Anna Zimmer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3720172 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna Zimmer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna |
| FAMILY NAME | Zimmer |
| SIGNATURE | ZIMMER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lausanne |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Environmental Governance in Small Cities: Decentralization, Municipal Capacity and Autonomy in Gujarat and West Bengal
India’s 74th Constitutional Amendment obliges state governments to devolve responsibilities related to urban environmental resources and services to the Urban Local Bodies. However, the existing literature points to deficiencies in urban decentralization, including a mismatch between resources and responsibilities, financial constraints, and a lack of capacities at the municipal level. This article, based on comparative fieldwork and analysis of …
Everyday governance and urban environments: Towards a more interdisciplinary urban political ecology
Urban political ecology (UPE) has mainly evolved within the discipline of geography to examine the power relations that produce uneven urban spaces (infrastructures and natures) and unequal access to resources in cities. Its increasingly poststructuralist orientation demands the questioning of received categories and concepts, including those of (neoliberal) governance, government, and of the state. This paper attempts to open this black box by r…
Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in West Bengal, India
Solid waste management is often perceived as one of the most pressing environmental problems facing local governments in urban India and elsewhere in the global south. However, solid waste is not simply a managerial problem but is in many ways a highly political issue that involves diverse political actors at different scales. Particularly at the local level, solid waste management can also be a key part of broader political strategies, acting th…
Ways of knowing the wastewaterscape: Urban political ecology and the politics of wastewater in Delhi, India
Of parks and politics: The production of socio-nature in a Gujarati town
Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation appears as unproblematic in public discourse. This paper presents the creation of a municipal park in a small city in Gujarat, India. Using insights from history and architecture, we stress the importance of reading parks as political and to some extent ideological prajects in the larger context of city-making. The political ecology and history of the …
Ponds, Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City
While researchers in the growing field of urban political ecology have given significant attention to the fragmented hydroscape that characterizes access to drinking water in the global South, so far the (re)production of other urban waters and its related power relations have been underexplored. This article seeks to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the everyday negotiations over access to urban water bodies, in particular ponds. Thes…
Introduction. Environmental Politics in Urban India
This special issue of SAMAJ, composed of six empirical papers and this introduction seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. Adopting a deliberately broad understanding of the environment, to include environmental amenities, urban natural resources and the built environment, the diverse case studies within this issue contribute to an interlinked set of discussions on the politicization of India’s urban environme…
The Social Practices of Governing: Analysing Waste Water Governance in a Delhi Slum
Delhi’s slums face recurrent and disturbing waste water-related problems: overflowing drains, stagnation of sewerage near or within houses, and subsequent mosquito breeding cause difficulties for everyday life and serious health hazards. The question arises for the affected people as well as administration, how to deal with this tremendous challenge? Governance is defined as ‘exercise of authority, control, management, power of government’ (World…
Doing institutions. A dialectic reading of institutions and social practices and its relevance for development geography
Twelve years after the discussions on development and institutions at the meeting of the Geographischer Arbeitskreis Entwicklungstheorien (GAE 2000) in Zrich, this paper seeks to put institutions back on the research agenda in development geography.The authors explore recent trends in institutional theory and propose a dialectic understanding of "doing institutions" that positions social actors and their everyday practices at the center of instit…
Closing the Gap between ‘Expert’ and ‘Lay’ Knowledge in the Governance of Wastewater: Lessons and Reflections from New Delhi
The wastewater crisis in megacities of the Global South is increasingly recognised. However, sector?driven approaches (of river pollution, sewerage, or city?wide drainage) have had limited success in tackling this multifaceted problem. This article seeks to dynamise debates by positioning the current crisis in relation to contests of knowledge. Focusing on wastewater governance in Delhi, the article explores the question which different knowledge…
Urban Political Ecology. Theoretical concepts, challenges, and suggested future directions
Everyday governance and urban environments: Towards a more interdisciplinary urban political ecology
Urban political ecology (UPE) has mainly evolved within the discipline of geography to examine the power relations that produce uneven urban spaces (infrastructures and natures) and unequal access to resources in cities. Its increasingly poststructuralist orientation demands the questioning of received categories and concepts, including those of (neoliberal) governance, government, and of the state. This paper attempts to open this black box by r…
Ways of knowing the wastewaterscape: Urban political ecology and the politics of wastewater in Delhi, India
Ponds, Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City
While researchers in the growing field of urban political ecology have given significant attention to the fragmented hydroscape that characterizes access to drinking water in the global South, so far the (re)production of other urban waters and its related power relations have been underexplored. This article seeks to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the everyday negotiations over access to urban water bodies, in particular ponds. Thes…
Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in West Bengal, India
