Critical Sociology (Sage London) invites you to an international symposium on:

Poverty, the State and Politics in the City: Critical Reflections on Asia
10:00 to 12:00 EDT | Monday, 2 October 2023 | Room 519, Fifth Floor, Kaneff Tower, York University

Rescaling Urban Poverty: Homelessness, State Restructuring and City Politics in Japan
Symposium keynote by Mahito Hayashi (Kinjo Gakuin University, Japan)

Hayashi argues that urban class relations today make the city into a breeding ground for oppressive “rescaling” politics vis-à-vis homelessness, especially where public spaces pit homeless people against the housing classes, activate anti-homeless local societies, and hasten the formation of new regulatory spaces. In this context, cities reduce the capacity to integrate the impoverished margins of society, as regulators relegate deprived people from the public/private matrix of urbanization and society is besieged by homeless–housed divides. Nonetheless, Hayashi reveals that homeless people still try to survive within the spaces of regulation by opening new metabolic circuits of use-value production in public spaces. Based on the Japanese case, he also argues that historical niches of poverty (often referred to as “inner city” areas) have amassed ideas and actions for homeless people, allowing activists to insert “pro-homeless” emancipatory politics in the normative spaces of urbanization.

Mahito Hayashi is on the faculty of Kinjo Gakuin University, Japan, and has published in many scholarly journals, including Critical Sociology and Antipode. His book, Rescaling Urban Poverty: Homelessness, State Restructuring and City Politics in Japan, will be published by Wiley in late 2023 as part of the Royal Geographical Society’s Book Series.

Invited Discussants:
Alfredo Saad-Filho, King’s College London
Ken Kawashima, University of Toronto
Greg Albo, York University
Hyun Ok Park, York University

Remarks: Philip F. Kelly, Associate Dean for Research, Graduate and Global Affairs, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change

Chaired by: David Fasenfest, Editor of Critical Sociology; Faculty Member at Wayne State University; Adjunct Professor, York University

Organized by David Fasenfest and Raju J Das (EUC).

All are welcome. Refreshments will be provided.

This Marxist Studies in Global and Asian Perspectives’ (MSGAP)* event is made possible thanks to financial support from Critical Sociology (Sage London), VPRI Research and YCAR. Support from the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC) is also gratefully acknowledged.

Learn more about MSGAP at: https://marxiststudies.blog.yorku.ca/