91亚色

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Stefan Kipfer

Professor

Cities, Regions, Planning Program Coordinator

Credentials

PhD Political Science, 91亚色
MES Urban Political Economy and Ecological Politics, 91亚色
BA Political Science and French, 91亚色

Research Keywords

Urbanization; Urban Politics & Planning; Social & Political Theory; Comparative Urban Politics & Planning; Theories Of Space, Politics & Society; Marxism; Anti-colonialism.

Graduate Supervision

I supervise students in the graduate programs in Environmental Studies (PhD, MES), Geography (PhD, MA) and .

Picture of Stefan

Contact Information

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

416 736 2100

kipfer@yorku.ca

Research Interests

My research is driven by two basic, closely interconnected questions: What is the relationship between spatial organization, the social order and the exercise of political rule? And, in turn, what spatial and urban strategies can help us build the kind of political transformations we need to build a genuinely sustainable, egalitarian and radically democratic future for the planet?

My empirical research has focused on urban politics, urbanization and planning in transnational and comparative context. In various parts of Euro-America, including the global cities Zurich, Toronto and Paris, I have researched a range of urban social movements and their geographical imaginaries. I have investigated various forms of state intervention, from urban-regional planning, public housing and public transit to economic and environmental policy. Most recently, I have moved to research the rise of right-wing populism and neo-fascism as well as emancipatory responses to these far-right tendencies and regimes.

In my research and my teaching, I have foregrounded the capitalist and racialized dimensions of urbanization, planning and politics. I have done so in part by highlighting the imperial and (neo-)colonial relations that connect the global North to the global South. For this purpose, I have sought inspiration from marxian, anti-colonial, feminist, and political-ecological theories of politics, society and space. I have for example worked to connect insights, concept and methods from the works of thinkers like Henri Lefebvre, Frantz Fanon, Antonio Gramsci, and Walter Benjamin.

Research Projects

  • Public housing and place-based policy in comparative context (to 2009-2015)
  • Resisting the tide: Modalities of resistance against right-wing populism and neo-fascism (ongoing)
  • Public transit, mobility and the quest for free public services (ongoing)
  • Politics, Hegemony and Urbanization: Henri Lefebvre, Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon (ongoing)

Research Output

Monographs

(2022) Urban Revolutions: Urbanization and (Neo-)Colonialism in Transatlantic Context (Leiden: Brill) [Paperback version with Haymarket, Chicago, 2023]

(2019) Le temps et l'espace de la (d茅)-colonisation: Dialogue entre Fanon et Lefebvre (Paris: Eterotopia)

Edited Books

(2017) Governing Cities Through Regions: Canadian and European Perspectives (With Roger Keil, Pierre Hamel, Julie-Anne Boudreau) (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press

(2013) Gramsci: Nature, Space, Politics (With Mike Ekers, Gillian Hart, and Alex Loftus). London: Blackwell.

(2008) Space, Difference, and Everyday Life: Henri Lefebvre and Radical Politics (With Kanishka Goonewardena, Richard Milgrom, Christian Schmid). New 91亚色: Routledge.

Edited journal issues, review symposia:
(2024) 鈥淓space, Racisme, et Racialisation禄 (with Fatiha Belmessous, Maurice Blanc) Espaces et Soci茅t茅s 190

(2006) 鈥淏iopolitics鈥 (With Roger Keil) Symposium in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

(2004) 鈥淭he new regionalism鈥 (With Karen Wirsig). Review symposium in Antipode 36:4.

(2002) 鈥淗enri Lefebvre鈥 (With Richard Milgrom) Special issue in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 13.2.

(1996) 鈥淯rban Ecology鈥 (With Franz Hartmann and Sara Marino). Special issue in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Book Chapters

(2022a) 鈥淎ntonio Gramsci and the Prison Notebooks (1929-1935)鈥 in Camilla Perrone ed. Critical Planning & Design: Roots, pathways, and frames (Cham: Springer) 191-203 [Modified version of Kipfer (2013]

(2022b) 鈥淎rticulation, Translation, Populism: Gillian Hart鈥檚 Engagements with Antonio Gramsci鈥 (with Michael Ekers and Alex Loftus) in Ethnographies of Power: Working Radical Concepts with Gillian Hart, Edited By Sharad Chari, Mark Hunter and Melanie Samson (Johannesburg: Wits University Press) 163-186. [Older version of Ekers, Kipfer, Loftus 2020]

(2021) 鈥淔anon for a post-imperial world: on universals and other human matters鈥 in Partisan Universalism: Essays in honor of Ato Sekyi-Otu Eds. Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Sofia Noori (Wakefield: Daraja Press) 10-31.

(forthcoming) 鈥淲hich Gramsci for (post)colonial times? For a Fanon-Gramsci lineage鈥 (with Ayyaz Mallick) In Gramsci nel mondo nord-americano, eds. Renate Holub, Francesco Giasi, Giuseppe Vacca (Bologna: Il Mulino) 

(2019a) 鈥(De-)constructing housing estates: How much more than a housing question?鈥 Massive Suburbanization: (Re-)Building the Global Periphery Eds. Murat G眉ney, Roger Keil and Murat 脺莽o臒lu (Toronto, University of Toronto Press)

(2019b) 鈥淧eripheries against peripheries? Against spatial reification鈥 (principal author, with Mustafa Dike莽) in Massive Suburbanization: (Re-)Building the Global Periphery Eds. Murat G眉ney, Roger Keil and Murat 脺莽o臒lu (Toronto, University of Toronto Press) 35-55.

(2018) 鈥淨uel Gramsci d茅colonial? Plaidoyer pour une piste Fanon-Gramsci.鈥 Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci actuels Dir. Marie-Claire Caloz-Tschopp, Romain Felli, Antoine Chollet (Paris: Kim茅) 359-373.

