Fragments of the City: Making and Remaking Urban Worlds

Cities are becoming increasingly fragmented materially, socially, and spatially. Fragments of the City examines the fragments themselves, what they are and how they come to matter in the experience, politics, and expression of cities. How does the city appear when we look at it through its fragments? For those living on the economic margins, the city is often known as a set of fragments. Much of what low-income residents deal with on a daily basis is fragments of stuff, made and remade with and through urban density, social infrastructure, and political practice. From broken toilets to artistic output and forms, fragments are signatures of urban worlds and provocations for change. Fragments of the City considers infrastructure in Mumbai, Kampala, and Cape Town; artistic montages in Los Angeles and Dakar; refugee struggles in Berlin; and the repurposing of fragments in Hong Kong and New York. Fragments surface as material things, as forms of knowledge, as writing strategies. They are used in efforts to politicize the city and in urban writing to capture life and change in the world's major cities. Fragments of the City examines the role of fragments in how urban worlds are understood, revealed, and changed.