McLean, H. (2017) In praise of chaotic research pathways: A feminist response to planetary urbanization. Environment and Planning D: Society

This intervention draws from and contributes to feminist and queer responses to Brenner and Schmid’s planetary urbanization thesis. I argue there is a lot to value in their call for alternative and politicized urban studies research pathways, especially their critique of urban age discourse, a body of work that defines cities as static sites of ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’ and ‘sustainability’. However, I contend that Brenner and Schmid risk reproducing exclusionary analytical hierarchies by ignoring marginalized feminist and queer urban studies approaches that value situated and relational knowledges and lived experience. After reflecting on my engaged, artsbased research in Glasgow, I demonstrate how planetary urbanization furnishes a critical analysis of globalized geo-economic processes shaping the neoliberal ‘creative city’. But this thesis is necessarily limited. Therefore, I also call for feminist and queer research strategies that embrace humility, dialogue, taking risks, and possibly failing in our efforts to interrogate urban processes and politics.