De-Westernising Urban Theory Armelle Choplin Reviewed: Edensor, Tim and Jayne, Mark (eds.). 2012. Urban Theory Beyond the West. A World of Cities, London/New York: Routledge. Myers, Garth A. 2011. African Cities: Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice, London/New York: Zed Books Ltd. Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2010. City Life from Jakarta to Dakar. Movements at the Crossroads, London/New York: Routledge. Three recent publications share a common aim: to move beyond the dichotomies of Western vs Third-World cities, developed vs developing cities, North vs South. By examining the case of African cities in particular, they provide the reader with a vision and understanding of other urban trajectories and offer valuable tools for contemplating the future of cities. While the quantity of literature and scientific meetings on the subject of Western cities continues to grow, the other cities of the world remain relatively poorly understood. While it is true that recent publications have highlighted the importance of the urban phenomenon in developing countries, they are all too often limited to major case studies such as Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai, São Paulo and Johannesburg (Verdeil 2012). Other cities are rarely taken seriously in urban studies, as geographer Jennifer Robinson highlights in her work Ordinary Cities (2006). She argues for a “postcolonisation” of urban studies through a deconstruction of the category of “Third-World city”. In her view, this category perpetuates a “neo-colonialist” and capitalist way of thinking: it implies that there are Western cities on the one hand, around which urban theory was forged, and Third- World cities on the other, the degree of development of which can be measured only in terms of the former. The authors of the three works reviewed here share Jennifer Robinson’s view and call for the “de-Westernisation” of urban theory. Geographers Tim Edensor and Mark Jayne (University of Manchester) and the contributors to their work encourage a shift of focus in this domain, as does the geographer Garth Myers (University of Kansas), who proposes an alternative urban standpoint based on a number of African cities. AbdouMaliq Simone, an urban planner and professor of sociology (Goldsmiths’ College, London), meanwhile, insists on the connections within and between Southern cities rather than their dependence on Northern cities. 1 1 Although the North–South dichotomy is contested, Simone does not shy away from it: he talks about the “Global South” and the “Global North” on a number of occasions. 1