution to “Writing the lines of connection: Unveiling the strange language of urbanization” Nasra Abdi, Nathalie Boucher, Mariana Cavalcanti, Stefan Kipfer, Edgar Pieterse, and Vyjayanthi Rao. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research32.4.: 989-1027.

(2008) Space, Difference, and Everyday Life: Henri Lefebvre and Radical Politics (Co-edited with Kanishka Goonewardena, Richard Milgrom, Christian Schmid). New York: Routledge.

(2008) "Hegemony, Everyday Life, and Difference: How Lefebvre urbanized Gramsci". Space, Difference, and Everyday Life: Henri Lefebvre and Radical Politics (Eds. Goonewardena, Kipfer, Milgrom, Schmid).

(2008) "The Production of Henri Lefebvre" (principal author, with Goonewardena, Milgrom, Schmid) Space, Difference, and Everyday Life.

(2008) "Globalizing Lefebvre?"(principal author, with Goonewardena, Milgrom, Schmid) Space, Difference, and Everyday Life.

(2008) “Die Zentralität des Städtischen: Überlegungen zur Skalenfrage”. Politics of Scale. Räume der Globalisierung und Perspektiven emanzipatorischer Politik. Eds. Bernd Röttger, Susanne Heeg, Markus Wissen Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 85-105.

(2007) "Space and Fanon: Colonization, urbanization and liberation from the colonial to the global city". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 25.4.

(2007) “Colonization and the New Imperialism: On the Meaning of Urbicide Today”. (principal author, with Kanishka Goonewardena). Theory and Event 10:2: 1-39.

(2005) "Spaces of Difference: Reflections from Toronto on Multiculturalism, Bourgeois Urbanism and the Possibility of Radical Urban Politics" (With Kanishka Goonewardena) International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29.3.

(2004) A review symposium on the U.S. American 'new regionalism'. (co-edited with Karen Wirsig) Antipode 36:4. 728-32.

(2003) "The Urban Experience and Globalization". (With Roger Keil) Transformations: Canadian Political Economy at the turn of the millennium. Eds. Wallace Clement and Leah Vosko. Montreal and Kingston: McGill and Queen's University Press.

(2002) "Toronto.Inc? Planning the Competitive City in the New Toronto" (Principal author, with Roger Keil). Antipode March. 227-64.

(1996) "Cities, Nature and Socialism: Towards an Urban Agenda for Action and Research." (With Franz Hartmann and Sara Marino) Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 7.2. 5-20.

(1995) "Globalization, Hegemony, and Local Politics: The Case of Zurich, Switzerland." A New World Order? Global Transformation in the Late 20th Century. Eds. Joszef Böröcz and David A. Smith. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 181-199.

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