Eric Sheppard

I seek to develop general explanations for the spatial organization and dynamics of economic activities in capitalist societies, and to determine how a geographical perspective illuminates such explanations. Economists recently have rediscovered economic geography as a place to apply economic theory, but my research shows that a proper incorporation of the spatial dimension of society challenges much of what economic theory tells us. A geographical approach can capture the complex evolution of economic landscapes and the various non-economic processes affecting economic change. Geography has basic theoretical contributions to make to knowledge, not just empirical elaborations. I am interested in how geographers think about the world, and the changing philosophical and methodological disputes in geography. Good scholarship in geography must be grounded in an understanding of these issues, requiring familiarity with contemporary debates in philosophy and methodology outside geography. I have long been interested in the evolution of urban life, particularly the intersections between economic processes and urban politics. Cities must be understood not only as distinctive kinds of places, but as places that are penetrated by co-evolving with nature, larger scale processes and one another. Current research examines the emergence, in and beyond cities, of contestations that call into question the generality and influence of neoliberalism, recently co-editing Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers.c

Part 1 Reorientations
1 Urban studies unbound: postmillennial spaces of theory, by Helga Leitner, Eric Sheppard and Jamie Peck
2 Doing urban studies: navigating the methodological terrain, by Eric Sheppard, Helga Leitner and Jamie Peck
3 Urban studies inside/out: a guide for readers and researchers, by Jamie Peck, Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard
Part 2 Methodological essays
4 Constructing a feminist urban political economy: on Leslie Kern's Sex and the revitalized city, by Kyle Loewen, Devra Waldman and Mikael Omstedt
5 Dreaming and scheming the world-class city: on Asher Ghertner's Rule by Aesthetics, by Dimitar Anguelov, Emma Colven and Prajna Rao
6 Fluid assemblages: on Lisa Björkman's Pipe Politics, by Tanya Matthan, Emma Colven and Hudson Spivey
7 Constructing and contesting the banlieue: on Mustafa Dikeç's Badlands of the Republic, by Nina Ebner, Joe Penny and Andre Comandon
8 Frustrated encounters: on Ahmed Kanna's Dubai: The City as Corporation, by Nafis Hasan, Hudson Spivey and Kenton Card
9 Rescaling the urban: on Neil Brenner's New State Spaces, by Joseph A Daniels, Mikael Omstedt and Dimitar Anguelov
10 Ethnography in the boundary zones: on Robert Fairbanks' How it Works, by Samuel Nowak and Thomas Howard
11 Ethnographic exchanges: on Philippe Bourgois' In Search of Respect, by Tom Howard, Samuel Nowak and Fernanda Jahn-Verri
12 Grounding the housing question in land: on Anna Haila's Urban Land Rent, by Kenton Card, Joseph A Daniels and Andre Comandon
13 Mapping urban governance: on You-tien Hsing's Great Urban Transformation, by Tyler Harlan and Jaehyeon Park
14 Claiming rights to the city: on James Holston's Insurgent Citizenship, by Carolyn Prouse and Fernanda Jahn-Verri
15 Visualizing liquid cities: on Matthew Gandy's Fabric of Space: Water, by CS Ponder and Sophie Webber
16 Writing the heterogeneous city: on AbdouMaliq Simone's City Life from Jakarta to Dakar, by Prajna Rao and Andre Comandon
17 In search of ordinary elsewheres in global urbanism? On Ola Söderström's Cities in Relations, by Rachel Bok
18 Urban comparison, quantified: on Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny, Naji Makarem and Taner Osman's The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies, by Andre Comandon, Kenton Card and Joseph A. Daniels
Part 3 Reflections
19 Turning Urban Studies Inside/out, by Jamie Peck, Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard
APPENDIX: Keywords
Bibliography