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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Planetary Cities
T2 - Fluid Rock Foundations of Civilization
AU - Clark, Nigel
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - Whereas recent thematizations of planetary urbanization stress the planet-scaled impacts of contemporary urban processes, we might also conceive of cities as being constitutively ‘planetary’ from their very outset. This paper looks at two ways in which the earliest urban centres or ‘civilizations’ on the floodplains of the Fertile Crescent harnessed the deep, geological forces of the Earth. The first is the tapping and channelling of sedimentary processes, central to what Wittfogel referred to as hydraulic civilizations. The second is the use of high-heat technologies to smelt and forge metals, which can be construed as a capture of igneous processes. What both sets of practices have in common is that they involve skilled intervention in fluid-solid phase transitions between solid rock and flowing particulate matter. Viewing cities as constitutively geological or planetary in this way might help us reimagine the challenges posed to urban spaces by looming transformations in Earth systems.
AB - Whereas recent thematizations of planetary urbanization stress the planet-scaled impacts of contemporary urban processes, we might also conceive of cities as being constitutively ‘planetary’ from their very outset. This paper looks at two ways in which the earliest urban centres or ‘civilizations’ on the floodplains of the Fertile Crescent harnessed the deep, geological forces of the Earth. The first is the tapping and channelling of sedimentary processes, central to what Wittfogel referred to as hydraulic civilizations. The second is the use of high-heat technologies to smelt and forge metals, which can be construed as a capture of igneous processes. What both sets of practices have in common is that they involve skilled intervention in fluid-solid phase transitions between solid rock and flowing particulate matter. Viewing cities as constitutively geological or planetary in this way might help us reimagine the challenges posed to urban spaces by looming transformations in Earth systems.
KW - geopower
KW - planetary thought
KW - planetary urbanization
KW - Earth systems
KW - sedimentology
KW - Anthropocene
KW - metallurgy
KW - hydraulic civilizations
U2 - 10.1177/02632764211030986
DO - 10.1177/02632764211030986
M3 - Journal article
VL - 39
SP - 177
EP - 196
JO - Theory, Culture and Society
JF - Theory, Culture and Society
SN - 0263-2764
IS - 2
ER -