William Steele
Biographic Data
| ID | 324401 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Steele |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Steele |
| SIGNATURE | STEELE W |
| AFFILIATIONS | RMIT University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1565-3752 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 218 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Planetary Pedagogies in a Pluriverse of Relations
This article brings together a transdisciplinary collective of academics to critically explore the impacts of planetary thinking across the higher education sector in settler colonial Australia. Growing out of weekly critical practice dialogues between scholars in the fields of Indigenous studies, education, design, philosophy, geography, art, literary studies, communication, urban research and political science, the authors undertake a plurivers…
Everyday infrastructures of care
The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism
The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism introduces contemporary forms of grassroots climate activism from around the world through the lenses of a variety of academic disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Focusing on bottom-up case studies, it showcases innovative and creative approaches, as well as the knowledge of those working towards swift decarbonisation, just transitions, and climate justice. \n \nGrassroots climate ac…
Imagining urban nature in the places we dwell
As part of a critical ‘dialogue’ around the ontological nature of more-than-human well-being in an ecological emergency, I am interested in putting Amanda Yates, Kelly Dombroski, and Rita Dionisio's work into conversation with Matthew Gandy's book Natura Urbana. Whilst they are very different projects in their cultural focus and ambition, they lean into each other as part of a broader imaginary of ecological constellations and urban collectives
Online learning and teaching for the SDGs – exploring emerging university strategies
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore emerging synergies and tensions between the twin moves to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and online learning and teaching (L&T) in higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach A preliminary global exploration of universities’ SDG-based L&T initiatives was undertaken, using publicly available grey and academic literature. Across a total sample of 179 H…
Just Transitions
State of Australasian Cities Special Issue 2
Wild infrastructure
Quiet Activism
Futures literacy for research impact in universities
Cities of care
When gambling fails
Imagining the Dirty Green City
The green city is being elevated to the status of a self-evident good in the theory and practice of urban sustainability. A large literature documents the linked environmental, economic and well-being benefits associated with vegetating urban systems to maximise the ecosystem function. Contemporary urban greening seeks to challenge attempts to expel nature from the city in a quest for order and control. However, by imagining nature as a new mode …
Beyond the post-political
This Special Issue explores the problematique of the consensus and conflict binary that has emerged in the critical analysis of the post-political urban condition. Focusing on the interstitial spaces existing between consensus and conflict reveals a more relational dynamic that positions consensus and conflict as co-constitutive and continuously being shaped by the performance of politics by state and non-state actors. Critiques of the post-polit…
Creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
The Institute of Australian Geographers Urban Study Group and Australian Geographer present the first essay in our Leading Insights/Thinking Space partnership. We discuss Dr Natalie Osborne's 2018 essay, flag Dr Marilu Melo's 2019 essay and talk about creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
More-than-human cities
Housing and Resilience – When, for Whom and for What? A Critical Agenda
As a concept resilience is proving remarkably...resilient. It has become a keyword used to describe the contemporary urban and environmental condition. However, unlike that other prolific keyword “sustainability”, it lacks both the ethical intent (if not practice) and international agreement of the Brundtland Report directive to seek to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes for the benefit of future generations. Resilience, like con…
Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and 'becoming-world' in planning theory
Much planning theory has been undergirded by an ontological exceptionalism of humans. Yet, city planning does not sit outside of the eco-social realities co-producing the Anthropocene. Urban planners and scholars, therefore, need to think carefully and critically about who speaks for (and with) the nonhuman in place making. In this article, we identify two fruitful directions for planning theory to better engage with the imbricated nature of huma…
Constructing the Construction State
This paper inquires into the revival of the cement industry in postwar Japan. The Allied Occupation did not immediately undertake comprehensive plans to rebuild the country's infrastructure. Only after controls on the production of basic industries were lifted in 1948 did cement production begin to rise. By 1956, Japan produced 13,737,594 tons of cement, double that of the prewar peak in 1939. This paper examines the rebirth of the Japanese cemen…
