Whole-world urbanism: thinking cities beyond North and South

This paper develops a critique and proposes an alternative to the dominant North–South frame in urban theory. It shows that many cities – ranging from Kyiv to Beijing, from Istanbul to Tehran and from Bangkok to Taipei – are not adequately captured through Northern capitalocentric theories or Southern postcolonial critiques. The paper proposes situating cities in a transversal matrix of power relations beyond the vertical North/South dualism, drawing on Russian-American philosopher Svetlana Boym's notion of the off-modern to add a lateral move. Mobilising Édouard Glissant's notion of the “whole-world”, the paper calls this approach “whole-world urbanism”. Whole-world urbanism allows recasting conceptual frames in urban studies through a triple move: opening urban thought to more-than-English knowledges, more-than-capitalist economies and more-than-European power relations. In this vein, whole-world urbanism not only creates a place to speak from for previously inaudible cities but also traces the outlines of a required shift in conceptual debates for urban studies more broadly.