Urban Perspectives of the World (original) (raw)

Mevrouw de Rector Magnificus, Geachte Collega's en Gewaardeerde Toehoorders, I want to use this opportunity to reflect on the nature of the field of Urban Studies. In accordance with the international orientation of the field and in the presence of our own international staff, I will do so in English. My lecture will discuss the field of Urban Studies mainly from a purely academic point of view, the opportunities it offers but also some of its intrinsic challenges. It is a broad field and my words today will reflect my own views, my affection for the sort of broad historical-geographical scholarship of the likes of Lewis Mumford, Fernand Braudel, Peter Hall, John Friedmann, Richard Walker, or Gyan Prakash. I will refer to some of my own research, but I will also aim at what I consider to be the field of Urban Studies at large. My main argument is that the urban scale provides a critical lens on the social world, particularly in the present era of globalization. And while Urban Studies is evidently associated with the city, I will argue that the urban is about more than the city. The lecture is rather wide-ranging and will for the most part be situated somewhere between Amsterdam, the United States, and India, and I will appeal to your versatile imagination as we jump around the globe. The renewed attention to the field of Urban Studies is also driven by interested parties and stakeholders outside the academy, including government and the corporate sector. So I will include some remarks about the social relevance of the field and how we might position the Centre for Urban Studies inside and outside of the university. Inaugural speeches generally focus on the speaker's specific area of expertise but since my appointment is closely related to the Research Priority Area in Urban Studies and the establishment of the new Centre, I should also reflect on the general nature of the field, some of the big questions, and where it fits. As a result, there is quite some breadth to my lecture, maybe a bit unusually so, and I ask you to bear with me. Urban studies Let me start off with some general observations. There are two intriguing qualities of the field of Urban Studies that explain its appeal and at the same time 