I am happy to share my latest research paper. It is called Cartographies of Infrastructural Imaginations: Mapping Ecological Utopias and Dystopias in the Global South. In it, I explore themes of urban imaginaries, environmental justice, and urban policy in Mexico City, Shanghai, and Bangalore. The paper has been published in the Global Social Challenges Journal by Bristol University Press.

Online: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/gsc/view/journals/gscj/aop/article-10.1332-27523349Y2024D000000023/article-10.1332-27523349Y2024D000000023.xml?rskey=86y2YC&result=4&tab_body=fulltext

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/gsc/view/journals/gscj/aop/article-10.1332-27523349Y2024D000000023/article-10.1332-27523349Y2024D000000023.xml?rskey=86y2YC&result=4&tab_body=fulltext

To cite:

Valero Thomas, E. (2024). Cartographies of infrastructural imaginations: mapping ecological utopias and dystopias in the Global South. Global Social Challenges Journal(published online ahead of print 2024). Retrieved Sep 29, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1332/27523349Y2024D000000023

ABSTRACT:

This article provides the reader with a theoretical framework and a method of representing cities called cartographies of infrastructural imaginations. The study employs mapping methods from the fields of architecture, urban geography and visual cultures. The research inquires about the role of cartography in the analysis of discourses that define policies of water supply, food distribution and land-use regulation, which are three environmental challenges in cities. How can we identify and situate the urban actors that attend to such challenges in cities from the Global South? The research is empirically grounded in Mexico City, Shanghai and Bangalore, urban settlements with a history of colonial occupation in previous centuries. Their foreign interventions still shape urban imaginaries of these cities. The method of blending photographic analysis with maps aims to offer objective precision of geographical data and subjective street-level views of local stories. The intention is to understand where the infrastructural ideas come from, and how imaginaries flow to communicate visions about the development of the city. A central task here is to frame how power structures interact and represent their interests via utopian and dystopian narratives.

Keywords cartography, infrastructures, urban imaginaries, environmental justice, urban policy

Key messages

•The ambition of establishing environmental justice today implies the representation of
urban imaginaries that influence infrastructural policies in cities of the Global South.
• Redrawing cities in the Global South demands the identification of urban imaginaries that
articulate new urban visions, negotiate changing urban values and challenge problematic
urban transformations.
• In cities from the Global South, the contemporary speed of spatial growth and renewal
of neighbourhoods demand new cartographic methodologies to represent contrasting
urban visions.
• The method of blending photographic analysis with maps aims to offer objective precision
of geographical data and subjective street-level views of local stories.