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Today, urban research is increasingly confronted with processes of extended urbanization that unfold far beyond cities and agglomerations: novel patterns of urbanization are crystallizing in agricultural areas and in remote landscapes, challenging inherited conceptions of the urban as a bounded and dense settlement type (Monte-Mor 2005,2014; Brenner & Schmid 2015; Schmid & Topalovic 2023; Kaika et al. 2023). These processes are very unequal. While certain territories of extended urbanization experience strong economic growth (Arboleda, 2016; Topalovic, 2016; Katsikis, 2023; Liu, 2023), others are affected by processes of peripheralization, particularly less accessible and sparsely populated areas, mountainous and archipelagic regions, and territories with weak regional centralities (Diener et al. 2005; Couling, 2018; Markaki 2023).

In recent years, urban studies experienced a significant “peripheral turn,” characterized by a deliberate shift in focus—spatial, social, political, and analytical—from urban centers to suburbs, small towns, sprawling hinterlands, and the Global South (Ren, 2021; Gururani et al., 2021; Gururani, 2023; Holston & Caldeira, 2008; Holston, 2009; Caldeira, 2017; Robinson, 2006; Keil & Wu, 2022; Reis & Lukas, 2022; Simone, 2023, 2024). Although the theorization of center-periphery relationships has a long history, prominently discussed in the 1960s and 1970s within debates on the capitalist world system (Wallerstein, 2004) and dependency theory (Sunkel, 1999; Amin,1974; Frank, 1967), the concept of peripheralization was only selectively applied in broader contexts (Nolte, 1997; Nitz, 1997; Lang, 2012; Naumann and Fischer-Tahir, 2013). Furthermore, while the concept of the "periphery" is prevalent in urban studies, intersecting with disciplines like economics, geography, sociology, and political science, the process of peripheralization has received limited attention (Kühn & Bernt, 2013; Howe, 2022; Kockelkorn et al., 2023; Markaki and Schmid, 2023; Markaki, 2024). Nonetheless, the literature reveals a clear consensus: peripheralization is a multidimensional phenomenon unfolding across space. Despite its intertwinement with urbanization, the process of peripheralization remains underexplored, with existing studies often overlooking the intricate interplay of economic, social, and political dimensions across regional, national, and transnational scales, a gap that underscores the need for further comprehensive investigations.

The concept of peripheralization we apply here departs in several respects from previous conceptualizations. It shifts the focus from a structural analysis of center-periphery relations towards a dynamic conceptualization of urbanization. We see it as a relational concept for identifying the polarization of power, wealth, and access to economic and social resources among central and peripheral areas. This definition moves away from a static conceptualization of a periphery as a geographical location to analyzing a dynamic and contradictory economic, political, and social process.

Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space remains an important starting point for an understanding of peripheralization (Lefebvre, 1974). He claimed a pivotal role of center–periphery relationships in his understanding of urbanization. Lefebvre understood centrality as a dialectical concept: the center does not exist without the periphery (or multiple peripheries). His understanding of the importance of these dialectical relations allowed him to forge links between the processes of peripheralization in metropolitan areas and those in remote or sparsely settled territories. He defined centrality as a spatial form: it describes the simultaneity of people, objects, and events that can be brought together at a point in space and time. Centrality creates a situation in which they no longer exist separately, but interact and become productive. The center is thus a crucial resource for a society as a privileged place of encounter, assembly, and communication; it is a place for the exchange of goods, information, and affect; it is a place in which constraints and normalities dissolve.

This session brings together contributions that investigate such processes in different scales and geographies, discussing their socioeconomic and ecological implications, as well as the emancipatory potential in ex-centric territories in the exceptional times we are facing today. Finally, the issue calls for challenging and renewing extant methodologies and forms of theory building, and encourages decentered perspectives on the urban.

Non-Presenting Participants