This issue of QU3 aims to explore research, projects, and actions in Latin America that observe and engage with the city through contemporary networks and the challenges that define them. The organizers observe these phenomena and engage in practices within a complex and open urbanism, which is the result of a constant interaction between agents and agencies, as well as processes of innovation in the distribution of urban decision-making. In these times of significant political upheaval and institutional crises across the continent, the goal is to identify, value, and safeguard urban practices, collectives, and projects that can chart new paths.
We ask whether urbanism and planning can become less institutionalized, or if self-organization movements can find ways to avoid remaining as isolated experiences. We envision an urbanism that operates through open and continuous control and collaboration. An urbanism that reinforces the leadership and processes of citizen, eco-social, feminist, human and non-human rights, and cultural melting pot innovation, among others—gains achieved by the agendas of social and activist movements over the last few decades; a process of assembling the city, through which we also aim to provoke a theoretical reflection on what an "extitutional" urbanism might look like.
