Current Issue

This special section explores the ways in which heterogeneous governance actors, including formal state, private enterprises and organized criminal groups, co-produce cities. 

As spaces that concentrate economic wealth and political power cities are prone to struggles over the distribution of resources and often become arenas in which negotiations between the formal state and illicit actors - such as militia, mafia, drug trafficking and paramilitary groups – materialize and shape bodies, architectures and the built environment in general. Alongside this, security enforcers are also constantly diversifying their economic bases beyond classical protection rackets, building and shaping illicit value and production chains. As organized crime “weaponizes” formal urban development, and private and public enterprises depend on governing illicit territories and economies, citizens’ ability to own, manage, and access resources such as land, construction materials, apartments and urban utilities (water, electric energy and gas) is severely limited. This urges us to include the particular materialities of urban protection rackets in the analysis of illicit urbanization.

For suggested themes and more information see the full Call for Papers here.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 20 May 2021.

Planned date of publication: April 2022.