Peripheral urbanization redux: comparing urban-regional situations of dependency in Antofagasta and the Yucatán Peninsula

Keywords: political economy, peripheral urbanization, theory of dependency, Latin America
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper approaches geohistorical processes of peripheral urbanization in Latin America from the perspective of neo-Marxist urban dependency theory. Bringing together recent debates on the renewal of dependency theory in International Political Economy with contemporary urban study debates on conjunctural inter-urban comparison, we develop a framework for the comparative analysis of what we call urban-regional situations of dependency. Looking at the regions of Antofagasta, Chile, and Yucatán, México, we disentangle the geohistorical and multi-scalar processes and mechanisms that reproduce dependence and peripheralization in these emblematic settings of Latin American extractivism. While Antofagasta is undergoing a new cycle of subordination as a global hotspot for the production of the ‘green’ energy transition, Yucatán is a global hotspot of tourism-led rentier capitalism. In both settings, we argue, the key for understanding territorial subordination and peripheralization is the agency of alliances between domestic and foreign economic groups, not yet sufficiently understood in the urban studies of extended urbanization. This work is carried out from Latin American universities, specifically from Mexico and Chile, from a transdisciplinary and collective perspective.