Keil, Roger 1957-

views updated

Keil, Roger 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957. Education: Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Germany, D.Phil.

ADDRESSES:

Office—109 Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies (HNES) Bldg., York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Environmental scientist, educator, activist, and writer. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from associate to professor in the faculty of environmental studies, 1992—. Also founding member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action.

WRITINGS:

Weltstadt, Stadt der Welt: Internationalisierung Und Lokale Politik in Los Angeles, Westfalisches Dampfboot (Munster, Germany), 1993.

(Editor, with David V.J. Bell, and Gerda Wekerle) Human Society and the Natural World: Perspectives on Sustainable Futures, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University (North York, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

(Editor, with Gerda R. Wekerle and David V.J. Bell) Local Places in the Age of the Global City, Black Rose Books (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1996.

(Editor, with David Bell, Leesa Fawcett, and Peter Penz) Political Ecology: Global and Local, Routledge (New York, NY), 1998.

Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization, and Social Struggles, J. Wiley (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Gene Desfor) Nature and the City: Making Environmental Policy in Toronto and Los Angeles, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 2004.

(Editor, with Neil Brenner) The Global Cities Reader, Routledge (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Changing Canada: Political Economy as Transformation, edited by L. Vosko and W. Clement, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003; State/Space: A Reader, edited by N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones, and G. MacLeod, Blackwell, 2003; Contested Metropolis, Basel, 2004; Metropolitan Governance in the 21st Century: Governing Capacity, Democracy and the Dynamics of Place, edited by Hubert Heinelt and Daniel Kübler, Routledge, 2005; Contested Urban Futures: Neoliberalisms and Their Discontents, edited by Helga Leitner, Jamie Peck and Eric Sheppard, 2006; and In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology, edited by Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw, Routledge, 2006. Contributor to periodicals, including Space and Polity, DISP, City, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, Studies in Political Economy, Urban Studies, Area, Plan Canada, Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Urban Geography, and Studies in Political Economy.

SIDELIGHTS:

Roger Keil has written extensively about urban politics with a focus on world cities, urban ecological issues, and environmental politics. Politically and professionally active in urban and environmental projects in Frankfurt, Los Angeles, and Toronto, he is a founding member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (Inura).

In his 1998 book Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization, and Social Struggles, the author examines the changing social geography of Los Angeles within the context of a historical narrative of the city's urbanization. He focuses on the role of local actors in the globalization of Los Angeles and also examines how local states, boosters, labor unions, social movements, neighborhood and community organizations, and others participate in negotiated world city formation. Among the topics he explores are "Wannabe-Utopias," immigration, political economy, the building of a world city, redevelopment, and politics and riots. The book includes, photographs, maps, and figures. "Throughout …, Keil uses icons and symbols of the past and present to dissect the processes and actions that have created contemporary Los Angeles," wrote Lois M. Takahashi in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

Keil is also the editor, with David Bell, Leesa Fawcett, and Peter Penz, of Political Ecology: Global and Local, a collection of essays garnered from a Global Political conference. The conference was held in honor of political economist Harold Innis and the essay topics focus on many concerns of Innis, such as the link between culture and nature, and the impact of humanity on the environment. Among the specific topics discussed by contributors are sustainability, risk and regulation, population growth, and planetary management. Case studies include a look at the cod fishery industry, women and development, and collective action.

The author collaborated with Gene Desfor to write Nature and the City: Making Environmental Policy in Toronto and Los Angeles. In their book, the authors examine the application of "ecological modernization" to contemporary urban political-ecological struggles and strongly criticize the belief that the power of the marketplace and experts can regulate environments to citizens' overall benefit. Focusing on two very different North American "global cities," Los Angeles and Toronto, the authors examine how continuing modernization of industrial capitalist societies typically entails some deliberate change to societal relationships with nature in cities. They also make a call for environmental political action centered on local constituencies based in working-class neighborhoods and communities of color. In addition, the authors discuss how successful environmental policies must encompass more than green capitalism or a technical mastery of a problem. A contributor to Environmental Law noted that the authors demonstrate "that political action has resulted in effective alternatives to ecological modernization." Joel Schoening, writing in Environments, noted that the authors' "ability to draw on so many theoretical positions while still maintaining methodological clarity is impressive and results in a text that makes a valuable contribution to a wide array of literatures. Additionally, their analysis … should provide both academics and activists with information that can lead to new understandings of urban policy making and to new strategies for winning the discourse contests."

Keil is the editor, with Neil Brenner, of the 2006 book titled The Global Cities Reader. The book features fifty essays contributed from a wide range of experts writing about the interrelationships between cities and globalization. With an emphasis on key theoretical, methodological, and empirical debates, the essays examine the major foundations and intellectual influences of research concerning globalized urbanization. The book is divided into seven sections that examine the political and cultural dimensions of global city formation. The sections are titled: "Global City Formation: Emergence of a Concept and Research Agenda," "Structures, Dynamics and Geographies of Global City Formation," "Local Pathways of Global City Formation: Classic and Contemporary Case Studies," "Globalization, Urbanization and Uneven Development: Perspectives on Global City Formation in/from the Global South," "Contested Cities: State Restructuring, Local Politics and Civil Society," "Representation, Identity and Culture in Global Cities: Rethinking the Local and the Global," and "Emerging Issues in Global Cities Research: Refinements, Critiques and New Frontiers."

Referring to The Global Cities Reader as a "a timely addition to the literature" in a review on the Economic Geography Research Group Web site, John Harrison went on to write that the book "displays masterful editorship by Neil Brenner and Roger Keil," adding: "Avoiding the temptation to take the easy road by producing a Global Cities ‘Greatest Hits’ volume, Brenner and Keil are much more sympathetic to the reader than many other editorial teams who are producing similar contributions across the academy." Journal of the American Planning Association contributor Peter J. Taylor wrote that the book is "im- mensely useful not only for urban studies students but also for urban professionals who wish to update their more formal understanding of the city."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, January, 2000, Jan Lin, review of Los Angeles: Globalization, Urbanization, and Social Struggles, p. 1204.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, June, 2000, George Henderson, review of Los Angeles, p. 417.

Choice, April, 2005, B.R. Shamaefsky, review of Nature and the City: Making Environmental Policy in Toronto and Los Angeles, p. 1465.

Environmental Law, winter, 1999, review of Political Ecology: Global and Local, p. 1052; fall, 2004, review of Nature and the City, p. 1291.

Environmental Politics, autumn, 2000, Piers H.G. Stephens, review of Political Ecology, p. 156.

Environments, August, 2005, Joel Schoening, review of Nature and the City, p. 117.

Geographical Review, October, 2006, Nik Heynen, review of Nature and the City, p. 723.

Geography, October, 1999, Roger Minshull, review of Los Angeles, p. 372.

Journal of Economic Literature, March, 2000, review of Political Ecology, p. 267.

Journal of the American Planning Association, summer, 2000, Lois M. Takahashi, review of Los Angeles, p. 325; winter, 2007, Peter J. Taylor, review of The Global Cities Reader, p. 131.

Political Studies, June, 2000, Brian Baxter, review of Political Ecology, p. 580.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 1999, review of Political Ecology, p. 126; November, 2004, review of Nature and the City, p. 75.

Technology and Culture, July, 2005, Richard W. Judd, review of Nature and the City, p. 659.

Urban Geography, August 16, 2006, Linda McCarthy, review of The Global Cities Reader, p. 581.

Urban Studies, June, 2006, Harriet Bulkeley, review of Nature and the City, p. 1216.