Climate Cosmopolitics and the Possibilities for Urban Planning
Cosmopolitical action in a climate-changed city represents different knowledges and practices that may seem disconnected but constellate to frame stories and spaces of a climate-just city. The question this article asks is: how might we as planners identify and develop counter-hegemonic praxes that enable us to re-imagine our experience of, and responses to, climate change? To explore this question, we draw on Isabelle Stengers's (2010) idea of c…
Housing and Socio-Spatial Inclusion
This special issue on housing and socio-spatial inclusion had its genesis in the 5th Housing Theory Symposium (HTS) on the theme of housing and space, held in Brisbane, Australia in 2013. In late 2013 we put out a call for papers in an attempt to collect an initial suite of theoretical and empirical scholarship on this theme. This collection of articles progresses our initial discussions about the theoretical implications of adding the “social” t…
Urban climate justice
Interstitial Space and Everyday Housing Practices
This paper explores the role of interstitial space and everyday housing practices at the domestic scale. Interstitial space is often framed as “empty” or “in-between” space located in the shadows of conventional built form and everyday practices. In this paper, we focus on interstitial space as a site of often undervalued or taken-for-granted housing possibility. We begin the paper by outlining the contours of interstitial space as a theoretical …
Global City Challenges
The contributors illustrate what twin analytical and practical challenges emerge from juxtaposing cultural, economic, historical, postcolonial, virtual, architectural, literary, security and political
Housing and the Material Imagination – Earth, Fire, Air and Water
This paper focuses on the possibilities of the material imagination as a theoretical and practical lens for contemporary housing research. The emphasis is on housing/home as complex material cultural assemblages interwoven across the four key ancient elements: earth, air, fire and water. The principle behind the material imagination is that 'matter' - which we are immersed in and indeed ourselves composed of - is important, indeed underpins every…
Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and 'becoming-world' in planning theory
Much planning theory has been undergirded by an ontological exceptionalism of humans. Yet, city planning does not sit outside of the eco-social realities co-producing the Anthropocene. Urban planners and scholars, therefore, need to think carefully and critically about who speaks for (and with) the nonhuman in place making. In this article, we identify two fruitful directions for planning theory to better engage with the imbricated nature of huma…
More-than-human cities
Cities of care
Beyond the post-political
This Special Issue explores the problematique of the consensus and conflict binary that has emerged in the critical analysis of the post-political urban condition. Focusing on the interstitial spaces existing between consensus and conflict reveals a more relational dynamic that positions consensus and conflict as co-constitutive and continuously being shaped by the performance of politics by state and non-state actors. Critiques of the post-polit…
Housing and the Material Imagination – Earth, Fire, Air and Water
This paper focuses on the possibilities of the material imagination as a theoretical and practical lens for contemporary housing research. The emphasis is on housing/home as complex material cultural assemblages interwoven across the four key ancient elements: earth, air, fire and water. The principle behind the material imagination is that 'matter' - which we are immersed in and indeed ourselves composed of - is important, indeed underpins every…
Interstitial Space and Everyday Housing Practices
This paper explores the role of interstitial space and everyday housing practices at the domestic scale. Interstitial space is often framed as “empty” or “in-between” space located in the shadows of conventional built form and everyday practices. In this paper, we focus on interstitial space as a site of often undervalued or taken-for-granted housing possibility. We begin the paper by outlining the contours of interstitial space as a theoretical …
Climate Cosmopolitics and the Possibilities for Urban Planning
Cosmopolitical action in a climate-changed city represents different knowledges and practices that may seem disconnected but constellate to frame stories and spaces of a climate-just city. The question this article asks is: how might we as planners identify and develop counter-hegemonic praxes that enable us to re-imagine our experience of, and responses to, climate change? To explore this question, we draw on Isabelle Stengers's (2010) idea of c…
Imagining the Dirty Green City
The green city is being elevated to the status of a self-evident good in the theory and practice of urban sustainability. A large literature documents the linked environmental, economic and well-being benefits associated with vegetating urban systems to maximise the ecosystem function. Contemporary urban greening seeks to challenge attempts to expel nature from the city in a quest for order and control. However, by imagining nature as a new mode …
