Stefan Kipfer

Title/Position: Associate Professor
Department/Faculty/Institution: Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
Degree(s)/School(s): BA (Political Science and French), MES (Urban Political Economy and Ecological Politics), PhD (Political Science) York University
Email: kipfer@yorku.ca

MCRI Projects: B5: Regional Governance and Suburbanization.

Background: Stefan Kipfer's empirical research has focused on urban-regional politics and planning in transnational and comparative context. In second-tier global cities in North America and Europe (Zurich, Toronto and Paris), he has researched the role of urban social movements and local-regional politics and planning in processes of transnational urban restructuring since the late 1960s. His research on Toronto has been particularly interested in the impasse of regional planning and the formation of a 'competitive city' planning regime characterized by neoliberalism, revanchism and cultural-differential aspects of 'diversity management' (including multiculturalism). More recently, Kipfer has been working on the privatization and redevelopment of public housing, with a focus on Toronto and Paris.

Research Interests: Theories of Society, Politics and the City; Comparative Urban-regional Politics and Planning; Urban Social Movements and Restructuring; Colonization, Racialization and Urbanization; Suburbanization, Territorial Relations and Regional Planning; Public Housing: Gentrification, Privatization and Redevelopment.

Select Publications:

Kipfer, S. & Dikeç, M. (2019). (De)Constructing housing estates: How much more than a housing question? In K.M. Güney, R. Keil & M. Üçoğlu (eds.) Massive Suburbanization: (Re)building the Global Periphery, One Large Scale Housing Project at a Time. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 142-164.

Kipfer, S. & Dikeç, M. (2019). Peripheries against peripheries? Against spatial reification. In K.M. Güney, R. Keil & M. Üçoğlu (eds.) Massive Suburbanization: (Re)building the Global Periphery, One Large Scale Housing Project at a Time. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 35-55.

Kipfer, S. (2018). Pushing the limits of urban research: Urbanization, pipelines and counter-colonial politics. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.

Keil, R., Hamel, P., Boudreau, J.A. & Kipfer, S. (eds.)(2017). Governing Cities Through Regions: Canadian and European Perspectives. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press.

Kipfer, S., Boudreau, J.A., Hamel, P. (2017). Grand Paris: the bumpy road towards metropolitan governance.  In R. Keil, P. Hamel, J.A. Boudreau & Kipfer, S. (eds.) Governing Cities Through Regions: Canadian and European Perspectives. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press.

Kipfer, S. (2016). Populism. In K. Fritsch, C. O’Connor & AK Thompson (eds.) Keywords for Radicals: A Late Capitalist Vocabulary of Culture and  Society. Chico, CA: AK Press, pp. 311-318.

Kipfer, S. (2016). Demolition and Counterrevolution: La Rénovation Urbaine in Greater Paris. Antipode 48 (3): 603-625.

Kipfer, S. & Saberi, P. (2016). Times and Spaces of Right Populism: Notes from Paris and Toronto. Socialist Register.

Ekers, M., Hart, G., Loftus, A. & Kipfer, S. (eds.)(2013) Gramsci: Nature, Space, Politics.  London: Blackwell.

Kipfer, S. (2011). Decolonization in the heart of empire: some Fanonian echoes in France today. Antipode 43 (4): 1155-1180.

Kipfer, S. (2009). Tackling Urban Apartheid: The Social Forum of Popular Neighbourhoods in Paris. International Journal for Urban and Regional Research. 33 (4): 1058-1066.

Goonewardena, K., Milgrom, R. Schmid, C. & Kipfer, S. (eds.)(2008). Space, Difference, and Everyday Life: Henri Lefebvre and Radical Politics. New York: Routledge.