Learning from Manchester: Uneven Development, Class and the City

• Authors: Kacper Pobłocki

Title variants

PL

Lekcja z Manchesteru: Nierównomierny rozwój, klasa i miasto.

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper argues that one of the greatest challenges mounted to urban theory is accounting for the simultaneous unfolding in the Global South of “planetary urbanization” and world’s greatest industrial revolution. In order to showthat industrial cities are still pertinent to urban theory, I revisit Victorian Manchester and Fredrick Engels’ classic account of it. I argue that Engels was a pioneer of what I dub “anthropology of the impersonal” and his “discovery” of classbecame the cornerstone for Marxist thought. Yet, his innovation has remained under-appreciated, and the astonishingcareer of the “dual city” concept is a good case in point.I argue that its popular embrace stems from the way it brings “uneven development”, “class” and the “city” in a gripping metaphor. Although Engels showed how these concepts were intertwined, he kept them theoretically separate. He did so because he used them not only for describing how capitalism worked, but also as tools for triggering a political change.

PL

Prezentowany artykuł dowodzi, że jednym z największych wyzwań stojącychprzed teorią miejską jest wyjaśnienie jednoczesnego rozwoju „planetarnejurbanizacji” w Globalnym Południu oraz największej w historii świata rewolucjiprzemysłowej. Aby dowieść, że miasta przemysłowe są wciąż istotne dla teorii miejskiej,wracam do czasów wiktoriańskiego Manchesteru i klasycznej relacji Engelsana jego temat. Twierdzę, że Engels był pionierem tego, co określam mianem„antropologii bezosobowego”, a poczynione przez niego „odkrycie” klasy stało siękamieniem węgielnym teorii marksistowskiej. Teoretyczna innowacja Engelsa niezostała jednak wystarczająco doceniona, a dobrym tego przykładem jest zaskakującakariera ideii „miasta dualnego”. Twierdzę, że popularność tego pojęcia wynika ztego w jaki sposób umożliwia ono zlepienie „nierównomiernego rozwoju”, „klasy”oraz “miasta” w chwytliwą metaforę. Pomimo tego, że Engels pokazał sposób, w jaki te pojęcia są ze sobą splatają, to na poziomie teoretycznym zakreślił wyraźne granice między nimi. Uczynił tak, ponieważ służyły mu one nie tylko do opisu tego jak działa kapitalizm, lecz również miały stać się potencjalnymi narzędziami do przeprowadzania politycznej zmiany.

Keywords

EN

uneven development; class; Manchester; Engels; urban theory; uneven development; class; Manchester; Engels; urban theory

PL

nierównomierny rozwój; klasa; Manchester; Engels; teoria miejska

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Praktyka Teoretyczna
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 237-267

Dates

published

2013-01-01

Contributors

author

Kacper Pobłocki

• Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UAM

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/prt.2013.3.10