Reimagining Urban Marxisms: Rethinking Thinkers, Texts, and Challenges

This volume presents an interdisciplinary and international revaluation of urban Marxisms.

Bringing together the main critical Marxist perspectives from around the world on contemporary urban studies, it engages with a range of issues connected to the “urban question,” such as urban sprawl, housing, and increasing rates of urbanization across the globe. With attention to the manner in which the three axes of class, gender, and race play a fundamental role in contemporary social phenomena, it interweaves different issues that are inextricably linked in matters of urban inequality. The book bridges a significant gap between urban studies and Marxists theories by reviving Marx and Engels’ ideas in the context of analyzing urban studies in the twenty-first century. The objective is to bring together diverse perspectives and directions of the ongoing debate on the “urban question.” Although there are multiple Marxisms and theoretical currents inspired by Marxism that seek to understand the urban and spatial transformations of today, there has been a lack of comprehensive scholarship that systematically brings them together to frame this debate. The goal is to unite the main critical Marxist perspectives on contemporary urban studies.

Reimagining Urban Marxisms will therefore appeal to scholars across disciplines with interests in Marxist analyses of contemporary urban and spatial transformations, and the phenomenon of planetary urbanization.

Francesco Biagi earned his PhD in “political sciences” with a focus on “sociology, history and political culture” from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2018. Currently, he serves as a researcher in “social theory” at CIAUD, the Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism, and Design at the Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, affiliated with IN2PAST – the Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability, and Territory. His research interests encompass political and social theory, with a particular emphasis on the role of urban–rural relations in the historical transformations of capitalism. He has contributed significantly to this field through his publications, including the monographs: Henri Lefebvre: Una teoria critica dello spazio (2019) and Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Space (2020). Additionally, he has edited the Italian editions of two volumes by Lefebvre: Espace et politique: Le Droit à la ville II and La pensée marxiste et la ville.