Creighton Connolly
Biographic Data
| ID | 108137 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Creighton Connolly |
| GIVEN NAMES | Creighton |
| FAMILY NAME | Connolly |
| SIGNATURE | CONNOLLY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4782-2621 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 230 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The experimental governance of urban nature in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is urbanising at unprecedented speed and in unique, and sometimes paradigmatic, ways. As its cities grow, so too does the place and governance of urban nature require critical interrogation as cities start to develop new and more extensive relationships with their non-human inhabitants and natural environments. The articles that comprise this theme issue consider how the governance of nature in urbanising Southeast Asia is a resolu…
Building back better through urban blue and green space? A critical review of post-pandemic urban planning and climate governance
The implications of COVID-19 for urban planning and governance are wide ranging and have triggered a rethinking of how policies related to housing, transportation, sustainability, climate change and governance might be redeveloped to be better suited for post-pandemic cities. Over the past five years, both academic and popular accounts have highlighted commonalities between adaptations that cities are making to become more resilient to infectious…
The Affective Economy of Toxic Atmospheres
This article considers how atmospheres can play a powerful role in troubling the management of nature in the multispecies city. It brings the cyclical nature of atmospheric causes and effects, the affective values and il/logics that determine human responses to nonhuman threats, and the misguided and potentially deleterious health outcomes that ensue into one analytical frame. Drawing on the empirical case of urban mosquito management in Singapor…
Governing infectious disease in the urban periphery
This paper works toward building a theoretical framework to understand the role that extended urbanisation and peripherality played in the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on conceptualising and analyzing the nature of the social impacts and outbreak responses that unfolded in urban peripheries. In particular, we emphasise how scholarship on socio-spatial peripheralisation—as part of broader approaches devoted to analyzing the nature of e…
Ecological states
Guess I’m Next to be Erased
This paper builds on emerging literature documenting how street art intersects with urban heritage and processes of gentrification in rapidly urbanizing and worlding cities. In particular, it focuses on the UNESCO World Heritage City of George Town, Penang, and examines controversies over the in/formal blossoming of street art in quotidian spaces of the city (such as back lanes, alleys, and car parks) since 2012. Not only have these works brought…
The spatialities of extended infrastructure landscapes
This paper contributes to emerging research that seeks to understand how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is transforming the processes of urbanisation through more nuanced and situated analyses of its spatial, political-economic and discursive dimensions. In doing so, the paper focuses on the proposed Melaka Gateway project in Southwestern Malaysia, which is a privately financed initiative, slated to be the largest artificial island projec…
Political Ecologies of Landscape
Drawing on the recent changes in the Malaysian state of Penang, this book opens up new perspectives on urban development, governance and the politics of place. This book grounds its analysis in the controversies that have emerged over the extensive urban redevelopment and regeneration projects that have emerged since 2012, mostly associated with the ambitious Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP). Reviewing the role of residents, activists, planner…
Mobilizing the social infrastructure of informal settlements in infectious disease response – The case of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa
Urbanizing Islands
While Singapore is often considered an island city in the singular sense, the city-state actually consists of many islands, with the Singapore mainland being by far the largest. While most of these islands traditionally had thriving indigenous communities, all have since been displaced over time as the islands were developed to service Singapore's economic and metabolic needs as a rapidly urbanizing and developing nation. Some of the islands have…
On the relationships between Covid-19 and extended urbanization
This commentary focuses on the relationship between extensive forms of urbanization and emerging infectious disease, using empirical examples from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it examines the role of shifting urban-ecological relationships, infrastructures, and governance dynamics in both giving rise to, and mitigating, the impact of infectious disease outbreaks
Local response in health emergencies
This paper highlights the major challenges and considerations for addressing COVID-19 in informal settlements. It discusses what is known about vulnerabilities and how to support local protective action. There is heightened concern about informal urban settlements because of the combination of population density and inadequate access to water and sanitation, which makes standard advice about social distancing and washing hands implausible. There …
From resilience to multi-species flourishing
This article uses the concept of multi-species flourishing to evaluate the potential of emergent urban governance initiatives in Penang, Malaysia, for achieving more socially and environmentally just forms of urban development. In doing so, the article offers an empirical examination of increasing development pressures on the forested hillsides of Penang, and the significant environmental and socio-cultural implications associated with this activ…
