Julie Ren
Biographic Data
| ID | 3721501 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julie Ren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julie |
| FAMILY NAME | Ren |
| SIGNATURE | REN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6569-9508 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Introduction
Overlapping crises, from economic shocks and pandemic disruptions to geopolitical emergencies and climate catastrophes, have become a defining condition of contemporary urban life rather than exceptional events. The Special Feature, ‘Critical Geographies of Everyday Crisis’, advances the concept of everyday crisis as an analytical and political lens for understanding how crisis operates as an enduring condition shaping urban life. Through a conce…
Ontological locationality
Palat Narayanan's concept of ontological locationality – the position from which research concerns emerge, distinct from geography or researcher identity – is examined through a researcher's career trajectory. Institutional contexts, metropolitan knowledge hegemony and funding structures are considered in terms of their entanglement with ontological locationality. While affirming Palat Narayanan's rejection of reductive identitarian modes of fram…
Reworking relations of epistemological authority in teaching collaborations
Though knowledge about urban change is increasingly developed in partnership, knowledge production in teaching often remains entrenched in traditional roles of teaching and learning, research objects and subjects, and the attendant power asymmetries of these relations. Especially when working with partners historically the “subjects” of research rather than the authors of expertise, teaching can be a site to rework these relations. In this interv…
Critical geographies of everyday crisis
Off-sited, on research and geopolitical uncertainty
Writing in June 2025, I reflect on Chowra Makaremi's proposal of “off-site ethnography” amid global instability and shifting geopolitics. Through distance, Makaremi shows how research can capture what lies beyond direct observation, inspiring a reflection on presumed norms around fieldwork, mobility, and academic research. Her approach resonates with diasporic experiences, crises of access, and the urgency of safeguarding counter-memories in unce…
Doing urban geography in times of crisis
Crises dominate current political debates. They shift the spaces of possibility for geographical research practice and global theory formation. Our starting point in this forum is the diagnosis of a dual crisis: on the one hand, the epistemological crisis put forth in post- and decolonial scholarship and, on the other hand, the ubiquity of worldly crises - variously described as the pluri-crisis, polycrisis, or socio-ecological crisis. This perva…
Specifying elsewheres and middles
The approaches proffered by Teo et al. in ‘Theorizing with urban China’ are constructive ways forward that also provoke a number of questions about the qualitative distinctions between generalizing and universalizing when it comes to theory. While supportive of the gestures to think with elsewhere, to generate theory for the mid-range and to work with researchers who are embedded in the contexts of study, some specifications are desired: If not e…
Crisis and Collectives Shaping Art Events
Art events like biennials and large-scale exhibitions typically strive to address urgent, timely issues; curatorial approaches respond to various crises from the environment and war to Indigenous rights -notwithstanding the way existing exhibition structures often reproduce exploitative relations or other forms of everyday precarity. In our analysis of crisis, we eschew the concept of crisis as a disruptive event with a clear end for a framing of…
Theme park follies
In yet another variation on a theme park, the contemporary art biennial establishes host cities as cultural destinations. The qualities of these events, their various exclusivities, esoteric referentialities, and circulating stars reflect a form of “pure imageability” (p. xiv) (Sorkin, M. [Citation1992]. Introduction: Variations on a theme park. In M. Sorkin (Ed.), Variations on a theme park: The new American city and the end of public space (pp.…
A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation
An expanded set of sites, a more differentiated set of references and linguistic diversification have been discussed as needed changes in urban studies. The critiques of the limitations of urban studies, in terms of both the scholarship and the scholars, offer important and concrete responses to expanding the scope of the field. Yet this tremendous special issue on ‘Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’ with 10 papers cutting across a ran…
Refracting Eurocentrism, operationalizing complicity
Critiques of the parochialism of urban theory have resulted in appeals for more global urban studies. Yet, the fruitful responses to postcolonial work frequently remain sequestered, reflecting the persistence of Eurocentrism as a burden shouldered largely by the so-called “South”. This paper aims to shift the work implied by critiques of Eurocentrism – from the labor of translation to the chore of representation – to those whom Eurocentrism serve…
Un/Doing Future, Unsettling Temporalization