Housing and Resilience – When, for Whom and for What? A Critical Agenda
As a concept resilience is proving remarkably...resilient. It has become a keyword used to describe the contemporary urban and environmental condition. However, unlike that other prolific keyword “sustainability”, it lacks both the ethical intent (if not practice) and international agreement of the Brundtland Report directive to seek to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes for the benefit of future generations. Resilience, like con…
Urban climate justice
Do We Need a ‘Slow Housing’ Movement
This paper critically explores the counter-intuitive case for a “slow housing movement” by drawing on insights from alternatives to the status quo such as the “slow food movement” and the “slow city movement – cittaslow”. The empirical context is the fluctuating national ambitions for a “big” Australia and pressure to provide homes to support the anticipated population growth by 2050. The now all too familiar (neoliberal) reform mantra is the nee…
When gambling fails
Imagining urban nature in the places we dwell
As part of a critical ‘dialogue’ around the ontological nature of more-than-human well-being in an ecological emergency, I am interested in putting Amanda Yates, Kelly Dombroski, and Rita Dionisio's work into conversation with Matthew Gandy's book Natura Urbana. Whilst they are very different projects in their cultural focus and ambition, they lean into each other as part of a broader imaginary of ecological constellations and urban collectives
Futures literacy for research impact in universities
Creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
The Institute of Australian Geographers Urban Study Group and Australian Geographer present the first essay in our Leading Insights/Thinking Space partnership. We discuss Dr Natalie Osborne's 2018 essay, flag Dr Marilu Melo's 2019 essay and talk about creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
Housing and Socio-Spatial Inclusion
This special issue on housing and socio-spatial inclusion had its genesis in the 5th Housing Theory Symposium (HTS) on the theme of housing and space, held in Brisbane, Australia in 2013. In late 2013 we put out a call for papers in an attempt to collect an initial suite of theoretical and empirical scholarship on this theme. This collection of articles progresses our initial discussions about the theoretical implications of adding the “social” t…
A Civil War Letter of General William Steele, CSA
Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam
The Japanese government announced on 15 December 2009 that it was postponing indefinitely any decision on the contentious issue of a "Replacement Facility" for the Futenma Marine base in Okinawa. The decision to make no decision was low-key and at first glance may seem inconsequential. Its symbolic importance, however, is huge, signalling a possible changing of the tide of history in East Asia, above all in the US-Japan relationship
The Great Risk Shift
This paper draws on critical securitisation theory to explore different constructions of housing risk within the Australian context. In particular, it is interested in how housing regulation has been variously constructed as an issue of national importance. To this end the paper has three key parts. First, the salience of securitisation framing theory is reviewed as a critical analytical lens that might have utility within the urban housing conte…
Flexibility versus Certainty
Within the planning literature, the distinction between regulatory planning and strategic spatial planning has exposed a recurring dichotomy that exists between the idea of 'conforming' (regulative certainty) and 'performing' (strategic flexibility) plans and planning systems. This paper critically examines the divergent trajectories of land-use policy and regulation in two Australian states, Queensland and New South Wales. This paper concludes b…
Do We Need a ‘Slow Housing’ Movement
This paper critically explores the counter-intuitive case for a “slow housing movement” by drawing on insights from alternatives to the status quo such as the “slow food movement” and the “slow city movement – cittaslow”. The empirical context is the fluctuating national ambitions for a “big” Australia and pressure to provide homes to support the anticipated population growth by 2050. The now all too familiar (neoliberal) reform mantra is the nee…
Global City Challenges
The contributors illustrate what twin analytical and practical challenges emerge from juxtaposing cultural, economic, historical, postcolonial, virtual, architectural, literary, security and political
Housing and the Material Imagination – Earth, Fire, Air and Water
This paper focuses on the possibilities of the material imagination as a theoretical and practical lens for contemporary housing research. The emphasis is on housing/home as complex material cultural assemblages interwoven across the four key ancient elements: earth, air, fire and water. The principle behind the material imagination is that 'matter' - which we are immersed in and indeed ourselves composed of - is important, indeed underpins every…