The City Under Covid‐19
This critical commentary reflects on a rapidly mobilised international podcast project, in which 25 urban scholars from around the world provided audio recordings about their cities during COVID‐19. New digital tools are increasing the speeds, formats and breadth of the research and communication mediums available to researchers. Voice recorders on mobile phones and digital audio editing on laptops allows researchers to collaborate in new ways, a…
Extended urbanisation and the spatialities of infectious disease
This paper argues that contemporary processes of extended urbanisation, which include suburbanisation, post-suburbanisation and peri-urbanisation, may result in increased vulnerability to infectious disease spread. Through a review of existing literature at the nexus of urbanisation and infectious disease, we consider how this (potential) increased vulnerability to infectious diseases in peri- or suburban areas is in fact dialectically related to…
Urban political ecologies of heritage
Over the past few decades, there have been numerous studies examining the interface between cultural heritage conservation and urban (re)development, particularly in rapidly developing regions. On the other hand, scholars have also examined nature conservation movements in the context of encroaching (urban) development. However, this body of research has, with a few exceptions, not considered the interrelationship between natural and cultural her…
Worlding cities through transportation infrastructure
This paper engages with emerging literature on worlding cities in analysing the contested ways in which mid-sized cities attempt to 'globalize' through the redevelopment of urban infrastructure, and in particular, transportation infrastructure. The paper focuses specifically on the World Heritage City of Penang, Malaysia and critically examines controversies over the extensive urban redevelopment and regeneration projects that have emerged since …
Urban Political Ecology Beyond Methodological Cityism
The concept of planetary urbanization has emerged in recent years amongst neo-Lefebvrian urban scholars who see urbanization as a process taking place at all spatial scales. This article analyses recent critiques of the urban political ecology (UPE) literature which argue that much of the work in the field has been guilty of focusing exclusively on the traditional bounded city unit rather than urbanization as a process. In response, the article r…
Whose landscape, whose heritage? Landscape politics of ‘swiftlet farming’ in a World Heritage City
To date, little attention has been paid to critical intersections between urban heritage and landscape change. This paper examines this relationship through the case of urban ‘swiftlet farming’ in the UNESCO World Heritage city of George Town, Penang, Malaysia, which over the past 10 years has been transformed by the phenomenon. However, the industry has been fiercely resisted due to many issues, most notably for its alleged irreversible damage t…
Tracing narratives and perceptions in the political ecologies of health and disease
Political ecology has, in the past decade, emerged as an increasingly accepted framework for studying issues of health and disease and has thus given rise to a distinct sub-field: the political ecologies of health and disease (PEHD). More recently, scholars have suggested more specific avenues through which the sub-field can be further developed and focused. Building on recent work, we suggest that the role of health perceptions and health discou…
Bird cages and boiling pots for potential diseases
This article details the social construction of the 'swiftlet farming' industry in George Town, Malaysia. It argues that narratives of health and disease continually police which landscape practices are acceptable for the increasingly globalizing and image conscious city. 'Swiftlet farming' refers to the use of inner city shophouses and other commercial buildings for harvesting the edible nests of swiftlets (constructed from their saliva). Due to…
Landscape political ecologies of urban 'swiftlet farming' in George Town, Malaysia
In previous engagements with political ecologies, cultural geographers have been interested in intersections between place making and environmental health, nature, environment and landscape interrelations, and their mutually co-constituted, socially constructed and contested nature. This article explores these themes through the experiences of urban activists in George Town, Penang, who have been involved in resisting the proliferation of ‘swiftl…
A crack in the facade? Situating Singapore in global flows of electronic waste
Singapore is alleged to be a key node in global flows of e‐waste prohibited under the Basel Convention. We combine a close reading of the Convention and related documents with findings from nonparticipant observation of and interviews with Singapore‐based traders of discarded electronics. The case offers both important conceptual and empirical findings for future studies of territory in market‐making activity. Conceptually, our research suggests …
Lively Cities
Contested space revisited
The rapid pace of urbanisation and development and its impacts on the material fabric of Asia’s largest cities has brought about a growing recognition of the need to conserve the tangible and intan
Extended urbanisation and the spatialities of infectious disease
This paper argues that contemporary processes of extended urbanisation, which include suburbanisation, post-suburbanisation and peri-urbanisation, may result in increased vulnerability to infectious disease spread. Through a review of existing literature at the nexus of urbanisation and infectious disease, we consider how this (potential) increased vulnerability to infectious diseases in peri- or suburban areas is in fact dialectically related to…