The concept of the future, its prognostications and its applications increasingly shapes present social worlds. From government policy to architectural design, from preemptive everyday practices to interventionist counter-cultural projects, imaginations of the future take concrete form and enjoy a powerful purpose. In this intervention we ask: How is the future invented, planned, renounced and researched? Specifically, how do we analyse the entan…
Obscuring representation
There has been a proliferation of contemporary art biennials in the past 20 years, especially in cities outside of North America and Europe. What biennials represent to their host cities and what is represented at these events reveal a great deal about the significance of this proliferation. The biennial platform entails formalistic notions of representation with regards to place branding or the selection of artists as emissaries of countries whe…
Exceptionalism and theorizing spatial inequality
The transformation of Chinese cities has engendered new forms of spatialized urban inequality. Research on these processes of segregation has captured the attention of urban researchers, generating a large and varied body of work. Yet its influence on urban theory remains constrained, reflecting the concern with the parochialism of urban theory. A review of segregation research on Chinese cities presents several intertwined findings: Chinese citi…
The Art Opening
This article develops the concept of proximity as socio-spatial distance by looking at the temporally and spatially condensed events of contemporary art exhibition openings. The article begins by examining some developments in proximity research, the limitations of theorizing the importance of proximity as mere physical nearness, arguing that potentiality renders proximity meaningful. After introducing the art event, we offer a three-pronged appr…
Global Gentrifications
Comparative Urbanism and the 'Asian City
While voices in the comparative urbanism literature call for researchers to approach comparison with more experimental and critical methodologies, there remains no consensus on how to design and realize these studies. This essay examines the implications of comparative urbanism for researching the 'Asian City'. Given the critique of existing modes of comparison embedded in recent calls for a new comparative urbanism, researchers are faced with a …
A Recess Evaluation with the Players
This playground study conceptualizes recess as a time and space that belongs to students; their inclusion in this evaluation is a notable difference from other recess/playground research. The goal was to help elementary school students make the changes they felt were needed on their playground. After conducting structured observations and student and recess aide focus groups, a report was presented to all stakeholders, and recess changes were mad…
Comparative Urbanism and the 'Asian City
While voices in the comparative urbanism literature call for researchers to approach comparison with more experimental and critical methodologies, there remains no consensus on how to design and realize these studies. This essay examines the implications of comparative urbanism for researching the 'Asian City'. Given the critique of existing modes of comparison embedded in recent calls for a new comparative urbanism, researchers are faced with a …
Un/Doing Future, Unsettling Temporalization
The concept of the future, its prognostications and its applications increasingly shapes present social worlds. From government policy to architectural design, from preemptive everyday practices to interventionist counter-cultural projects, imaginations of the future take concrete form and enjoy a powerful purpose. In this intervention we ask: How is the future invented, planned, renounced and researched? Specifically, how do we analyse the entan…
Critical geographies of everyday crisis
A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation
An expanded set of sites, a more differentiated set of references and linguistic diversification have been discussed as needed changes in urban studies. The critiques of the limitations of urban studies, in terms of both the scholarship and the scholars, offer important and concrete responses to expanding the scope of the field. Yet this tremendous special issue on ‘Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’ with 10 papers cutting across a ran…
Exceptionalism and theorizing spatial inequality
The transformation of Chinese cities has engendered new forms of spatialized urban inequality. Research on these processes of segregation has captured the attention of urban researchers, generating a large and varied body of work. Yet its influence on urban theory remains constrained, reflecting the concern with the parochialism of urban theory. A review of segregation research on Chinese cities presents several intertwined findings: Chinese citi…
The Art Opening
This article develops the concept of proximity as socio-spatial distance by looking at the temporally and spatially condensed events of contemporary art exhibition openings. The article begins by examining some developments in proximity research, the limitations of theorizing the importance of proximity as mere physical nearness, arguing that potentiality renders proximity meaningful. After introducing the art event, we offer a three-pronged appr…