Solid waste management is often perceived as one of the most pressing environmental problems facing local governments in urban India and elsewhere in the global south. However, solid waste is not simply a managerial problem but is in many ways a highly political issue that involves diverse political actors at different scales. Particularly at the local level, solid waste management can also be a key part of broader political strategies, acting th…
Of parks and politics: The production of socio-nature in a Gujarati town
Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation appears as unproblematic in public discourse. This paper presents the creation of a municipal park in a small city in Gujarat, India. Using insights from history and architecture, we stress the importance of reading parks as political and to some extent ideological prajects in the larger context of city-making. The political ecology and history of the …
Closing the Gap between ‘Expert’ and ‘Lay’ Knowledge in the Governance of Wastewater: Lessons and Reflections from New Delhi
The wastewater crisis in megacities of the Global South is increasingly recognised. However, sector?driven approaches (of river pollution, sewerage, or city?wide drainage) have had limited success in tackling this multifaceted problem. This article seeks to dynamise debates by positioning the current crisis in relation to contests of knowledge. Focusing on wastewater governance in Delhi, the article explores the question which different knowledge…
Urban Political Ecology. Theoretical concepts, challenges, and suggested future directions
The Social Practices of Governing: Analysing Waste Water Governance in a Delhi Slum
Delhi’s slums face recurrent and disturbing waste water-related problems: overflowing drains, stagnation of sewerage near or within houses, and subsequent mosquito breeding cause difficulties for everyday life and serious health hazards. The question arises for the affected people as well as administration, how to deal with this tremendous challenge? Governance is defined as ‘exercise of authority, control, management, power of government’ (World…
Doing institutions. A dialectic reading of institutions and social practices and its relevance for development geography
Twelve years after the discussions on development and institutions at the meeting of the Geographischer Arbeitskreis Entwicklungstheorien (GAE 2000) in Zrich, this paper seeks to put institutions back on the research agenda in development geography.The authors explore recent trends in institutional theory and propose a dialectic understanding of "doing institutions" that positions social actors and their everyday practices at the center of instit…
Closing the Gap between ‘Expert’ and ‘Lay’ Knowledge in the Governance of Wastewater: Lessons and Reflections from New Delhi
The wastewater crisis in megacities of the Global South is increasingly recognised. However, sector?driven approaches (of river pollution, sewerage, or city?wide drainage) have had limited success in tackling this multifaceted problem. This article seeks to dynamise debates by positioning the current crisis in relation to contests of knowledge. Focusing on wastewater governance in Delhi, the article explores the question which different knowledge…
Ways of knowing the wastewaterscape: Urban political ecology and the politics of wastewater in Delhi, India
Of parks and politics: The production of socio-nature in a Gujarati town
Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation appears as unproblematic in public discourse. This paper presents the creation of a municipal park in a small city in Gujarat, India. Using insights from history and architecture, we stress the importance of reading parks as political and to some extent ideological prajects in the larger context of city-making. The political ecology and history of the …
Ponds, Power and Institutions: The Everyday Governance of Accessing Urban Water Bodies in a Small Bengali City
While researchers in the growing field of urban political ecology have given significant attention to the fragmented hydroscape that characterizes access to drinking water in the global South, so far the (re)production of other urban waters and its related power relations have been underexplored. This article seeks to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the everyday negotiations over access to urban water bodies, in particular ponds. Thes…
Introduction. Environmental Politics in Urban India
This special issue of SAMAJ, composed of six empirical papers and this introduction seeks to throw light on environmental politics in contemporary urban India. Adopting a deliberately broad understanding of the environment, to include environmental amenities, urban natural resources and the built environment, the diverse case studies within this issue contribute to an interlinked set of discussions on the politicization of India’s urban environme…
Everyday governance and urban environments: Towards a more interdisciplinary urban political ecology
Urban political ecology (UPE) has mainly evolved within the discipline of geography to examine the power relations that produce uneven urban spaces (infrastructures and natures) and unequal access to resources in cities. Its increasingly poststructuralist orientation demands the questioning of received categories and concepts, including those of (neoliberal) governance, government, and of the state. This paper attempts to open this black box by r…
Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in West Bengal, India
Solid waste management is often perceived as one of the most pressing environmental problems facing local governments in urban India and elsewhere in the global south. However, solid waste is not simply a managerial problem but is in many ways a highly political issue that involves diverse political actors at different scales. Particularly at the local level, solid waste management can also be a key part of broader political strategies, acting th…
Environmental Governance in Small Cities: Decentralization, Municipal Capacity and Autonomy in Gujarat and West Bengal
India’s 74th Constitutional Amendment obliges state governments to devolve responsibilities related to urban environmental resources and services to the Urban Local Bodies. However, the existing literature points to deficiencies in urban decentralization, including a mismatch between resources and responsibilities, financial constraints, and a lack of capacities at the municipal level. This article, based on comparative fieldwork and analysis of …
Political science (11 works) · Geography (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (7 works) · Corporate governance (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Political ecology (5 works) · Environmental planning (4 works)