River/City
From the Andes to the Amazon, what can rivers teach us about cities? Explore how waterways shape people, places and ideas, and discover new ways of thinking about urban life.
High up in the Andes mountain range, two rivers begin their journeys. Starting in the El Plomo hill, one becomes the Mapocho river travelling though Chile into Santiago, dividing the city in two. The other makes its way from the Peruvian Andes and develops into a complex network of waters and rivers to become the Amazon basin, one of the longest rivers in the world. Rivers such as these shape and are shaped by the cities they meet.
In this month’s feature Tom and Beth are joined by Dr Olivia Casagrande and Professor Roberto Monte-Mór to ask:
- What can urbanists learn from studying the Mapocho and Amazon rivers?
- How does thinking with rivers challenge our categories of urbanization, racialization and indigeneity?
- How do creative and visual methods enable us to see or dream with the river differently?
Together they take a fascinating tour, diving into concepts of ‘extended naturalization’ and ‘fluvial epistemic alternatives’; following what river/city intersections mean for metropolitan green-blue planning; unpacking the implications of giving legal rights to rivers and the meanings of indigenous narratives; and how storytelling with and through rivers helps us dream of alternative ways of being and doing.
Guests:
Dr Olivia Casagrande is a social anthropologist engaged in interdisciplinary and collaborative research on inequalities, political and racial violence, the (post)colonial city and alternative urban epistemologies. She is a Lecturer at the School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. She has recently completed an ESRC project with the Epew Collective in Santiago, Chile, which led to multiple creative outputs developed along the Mapocho River, available on Fillke Pewma. Recent works concern questions of authorship and engagements in collaborative research with indigenous groups.
Roberto Monte-Mór is a Professor at the Centre for Development and Regional Planning and Graduate Centre for Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. His teaching and research focus on economics and urbanism, particularly urbanization, and planning theories, metropolitan and regional planning, urban and regional economics, solidarity economies, spatial organization, and development alternatives in the Amazon. His photography is the basis of a new work with Junia Mortimer on Urban-Nature Archives, which is also discussed in this paper.
Related Episode From Our Archives:
Credits
- Guest: Dr Olivia Casagrande (Lecturer at the University of Sheffield)
- Guest: Roberto Monte-Mór (Professor at the Centre for Development and Regional Planning and Graduate Centre for Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Minas Gerais)
- Podcast Production, Presentation & Editing: Tom Goodfellow (Professor of Urban Studies and International Development at the University of Sheffield)
- Podcast Production, Presentation & Editing: Beth Perry (Professor of Urban Epistemics at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Urban Institute)
- Post-Production Editing & Marketing: Polly Clifton (Student at the University of Sheffield)
- Training & Production Support: Jack Clayton (Creative Media Service Support Adviser at the University of Sheffield)
- Distribution, Promotion and Marketing: Vicky Simpson (Research Manager at the University of Sheffield)
- Podcast Cover: Dan Farley Designs
- Music: Horizon (Music by Tom Goodfellow, Recorded & Produced by Alan Thomson), Falling Down (Music by Tom Goodfellow, Performed by the Dice, Produced by Alan Thomson)
- Image Credit: Juan Moya
- Special Thanks: Supported by the Faculty of Social Science and the Creative Media Suite at the University of Sheffield