Doing urban geography in times of crisis
Crises dominate current political debates. They shift the spaces of possibility for geographical research practice and global theory formation. Our starting point in this forum is the diagnosis of a dual crisis: on the one hand, the epistemological crisis put forth in post- and decolonial scholarship and, on the other hand, the ubiquity of worldly crises - variously described as the pluri-crisis, polycrisis, or socio-ecological crisis. This perva…
Refracting Eurocentrism, operationalizing complicity
Critiques of the parochialism of urban theory have resulted in appeals for more global urban studies. Yet, the fruitful responses to postcolonial work frequently remain sequestered, reflecting the persistence of Eurocentrism as a burden shouldered largely by the so-called “South”. This paper aims to shift the work implied by critiques of Eurocentrism – from the labor of translation to the chore of representation – to those whom Eurocentrism serve…
A Recess Evaluation with the Players
This playground study conceptualizes recess as a time and space that belongs to students; their inclusion in this evaluation is a notable difference from other recess/playground research. The goal was to help elementary school students make the changes they felt were needed on their playground. After conducting structured observations and student and recess aide focus groups, a report was presented to all stakeholders, and recess changes were mad…
Theme park follies
In yet another variation on a theme park, the contemporary art biennial establishes host cities as cultural destinations. The qualities of these events, their various exclusivities, esoteric referentialities, and circulating stars reflect a form of “pure imageability” (p. xiv) (Sorkin, M. [Citation1992]. Introduction: Variations on a theme park. In M. Sorkin (Ed.), Variations on a theme park: The new American city and the end of public space (pp.…
Specifying elsewheres and middles
The approaches proffered by Teo et al. in ‘Theorizing with urban China’ are constructive ways forward that also provoke a number of questions about the qualitative distinctions between generalizing and universalizing when it comes to theory. While supportive of the gestures to think with elsewhere, to generate theory for the mid-range and to work with researchers who are embedded in the contexts of study, some specifications are desired: If not e…
A Recess Evaluation with the Players
This playground study conceptualizes recess as a time and space that belongs to students; their inclusion in this evaluation is a notable difference from other recess/playground research. The goal was to help elementary school students make the changes they felt were needed on their playground. After conducting structured observations and student and recess aide focus groups, a report was presented to all stakeholders, and recess changes were mad…
Global Gentrifications
Comparative Urbanism and the 'Asian City
While voices in the comparative urbanism literature call for researchers to approach comparison with more experimental and critical methodologies, there remains no consensus on how to design and realize these studies. This essay examines the implications of comparative urbanism for researching the 'Asian City'. Given the critique of existing modes of comparison embedded in recent calls for a new comparative urbanism, researchers are faced with a …
The Art Opening
This article develops the concept of proximity as socio-spatial distance by looking at the temporally and spatially condensed events of contemporary art exhibition openings. The article begins by examining some developments in proximity research, the limitations of theorizing the importance of proximity as mere physical nearness, arguing that potentiality renders proximity meaningful. After introducing the art event, we offer a three-pronged appr…
Obscuring representation
There has been a proliferation of contemporary art biennials in the past 20 years, especially in cities outside of North America and Europe. What biennials represent to their host cities and what is represented at these events reveal a great deal about the significance of this proliferation. The biennial platform entails formalistic notions of representation with regards to place branding or the selection of artists as emissaries of countries whe…
Exceptionalism and theorizing spatial inequality
The transformation of Chinese cities has engendered new forms of spatialized urban inequality. Research on these processes of segregation has captured the attention of urban researchers, generating a large and varied body of work. Yet its influence on urban theory remains constrained, reflecting the concern with the parochialism of urban theory. A review of segregation research on Chinese cities presents several intertwined findings: Chinese citi…
Theme park follies
In yet another variation on a theme park, the contemporary art biennial establishes host cities as cultural destinations. The qualities of these events, their various exclusivities, esoteric referentialities, and circulating stars reflect a form of “pure imageability” (p. xiv) (Sorkin, M. [Citation1992]. Introduction: Variations on a theme park. In M. Sorkin (Ed.), Variations on a theme park: The new American city and the end of public space (pp.…
