Research Publications

In The Surrounds: Urban Life Within and Beyond Capture, AbdouMaliq Simone poetically introduces the reader to his conceptualization of spaces that exist outside of formal control. Not only do such urban areas offer people the opportunity to generate new forms of city and political life, but they are the product of generative social interactions and improvisations. The concept of “the surrounds” serves as a marker that distinguishes how marginalized populations use space to forge modified and new urban worlds for themselves and others. This book builds on Simone’s body of work, which is interested in agency, creativity, and possibility—often in contexts of urban poverty. Simone’s writing is relentlessly experimental in its forms and focus, and this latest addition to his oeuvre is perhaps its apex.