(2017) 鈥Grand Paris: the bumpy road towards metropolitan governance鈥 (Principal author, with Julie-Anne Boudreau, Pierre Hamel) in Governing Cities Through Regions: Canadian and European Perspectives (Edited by Roger Keil, Pierre Hamel, Julie-Anne Boudreau, Stefan Kipfer) (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press)

(2016) 鈥淧opulism鈥 in Keywords for Radicals: A Late Capitalist Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Eds. Kelly Fritsch, Clare O鈥機onnor, AK Thompson (Chico, CA: AK Press) 311-318

(2014a) 鈥淓spaces de la diff茅rence: r茅flexions de Toronto sur le multiculturalisme, l鈥檜rbanisme bourgeois et la possibilit茅 d鈥檜ne politique urbaine radicale鈥 (with Kanishka Goonewardena) Villes contest茅es : pour une g茅ographie critique de l'urbain eds. C茅cile Gintrac et Matthieu Giroud (Paris: Prairies Ordinaires) pp. 239-60.

(2014b) 鈥淗enri Lefebvre and 鈥渃olonization鈥: From reinterpretation to research鈥欌 (Principal author, with Kanishka Goonewardena) in Urban Revolution Now: Henri Lefebvre in Social Research and Architecture.Eds. 艁ukasz Stanek, Christian Schmid,, 脕kos  Morav谩nsky. Farnham: Ashgate. Pp. 93-109.

(2014c) 鈥淲orldwide urbanization and neocolonial fractures: insights from the literary world鈥 Neil Brenner ed. Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization (Berlin: Jovis) pp. 288-305.

(2014d) 鈥楿rbanisation et racialisation: d茅s茅gr茅gation, 茅mancipation, h茅g茅monie鈥 in Penserl'茅mancipation: offensives capitalistes et r茅sistances internationales. Hadrien Buclin, Joe Daher, Christakis Georgiou, Pierre Raboud (茅d.) (Paris: La Dispute) pp. 111-129.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

(2024a) 鈥淓space, Racisme, et Racialisation禄 (primary author, with Fatiha Belmessous, Maurice Blanc) Espaces et Soci茅t茅s 190 : 9-19.

(2024b) 鈥淗ousing Beyond Land Rent? A Critique of Market Housing Solutionism鈥 (Main author, with Luisa Sotomayor) Radical Housing Journal 6.1.: 33-61

(2022a) 鈥溾楽tretch鈥 and 鈥楾ranslate鈥: Gramscian Lineages, Fanonist Convergences in the (Post)Colony鈥(primary author, with Ayyaz Mallick) Historical Materialism

(2022b) 鈥淐omparison and political strategy: Internationalism, colonial rule and urban research after Fanon.鈥 Urban Geography

(2021a) with Jamilla Mohamud, 鈥淭he Pandemic as Political Emergency鈥 Studies in Political Economy

(2021b) 鈥淐omparison and political strategy: Internationalism, colonial rule and urban research after Fanon.鈥 Urban Geography online.

(2021c) 鈥淩emembering Leo Panitch (1945-2020) [Obituary]鈥, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

(2020) 鈥淥n Articulation, Translation and Populism: Gillian Hart鈥檚 Postcolonial Marxism.鈥(With Mike Ekers and Alex Loftus) Annals of the American Association of Geography Online March 16, 2020

(2019) 鈥淲hat colour is your vest? Reflections on the yellow vest movement in France.鈥 Studies in Political Economy 100.3: 209-231

(2018) 鈥淧ushing the limits of urban research: Urbanization, pipelines and counter-colonial politics鈥滶nvironment and Planning D: Society and Space 36.3: 474-493

(2016a) 鈥淣eocolonial Urbanism? La R茅novation Urbaine in Greater Paris鈥 Antipode 48.3 : 603-625

(2016b) 鈥淭imes and Spaces of Right Populism: Notes from Paris and Toronto鈥 (principal author, with Parastou Saberi) Socialist Register 2016: 312-32

(2014) "From 'Revolution' to Farce? Hard-right populism in the making of Toronto" (principal author, with Parastou Saberi) Studies in Political Economy 93 Spring: 137-151

Non-Academic Writing

(2022a) 鈥淒id Someone Say Housing Supply? A View from Toronto鈥 (primary author, with Luisa Sotomayor) The Bullet Nov. 27

(2022b) 鈥淎n Infernal Dance: The 2022 French Presidential Election鈥 The Bullet August 29.

(2020) The Naked City: Traversing Toronto in Pandemic Times  

(2020a) 鈥淓space urbain et distanciation sociale鈥 Acta.zone   June 4

(2020b) 'Views of the Naked City', Progressive City, May 11.

(2020b) 鈥淔ree Transit is in town, for now鈥 The Bullet  April 23

(2019)  鈥淲hat Colour is Your Vest? The Gilets Jaunes Revolt Shaking France鈥 (With Karen Wirsig) The Bullet February 13. 

(2017a) 鈥淢acronism: neoliberal triumph or next stage in France's political crisis? The Bullet #1441, June 29

(2017b) 鈥楾hings are serious鈥: A very brief update on the French Presidential election campaign鈥 The Bullet #1406, May 2.

(2017c) 鈥淧rojecting Shadows: France before the 2017 elections鈥 The Bullet #1378, March 5

(2016)  鈥淧aris in Transit: A few snapshots鈥 The Bullet #1344, December 20.

Courses

Course CodeTitle
ES 2200Foundations of Politics and Planning
ES 4220Urbanization in the Global South
ES 6124Urban-Regional Planning: International and Comparative Perspectives
ES 6173 Politics and Planning
ES 6129 Social Policy and Planning
ES 3225 Regional Governance