A more global urban studies, besides empirical variation
An expanded set of sites, a more differentiated set of references and linguistic diversification have been discussed as needed changes in urban studies. The critiques of the limitations of urban studies, in terms of both the scholarship and the scholars, offer important and concrete responses to expanding the scope of the field. Yet this tremendous special issue on ‘Comparative Methods for Global Urban Studies’ with 10 papers cutting across a ran…
Refracting Eurocentrism, operationalizing complicity
Critiques of the parochialism of urban theory have resulted in appeals for more global urban studies. Yet, the fruitful responses to postcolonial work frequently remain sequestered, reflecting the persistence of Eurocentrism as a burden shouldered largely by the so-called “South”. This paper aims to shift the work implied by critiques of Eurocentrism – from the labor of translation to the chore of representation – to those whom Eurocentrism serve…
Un/Doing Future, Unsettling Temporalization
The concept of the future, its prognostications and its applications increasingly shapes present social worlds. From government policy to architectural design, from preemptive everyday practices to interventionist counter-cultural projects, imaginations of the future take concrete form and enjoy a powerful purpose. In this intervention we ask: How is the future invented, planned, renounced and researched? Specifically, how do we analyse the entan…
Specifying elsewheres and middles
The approaches proffered by Teo et al. in ‘Theorizing with urban China’ are constructive ways forward that also provoke a number of questions about the qualitative distinctions between generalizing and universalizing when it comes to theory. While supportive of the gestures to think with elsewhere, to generate theory for the mid-range and to work with researchers who are embedded in the contexts of study, some specifications are desired: If not e…
Crisis and Collectives Shaping Art Events
Art events like biennials and large-scale exhibitions typically strive to address urgent, timely issues; curatorial approaches respond to various crises from the environment and war to Indigenous rights -notwithstanding the way existing exhibition structures often reproduce exploitative relations or other forms of everyday precarity. In our analysis of crisis, we eschew the concept of crisis as a disruptive event with a clear end for a framing of…
Ontological locationality
Palat Narayanan's concept of ontological locationality – the position from which research concerns emerge, distinct from geography or researcher identity – is examined through a researcher's career trajectory. Institutional contexts, metropolitan knowledge hegemony and funding structures are considered in terms of their entanglement with ontological locationality. While affirming Palat Narayanan's rejection of reductive identitarian modes of fram…
Reworking relations of epistemological authority in teaching collaborations
Though knowledge about urban change is increasingly developed in partnership, knowledge production in teaching often remains entrenched in traditional roles of teaching and learning, research objects and subjects, and the attendant power asymmetries of these relations. Especially when working with partners historically the “subjects” of research rather than the authors of expertise, teaching can be a site to rework these relations. In this interv…
Critical geographies of everyday crisis
Off-sited, on research and geopolitical uncertainty
Writing in June 2025, I reflect on Chowra Makaremi's proposal of “off-site ethnography” amid global instability and shifting geopolitics. Through distance, Makaremi shows how research can capture what lies beyond direct observation, inspiring a reflection on presumed norms around fieldwork, mobility, and academic research. Her approach resonates with diasporic experiences, crises of access, and the urgency of safeguarding counter-memories in unce…
Doing urban geography in times of crisis
Crises dominate current political debates. They shift the spaces of possibility for geographical research practice and global theory formation. Our starting point in this forum is the diagnosis of a dual crisis: on the one hand, the epistemological crisis put forth in post- and decolonial scholarship and, on the other hand, the ubiquity of worldly crises - variously described as the pluri-crisis, polycrisis, or socio-ecological crisis. This perva…
Introduction
Overlapping crises, from economic shocks and pandemic disruptions to geopolitical emergencies and climate catastrophes, have become a defining condition of contemporary urban life rather than exceptional events. The Special Feature, ‘Critical Geographies of Everyday Crisis’, advances the concept of everyday crisis as an analytical and political lens for understanding how crisis operates as an enduring condition shaping urban life. Through a conce…
Sociology (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (10 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (5 works) · Economic geography (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Geography (4 works)