Urban studies of the global South have paid particular attention to megacities, such as Mumbai or Johannesburg, while more peripheral urban landscapes????????????????????????????????????????????????including small and medium-sized towns as well as the margins of megacities themselves????????????????????????????????????????????????remain overlooked. Emerging from the work of the Shehr Comparative Urban Landscapes Network, an academic initiative that seeks to further a social-historical and critical understanding of contemporary cities and urban practices, this special issue of Social Text takes up the question of marginality in contemporary urban cartographies in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.

Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker, eds.