Interstitial Space and Everyday Housing Practices
This paper explores the role of interstitial space and everyday housing practices at the domestic scale. Interstitial space is often framed as “empty” or “in-between” space located in the shadows of conventional built form and everyday practices. In this paper, we focus on interstitial space as a site of often undervalued or taken-for-granted housing possibility. We begin the paper by outlining the contours of interstitial space as a theoretical …
Housing and Socio-Spatial Inclusion
This special issue on housing and socio-spatial inclusion had its genesis in the 5th Housing Theory Symposium (HTS) on the theme of housing and space, held in Brisbane, Australia in 2013. In late 2013 we put out a call for papers in an attempt to collect an initial suite of theoretical and empirical scholarship on this theme. This collection of articles progresses our initial discussions about the theoretical implications of adding the “social” t…
Urban climate justice
Climate Cosmopolitics and the Possibilities for Urban Planning
Cosmopolitical action in a climate-changed city represents different knowledges and practices that may seem disconnected but constellate to frame stories and spaces of a climate-just city. The question this article asks is: how might we as planners identify and develop counter-hegemonic praxes that enable us to re-imagine our experience of, and responses to, climate change? To explore this question, we draw on Isabelle Stengers's (2010) idea of c…
Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and 'becoming-world' in planning theory
Much planning theory has been undergirded by an ontological exceptionalism of humans. Yet, city planning does not sit outside of the eco-social realities co-producing the Anthropocene. Urban planners and scholars, therefore, need to think carefully and critically about who speaks for (and with) the nonhuman in place making. In this article, we identify two fruitful directions for planning theory to better engage with the imbricated nature of huma…
Constructing the Construction State
This paper inquires into the revival of the cement industry in postwar Japan. The Allied Occupation did not immediately undertake comprehensive plans to rebuild the country's infrastructure. Only after controls on the production of basic industries were lifted in 1948 did cement production begin to rise. By 1956, Japan produced 13,737,594 tons of cement, double that of the prewar peak in 1939. This paper examines the rebirth of the Japanese cemen…
Housing and Resilience – When, for Whom and for What? A Critical Agenda
As a concept resilience is proving remarkably...resilient. It has become a keyword used to describe the contemporary urban and environmental condition. However, unlike that other prolific keyword “sustainability”, it lacks both the ethical intent (if not practice) and international agreement of the Brundtland Report directive to seek to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes for the benefit of future generations. Resilience, like con…
Beyond the post-political
This Special Issue explores the problematique of the consensus and conflict binary that has emerged in the critical analysis of the post-political urban condition. Focusing on the interstitial spaces existing between consensus and conflict reveals a more relational dynamic that positions consensus and conflict as co-constitutive and continuously being shaped by the performance of politics by state and non-state actors. Critiques of the post-polit…
Creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
The Institute of Australian Geographers Urban Study Group and Australian Geographer present the first essay in our Leading Insights/Thinking Space partnership. We discuss Dr Natalie Osborne's 2018 essay, flag Dr Marilu Melo's 2019 essay and talk about creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography
More-than-human cities
Cities of care
When gambling fails
Imagining the Dirty Green City
The green city is being elevated to the status of a self-evident good in the theory and practice of urban sustainability. A large literature documents the linked environmental, economic and well-being benefits associated with vegetating urban systems to maximise the ecosystem function. Contemporary urban greening seeks to challenge attempts to expel nature from the city in a quest for order and control. However, by imagining nature as a new mode …
Quiet Activism
Futures literacy for research impact in universities
Online learning and teaching for the SDGs – exploring emerging university strategies
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore emerging synergies and tensions between the twin moves to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and online learning and teaching (L&T) in higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach A preliminary global exploration of universities’ SDG-based L&T initiatives was undertaken, using publicly available grey and academic literature. Across a total sample of 179 H…
Just Transitions
State of Australasian Cities Special Issue 2
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Geography (11 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Environmental ethics (8 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Economics (7 works)