The Field of Urban and Regional Studies from the South: Notes on the Challenges and Possibilities of a Critical Theoretical-Methodological Reconstruction from the Periphery of Capitalism

Abstract

There is a wide range and diverse accumulated intellectual heritage that seeks to decipher and interpret socio-spatial configurations. That rich scientific legacy has been guided and developed by various currents and theoretical paradigms. Not ignoring that legacy, this article proposes a critical and alternative approach that seeks to challenge that important inherited knowledge with some problematizations, formulating some categories of analysis. Such an approach, based on different analytical planes and levels of abstraction, tries to contribute to the apprehension of the various spatial dimensions of the processes of reproduction of social life. The proposal focuses on the challenges of the theoretical construction, and historical mediations pertinent to urban and regional studies, and which engage in a dialogue between the Latin American historical-structural thinking, and the social production of space of the interpretations of the North. It suggests a stimulating frame of critical debate, enunciated from the South.