Doing urban studies : navigating the methodological terrain

In this chapter, we turn from questions of theory, ontology, and epistemology to the question of methodology – of how urban scholars since the turn of the Millennium have gone about their research in order to produce empirically informed knowledge. The methodologies deployed by critical urban scholars are as diverse as their theoretical influences. Yet, while urban theory receives enormous attention, discussions of urban studies methodologies have largely remained under the radar – our motivation for this book. Indeed, for many of the monographs that are examined in Part II of this collection, the authors of the books in question generally spend little time explicating their method, necessitating the attempts herein to try to reverse-engineer what those methods were. Nevertheless, and to some extent paralleling theoretical shifts, there have been distinctive changes in the methodological culture of critical urban studies.