Local response in health emergencies
This paper highlights the major challenges and considerations for addressing COVID-19 in informal settlements. It discusses what is known about vulnerabilities and how to support local protective action. There is heightened concern about informal urban settlements because of the combination of population density and inadequate access to water and sanitation, which makes standard advice about social distancing and washing hands implausible. There …
On the relationships between Covid-19 and extended urbanization
This commentary focuses on the relationship between extensive forms of urbanization and emerging infectious disease, using empirical examples from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it examines the role of shifting urban-ecological relationships, infrastructures, and governance dynamics in both giving rise to, and mitigating, the impact of infectious disease outbreaks
Urban Political Ecology Beyond Methodological Cityism
The concept of planetary urbanization has emerged in recent years amongst neo-Lefebvrian urban scholars who see urbanization as a process taking place at all spatial scales. This article analyses recent critiques of the urban political ecology (UPE) literature which argue that much of the work in the field has been guilty of focusing exclusively on the traditional bounded city unit rather than urbanization as a process. In response, the article r…
Landscape political ecologies of urban 'swiftlet farming' in George Town, Malaysia
In previous engagements with political ecologies, cultural geographers have been interested in intersections between place making and environmental health, nature, environment and landscape interrelations, and their mutually co-constituted, socially constructed and contested nature. This article explores these themes through the experiences of urban activists in George Town, Penang, who have been involved in resisting the proliferation of ‘swiftl…
A place for everything
Urbanizing Islands
While Singapore is often considered an island city in the singular sense, the city-state actually consists of many islands, with the Singapore mainland being by far the largest. While most of these islands traditionally had thriving indigenous communities, all have since been displaced over time as the islands were developed to service Singapore's economic and metabolic needs as a rapidly urbanizing and developing nation. Some of the islands have…
The City Under Covid‐19
This critical commentary reflects on a rapidly mobilised international podcast project, in which 25 urban scholars from around the world provided audio recordings about their cities during COVID‐19. New digital tools are increasing the speeds, formats and breadth of the research and communication mediums available to researchers. Voice recorders on mobile phones and digital audio editing on laptops allows researchers to collaborate in new ways, a…
Urban political ecologies of heritage
Over the past few decades, there have been numerous studies examining the interface between cultural heritage conservation and urban (re)development, particularly in rapidly developing regions. On the other hand, scholars have also examined nature conservation movements in the context of encroaching (urban) development. However, this body of research has, with a few exceptions, not considered the interrelationship between natural and cultural her…
Tracing narratives and perceptions in the political ecologies of health and disease
Political ecology has, in the past decade, emerged as an increasingly accepted framework for studying issues of health and disease and has thus given rise to a distinct sub-field: the political ecologies of health and disease (PEHD). More recently, scholars have suggested more specific avenues through which the sub-field can be further developed and focused. Building on recent work, we suggest that the role of health perceptions and health discou…
Bird cages and boiling pots for potential diseases
This article details the social construction of the 'swiftlet farming' industry in George Town, Malaysia. It argues that narratives of health and disease continually police which landscape practices are acceptable for the increasingly globalizing and image conscious city. 'Swiftlet farming' refers to the use of inner city shophouses and other commercial buildings for harvesting the edible nests of swiftlets (constructed from their saliva). Due to…
Worlding cities through transportation infrastructure
This paper engages with emerging literature on worlding cities in analysing the contested ways in which mid-sized cities attempt to 'globalize' through the redevelopment of urban infrastructure, and in particular, transportation infrastructure. The paper focuses specifically on the World Heritage City of Penang, Malaysia and critically examines controversies over the extensive urban redevelopment and regeneration projects that have emerged since …
From resilience to multi-species flourishing
This article uses the concept of multi-species flourishing to evaluate the potential of emergent urban governance initiatives in Penang, Malaysia, for achieving more socially and environmentally just forms of urban development. In doing so, the article offers an empirical examination of increasing development pressures on the forested hillsides of Penang, and the significant environmental and socio-cultural implications associated with this activ…
Whose landscape, whose heritage? Landscape politics of ‘swiftlet farming’ in a World Heritage City
