SEED-CERN Session*: Post urban-rural frontiers? Examining diverse island urbanisms in the Philippines / 29 June 2023 [Hybrid Seminar]

Presentation: Aireen Andal and Andre Ortega

Session Co-chairs: Reden Recio and Ethel Villafranca

Islands tend to conjure images of tourist beaches or rural peripherality. They rarely figure into the urban studies literature as theoretically generative spaces that can reinvigorate urban knowledge production. In empirical terms, urban studies mainly foreground inland spaces and barely represent the nature of coastal cities such as island cultures and urban island mobility patterns. Attending to postcolonial provocations that advocate for urban theorisation beyond the usual Anglo-American contexts, we interrogate the urban-rural interface of island cities. We foreground the various urban expressions reshaping island dynamics using two case studies in the Philippines—gender dynamics of transnational island urbanism and island memories of women baby boomers. We aim to move the discussions on urban political contestations beyond the urban-rural binary. Our presentation offers a thinking space with alternative pathways to urban political subjectivities where the islands and waters are a part of conversations.

Recorded session

*This activity is jointly organised by SEED and the Cities and Environments Research Network (CERN)