Rachel Bok
Biographic Data
| ID | 2050349 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rachel Bok |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rachel |
| FAMILY NAME | Bok |
| SIGNATURE | BOK R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7792-6950 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 137 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Urbanologists Come to Town
This article charts the upsurge of an eclectic global community of professionals new to the field of urban policy and governance, animated by playful and celebratory attitudes towards cities and urbanization: the urbanologists. It contributes to debates in critical urban theory and critical ethnographies of technology to problematize innovation in contemporary society and economy. Exceeding the strictures of technocratic and technical practice, u…
The global-urban syndrome of climate-corporate futuring
Situated in interdisciplinary literatures on climate urbanism and future making, this article examines the multi-sited case of climate-corporate futuring in contemporary global urban climate governance. Drawing on a dataset of five workshops on climate resilience organized by two globally facing urban think tanks, the article analyzes critically the contingent and frustrated process by which global in urban climate governance sought to construct …
Geographies of super-philanthropy
In this paper, we revisit our conceptualization of the philanthropic complex via three avenues: first, the risk of foreclosing political possibilities in our analysis of the complex; second, the methodological possibilities of relational thinking; and third, the stakes of recuperating the progressive possibilities of philanthropy. We acknowledge and reiterate the evolving relationship between multiple, contradictory factions of philanthropy, capi…
Geographies of super-philanthropy
In recent decades the world has witnessed an unparalleled growth of philanthropic initiatives and institutions that has proven inextricable from the vast accumulation and concentration of wealth on a global scale. Echoing recent calls for geographers to study philanthropy, this paper seeks to advance a critical geographical understanding of globalising philanthropy. Inspired by geographical scholarship on relational thinking, the paper frames the…
The durability of deprivation
Wayfinding in the Long Shadow of City Benchmarking
In response to Acuto et al.’s invitation to ‘take city rankings seriously’, I suggest that one strategy for doing so would be to examine what the production and reproduction of these rankings reveals about the ways in which their makers seek to govern cities across the globe. Drawing upon twenty months of ethnographic research of the global urban ‘solutions’ industry, I offer an immersive critique of what happens when city rankings ‘go wild’, fre…
Hong Kong – a model on the rocks
The paper presents a critical reading of the construction and circulation of the Hong Kong ‘model’ as an archetype of free-market governance, calling attention to two sides of the attendant modelling process: first, folkloric tales of the acclaimed ‘architect’ of the colony’s laissez-faire policy, Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary during the 1960s, who has risen to cult status in free-market circles; and second, the production and propa…
The relational co-production of “success” and “failure,” or the politics of anxiety of exporting urban “models” elsewhere
This paper critically examines the case of the much-vaunted Singapore “model” and its export via the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (SSTEC), a megaproject jointly developed by the Singaporean and Chinese states in northeastern China. It revolves around the central question of why, for some Singaporean officials, this export was thought to have “failed” in spite of the model’s acclaimed success globally. To address this, the paper historicizes th…
Urban Mobile Policy
This entry provides an account of the increasingly prominent urban policy mobilities framework from a geographical perspective. It details the interdisciplinary theoretical antecedents of this approach, which are situated in work on cities and globalization and policy transfer. It also outlines the main conceptual dimensions and empirical avenues of urban policy mobilities research, before concluding with some suggestions for further research.
By our metaphors you shall know us’
This paper traces the transformative travels of the metaphor of the ‘fix’ across the unbounded terrain of geographical political economy. It argues for taking the fix seriously as a root metaphor of the field, a signifier of its history and theory-cultures. Critically excavating the entwined genealogies of the metaphor and the field, it illuminates several historically successive and thematic moments of ‘fix thinking’, including: the spatial fix …
Geographies of policy knowledge
Airports on the move? The policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport at home and abroad
Understanding airports as both objects and agents of policymaking, this paper critically examines the policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport by exploring its constructions, travels, and consumptions as a ‘model airport’ within and beyond Singapore. The argument presented is twofold. First, a historical approach to policy mobility usefully highlights how contemporary policy flows cannot be understood in isolation from earlier historical tra…
Geographies of policy knowledge
By our metaphors you shall know us’
This paper traces the transformative travels of the metaphor of the ‘fix’ across the unbounded terrain of geographical political economy. It argues for taking the fix seriously as a root metaphor of the field, a signifier of its history and theory-cultures. Critically excavating the entwined genealogies of the metaphor and the field, it illuminates several historically successive and thematic moments of ‘fix thinking’, including: the spatial fix …
The relational co-production of “success” and “failure,” or the politics of anxiety of exporting urban “models” elsewhere
This paper critically examines the case of the much-vaunted Singapore “model” and its export via the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (SSTEC), a megaproject jointly developed by the Singaporean and Chinese states in northeastern China. It revolves around the central question of why, for some Singaporean officials, this export was thought to have “failed” in spite of the model’s acclaimed success globally. To address this, the paper historicizes th…
Airports on the move? The policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport at home and abroad
Understanding airports as both objects and agents of policymaking, this paper critically examines the policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport by exploring its constructions, travels, and consumptions as a ‘model airport’ within and beyond Singapore. The argument presented is twofold. First, a historical approach to policy mobility usefully highlights how contemporary policy flows cannot be understood in isolation from earlier historical tra…