To date, little attention has been paid to critical intersections between urban heritage and landscape change. This paper examines this relationship through the case of urban ‘swiftlet farming’ in the UNESCO World Heritage city of George Town, Penang, Malaysia, which over the past 10 years has been transformed by the phenomenon. However, the industry has been fiercely resisted due to many issues, most notably for its alleged irreversible damage t…
The spatialities of extended infrastructure landscapes
This paper contributes to emerging research that seeks to understand how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is transforming the processes of urbanisation through more nuanced and situated analyses of its spatial, political-economic and discursive dimensions. In doing so, the paper focuses on the proposed Melaka Gateway project in Southwestern Malaysia, which is a privately financed initiative, slated to be the largest artificial island projec…
Governing infectious disease in the urban periphery
This paper works toward building a theoretical framework to understand the role that extended urbanisation and peripherality played in the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on conceptualising and analyzing the nature of the social impacts and outbreak responses that unfolded in urban peripheries. In particular, we emphasise how scholarship on socio-spatial peripheralisation—as part of broader approaches devoted to analyzing the nature of e…
Worlding Cities
Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong's Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global is a timely intervention in the hegemonic discourses surrounding the epistemologies and methodologies of urban studies. The authors take the position that dominant theories of globalization or post‐coloniality are over‐determined in their privileging of capitalism and class struggles in the analysis of urban problems in emerging world regions
A crack in the facade? Situating Singapore in global flows of electronic waste
Singapore is alleged to be a key node in global flows of e‐waste prohibited under the Basel Convention. We combine a close reading of the Convention and related documents with findings from nonparticipant observation of and interviews with Singapore‐based traders of discarded electronics. The case offers both important conceptual and empirical findings for future studies of territory in market‐making activity. Conceptually, our research suggests …
Patricia Cormack and James F Cosgrave, Desiring Canada
Patricia Cormack and James F Cosgrave, Desiring Canada: CBC Contests, Hockey Violence, and other Stately Pleasures. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 257 pp. $27.95. ISBN: 9781442613911 (paper); $70.00. ISBN: 9781442645653 (cloth)
A place for everything
Whose landscape, whose heritage? Landscape politics of ‘swiftlet farming’ in a World Heritage City
To date, little attention has been paid to critical intersections between urban heritage and landscape change. This paper examines this relationship through the case of urban ‘swiftlet farming’ in the UNESCO World Heritage city of George Town, Penang, Malaysia, which over the past 10 years has been transformed by the phenomenon. However, the industry has been fiercely resisted due to many issues, most notably for its alleged irreversible damage t…
Tracing narratives and perceptions in the political ecologies of health and disease
Political ecology has, in the past decade, emerged as an increasingly accepted framework for studying issues of health and disease and has thus given rise to a distinct sub-field: the political ecologies of health and disease (PEHD). More recently, scholars have suggested more specific avenues through which the sub-field can be further developed and focused. Building on recent work, we suggest that the role of health perceptions and health discou…
Bird cages and boiling pots for potential diseases
This article details the social construction of the 'swiftlet farming' industry in George Town, Malaysia. It argues that narratives of health and disease continually police which landscape practices are acceptable for the increasingly globalizing and image conscious city. 'Swiftlet farming' refers to the use of inner city shophouses and other commercial buildings for harvesting the edible nests of swiftlets (constructed from their saliva). Due to…
Landscape political ecologies of urban 'swiftlet farming' in George Town, Malaysia
In previous engagements with political ecologies, cultural geographers have been interested in intersections between place making and environmental health, nature, environment and landscape interrelations, and their mutually co-constituted, socially constructed and contested nature. This article explores these themes through the experiences of urban activists in George Town, Penang, who have been involved in resisting the proliferation of ‘swiftl…
Urban political ecologies of heritage
Over the past few decades, there have been numerous studies examining the interface between cultural heritage conservation and urban (re)development, particularly in rapidly developing regions. On the other hand, scholars have also examined nature conservation movements in the context of encroaching (urban) development. However, this body of research has, with a few exceptions, not considered the interrelationship between natural and cultural her…
Worlding cities through transportation infrastructure
This paper engages with emerging literature on worlding cities in analysing the contested ways in which mid-sized cities attempt to 'globalize' through the redevelopment of urban infrastructure, and in particular, transportation infrastructure. The paper focuses specifically on the World Heritage City of Penang, Malaysia and critically examines controversies over the extensive urban redevelopment and regeneration projects that have emerged since …
Urban Political Ecology Beyond Methodological Cityism
