Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Starting with the industrial era, almost three centuries ago, the process of domestication of nature through technology has been achieved. Geographers consider that terra incognita concerns only a part of submarine environment and the interstellar space. At the same time, the urbanisation process accelerated, incorporating today more than a half of the global population. The city is considered “edgeless” and had expanded chaotically in density, surface, and height becoming an independent mechanism, impossible to manage coherently, with important dysfunctions that impact irreversibly the human and environmental health. Other than technical progress, urban utopias of XIX and XX century participated in this situation. Today the eco-social perspective of reconsidering these utopias lead us toward a re-appropriation of the city through the domestication of its marginal land through nature friendly practices. In this study, we explore the clash between the concept of “urban pastoralism” materialized in “suburbia” and the phenomenon of “urban pastoralism” as a practice.