Hong Kong – a model on the rocks
The paper presents a critical reading of the construction and circulation of the Hong Kong ‘model’ as an archetype of free-market governance, calling attention to two sides of the attendant modelling process: first, folkloric tales of the acclaimed ‘architect’ of the colony’s laissez-faire policy, Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary during the 1960s, who has risen to cult status in free-market circles; and second, the production and propa…
Geographies of super-philanthropy
In recent decades the world has witnessed an unparalleled growth of philanthropic initiatives and institutions that has proven inextricable from the vast accumulation and concentration of wealth on a global scale. Echoing recent calls for geographers to study philanthropy, this paper seeks to advance a critical geographical understanding of globalising philanthropy. Inspired by geographical scholarship on relational thinking, the paper frames the…
The Urbanologists Come to Town
This article charts the upsurge of an eclectic global community of professionals new to the field of urban policy and governance, animated by playful and celebratory attitudes towards cities and urbanization: the urbanologists. It contributes to debates in critical urban theory and critical ethnographies of technology to problematize innovation in contemporary society and economy. Exceeding the strictures of technocratic and technical practice, u…
Airports on the move? The policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport at home and abroad
Understanding airports as both objects and agents of policymaking, this paper critically examines the policy mobilities of Singapore Changi Airport by exploring its constructions, travels, and consumptions as a ‘model airport’ within and beyond Singapore. The argument presented is twofold. First, a historical approach to policy mobility usefully highlights how contemporary policy flows cannot be understood in isolation from earlier historical tra…
Geographies of policy knowledge
By our metaphors you shall know us’
This paper traces the transformative travels of the metaphor of the ‘fix’ across the unbounded terrain of geographical political economy. It argues for taking the fix seriously as a root metaphor of the field, a signifier of its history and theory-cultures. Critically excavating the entwined genealogies of the metaphor and the field, it illuminates several historically successive and thematic moments of ‘fix thinking’, including: the spatial fix …
Urban Mobile Policy
This entry provides an account of the increasingly prominent urban policy mobilities framework from a geographical perspective. It details the interdisciplinary theoretical antecedents of this approach, which are situated in work on cities and globalization and policy transfer. It also outlines the main conceptual dimensions and empirical avenues of urban policy mobilities research, before concluding with some suggestions for further research.
Hong Kong – a model on the rocks
The paper presents a critical reading of the construction and circulation of the Hong Kong ‘model’ as an archetype of free-market governance, calling attention to two sides of the attendant modelling process: first, folkloric tales of the acclaimed ‘architect’ of the colony’s laissez-faire policy, Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary during the 1960s, who has risen to cult status in free-market circles; and second, the production and propa…
The relational co-production of “success” and “failure,” or the politics of anxiety of exporting urban “models” elsewhere
This paper critically examines the case of the much-vaunted Singapore “model” and its export via the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (SSTEC), a megaproject jointly developed by the Singaporean and Chinese states in northeastern China. It revolves around the central question of why, for some Singaporean officials, this export was thought to have “failed” in spite of the model’s acclaimed success globally. To address this, the paper historicizes th…
The durability of deprivation
Wayfinding in the Long Shadow of City Benchmarking
In response to Acuto et al.’s invitation to ‘take city rankings seriously’, I suggest that one strategy for doing so would be to examine what the production and reproduction of these rankings reveals about the ways in which their makers seek to govern cities across the globe. Drawing upon twenty months of ethnographic research of the global urban ‘solutions’ industry, I offer an immersive critique of what happens when city rankings ‘go wild’, fre…
Geographies of super-philanthropy
In recent decades the world has witnessed an unparalleled growth of philanthropic initiatives and institutions that has proven inextricable from the vast accumulation and concentration of wealth on a global scale. Echoing recent calls for geographers to study philanthropy, this paper seeks to advance a critical geographical understanding of globalising philanthropy. Inspired by geographical scholarship on relational thinking, the paper frames the…
Geographies of super-philanthropy
In this paper, we revisit our conceptualization of the philanthropic complex via three avenues: first, the risk of foreclosing political possibilities in our analysis of the complex; second, the methodological possibilities of relational thinking; and third, the stakes of recuperating the progressive possibilities of philanthropy. We acknowledge and reiterate the evolving relationship between multiple, contradictory factions of philanthropy, capi…
The Urbanologists Come to Town
This article charts the upsurge of an eclectic global community of professionals new to the field of urban policy and governance, animated by playful and celebratory attitudes towards cities and urbanization: the urbanologists. It contributes to debates in critical urban theory and critical ethnographies of technology to problematize innovation in contemporary society and economy. Exceeding the strictures of technocratic and technical practice, u…
The global-urban syndrome of climate-corporate futuring
Situated in interdisciplinary literatures on climate urbanism and future making, this article examines the multi-sited case of climate-corporate futuring in contemporary global urban climate governance. Drawing on a dataset of five workshops on climate resilience organized by two globally facing urban think tanks, the article analyzes critically the contingent and frustrated process by which global in urban climate governance sought to construct …
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (8 works) · Economic geography (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Corporate governance (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political economy (4 works)