ARI Working Paper Series

This paper is organized at two levels. First it discusses some epistemic concerns that have been recently articulated regarding urban studies and its theories. These relate to the use of the theories of modernity and developmentalism which scholars of urban studies have questioned. In the first part of the paper, I bring into conversation the two discussions-the first of urban studies scholars and the second of the Latin American social theorists whose critique of Eurocentrism, called the decolonial position presents, in my opinion an entry point for a way to do global social science. The second part of this paper looks at the system of petty production; in urban studies literature this was and is still referred to as the ‘informal system’.