An ‘anti-utopian age?’: Isaiah Berlin’s England, Hannah Arendt’s America, and utopian thinking in dark times

The Good City: In Defense of Utopian Thinking

I consider social action and political projects to be essential in the betterment of a society that clearly needs change and hope. And I do hope that this book, by raising some questions and providing empirical and theoretical elements to treat them, may contribute to informed social action in the pursuit of social change. In this sense, I am not, and do not want to be, a neutral, detached obse...

Mythos, Memory, and Utopian Visions

The utopian Darcy Ribeiro archive.

The project in memory of anthropologist, writer and politician Darcy Ribeiro is analyzed, with emphasis on the relationship he had with his personal archives and the creation of the Darcy Ribeiro Foundation, established to give continuity to his 'legacy.' It highlights the influences present in the formation of his archive and presents an ethnography that seeks to restore the historicity of the...

Utopian Political Theory and Migration without Borders

A utopian political theory (UPT) can emerge from the analysis of borders. The significant increase in human mobility between State-borders constitutes the empirical referent distinguishing our “Utopian Age” from others in the past, as historical examples of UPT have not dealt with either the issue of human mobility or the topic of “Migration without Borders”. We start with a brief introduction ...

Channelling Edwin Chadwick: beyond utopian thinking in urban planning policy and health.

Health impact assessment is advanced as a formal means to assess the direct and indirect health impacts of urban planning decisions and processes. It is, however, an intrinsically passive policy device. A more comprehensive and practical policy framework or architecture, reminiscent of that devised by Edwin Chadwick and the sanitary reform movement in 19th Century England, will be necessary to ...