Heterotopia and the urban politics of climate change experimentation

Edwards, G.A.S.; Bulkeley, H.A.

doi:10.1177/0263775817747885

Heterotopia and the urban politics of climate change experimentation

Edwards, G.A.S.; Bulkeley, H.A.

Authors

G.A.S. Edwards

Professor Harriet Bulkeley h.a.bulkeley@durham.ac.uk
Deputy Executive Dean (Research)

Abstract

Seeking to govern the city in relation to climate change is a political project that at once imagines the present in terms of the future and the future in terms of the present. The urban politics of climate change has brought multiple visions of the possibilities (and limits) of urban futures. In this context, we find urban responses taking experimental form – creating sites through which to explore and experience different futures. They provide spaces in which utopian visions can be imagined, enacted and contested. Conceptualizing urban climate change experiments as heterotopic sites seems fruitful in at least two regards. Firstly, it captures their provisional and ambivalent relationship with the broader urban milieu. Secondly, and even more critically, it opens up the dialogues between the future and present which are at the heart of the climate governance project, and highlights the spatial form of these politics. We examine both with reference to two examples of climate experimentation in Berlin and Philadelphia.

Citation

Edwards, G., & Bulkeley, H. (2018). Heterotopia and the urban politics of climate change experimentation. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(2), 350-369. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775817747885

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 21, 2017
Online Publication Date	Dec 17, 2017
Publication Date	Apr 1, 2018
Deposit Date	Jan 4, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Jan 5, 2018
Journal	Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
Print ISSN	0263-7758
Electronic ISSN	1472-3433
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	36
Issue	2
Pages	350-369
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775817747885

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Copyright Statement
Edwards, G.A.S. & Bulkeley, H.A. (2018). Heterotopia and the urban politics of climate change experimentation. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36(2): 350-369. © The Author(s) 2017. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.