The concept of planetary urbanization has emerged in recent years amongst neo-Lefebvrian urban scholars who see urbanization as a process taking place at all spatial scales. This article analyses recent critiques of the urban political ecology (UPE) literature which argue that much of the work in the field has been guilty of focusing exclusively on the traditional bounded city unit rather than urbanization as a process. In response, the article r…
On the relationships between Covid-19 and extended urbanization
This commentary focuses on the relationship between extensive forms of urbanization and emerging infectious disease, using empirical examples from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it examines the role of shifting urban-ecological relationships, infrastructures, and governance dynamics in both giving rise to, and mitigating, the impact of infectious disease outbreaks
Local response in health emergencies
This paper highlights the major challenges and considerations for addressing COVID-19 in informal settlements. It discusses what is known about vulnerabilities and how to support local protective action. There is heightened concern about informal urban settlements because of the combination of population density and inadequate access to water and sanitation, which makes standard advice about social distancing and washing hands implausible. There …
From resilience to multi-species flourishing
This article uses the concept of multi-species flourishing to evaluate the potential of emergent urban governance initiatives in Penang, Malaysia, for achieving more socially and environmentally just forms of urban development. In doing so, the article offers an empirical examination of increasing development pressures on the forested hillsides of Penang, and the significant environmental and socio-cultural implications associated with this activ…
The City Under Covid‐19
This critical commentary reflects on a rapidly mobilised international podcast project, in which 25 urban scholars from around the world provided audio recordings about their cities during COVID‐19. New digital tools are increasing the speeds, formats and breadth of the research and communication mediums available to researchers. Voice recorders on mobile phones and digital audio editing on laptops allows researchers to collaborate in new ways, a…
Extended urbanisation and the spatialities of infectious disease
This paper argues that contemporary processes of extended urbanisation, which include suburbanisation, post-suburbanisation and peri-urbanisation, may result in increased vulnerability to infectious disease spread. Through a review of existing literature at the nexus of urbanisation and infectious disease, we consider how this (potential) increased vulnerability to infectious diseases in peri- or suburban areas is in fact dialectically related to…
Political Ecologies of Landscape
Drawing on the recent changes in the Malaysian state of Penang, this book opens up new perspectives on urban development, governance and the politics of place. This book grounds its analysis in the controversies that have emerged over the extensive urban redevelopment and regeneration projects that have emerged since 2012, mostly associated with the ambitious Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP). Reviewing the role of residents, activists, planner…
Mobilizing the social infrastructure of informal settlements in infectious disease response – The case of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa
Urbanizing Islands
While Singapore is often considered an island city in the singular sense, the city-state actually consists of many islands, with the Singapore mainland being by far the largest. While most of these islands traditionally had thriving indigenous communities, all have since been displaced over time as the islands were developed to service Singapore's economic and metabolic needs as a rapidly urbanizing and developing nation. Some of the islands have…
The spatialities of extended infrastructure landscapes
This paper contributes to emerging research that seeks to understand how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is transforming the processes of urbanisation through more nuanced and situated analyses of its spatial, political-economic and discursive dimensions. In doing so, the paper focuses on the proposed Melaka Gateway project in Southwestern Malaysia, which is a privately financed initiative, slated to be the largest artificial island projec…
Lively Cities
Contested space revisited
The rapid pace of urbanisation and development and its impacts on the material fabric of Asia’s largest cities has brought about a growing recognition of the need to conserve the tangible and intan
Governing infectious disease in the urban periphery
This paper works toward building a theoretical framework to understand the role that extended urbanisation and peripherality played in the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on conceptualising and analyzing the nature of the social impacts and outbreak responses that unfolded in urban peripheries. In particular, we emphasise how scholarship on socio-spatial peripheralisation—as part of broader approaches devoted to analyzing the nature of e…
Ecological states
Guess I’m Next to be Erased
This paper builds on emerging literature documenting how street art intersects with urban heritage and processes of gentrification in rapidly urbanizing and worlding cities. In particular, it focuses on the UNESCO World Heritage City of George Town, Penang, and examines controversies over the in/formal blossoming of street art in quotidian spaces of the city (such as back lanes, alleys, and car parks) since 2012. Not only have these works brought…
Geography (21 works) · Political science (18 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Politics (13 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Economics (9 works) · Urbanization (9 works) · Archaeology (8 works)