Professor Parastou Saberi
The Urban Studies Program would like to welcome Professor Parastou Saberi, instructor for URB432: Racialization and Urban Unrest. Keep reading to learn more about the Urban Studies Program's newest professor! 

Q: Tell us about yourself.  

A: I came to Canada as an international student from Iran 17 years ago. I have an interdisciplinary academic background; I am a trained architect, holding Bachelor and Master’s degrees in architecture from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. I also hold a Master’s degree in Sociology from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Canada. Since 2006, I have been living in Toronto. I got my Ph.D. in Urban and Political Geography from York University in 2017. Following this, I left to Europe to hold multiple postdoctoral positions in Belgium and the United Kingdom from 2017 to 2021.  

My approach to teaching topics in urban study, particularly as it relates to this course, is informed by my multidisciplinary background and ongoing work on the relationships among racialization, state intervention, and securitization at the urban and international levels. I am interested in how state strategies of intervention in the racialized geographies of poverty at the urban and international scales have historically been deeply connected and formed in relation to each other. In other words, I am invested in thinking through the relational formation of urban policy and international relations. For example, I have looked at the relational formation of urbanism and colonial pacification (what today we call counterinsurgency) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in French colonies in North Africa. I have also done extensive research on urban policy and policing in Toronto, as well as on the convergence of urban policy and radicalization prevention strategies in “immigrant neighbourhoods” in London (the UK) and Brussels (Belgium).   

My book, Fearing the Immigrant: Racialization and Urban Policy in Toronto (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) is the culmination of my doctoral and postdoctoral research. The book is currently in the process of publication and is scheduled to be out in August 2022. The book provides the first comprehensive analysis of place-based urban policy making in Toronto by situating it in a comparative context, one that encompasses global development and security circles such as the World Bank, the WHO, and Western counterinsurgency, along with Canada’s (settler-)colonial and imperial geographical imaginaries of danger as well as American, British, and French urban policy histories. In doing so, I look at the production and territorial stigmatization of “immigrant neighbourhoods” (areas of deprivation, populated by majority residents of colour) as so-called dangerous spaces, while I critically engage with urban policies of social development, housing redevelopment, and policing and how they, in practice, facilitate racialization and the territorial stigmatization of “immigrant neighbourhoods.” In the process, I also engage with how different stakeholders including academics, non-governmental organizations, and governmental bodies produce knowledge about these neighbourhoods as so-called dangerous spaces and areas of problems. 

Q: How do your research interests in racialization and urban uneven development influence your teaching of URB432H1: Racialization and Urban Unrest? 

A: Directly related to my research, this course explores the histories, geographies, and the imaginaries of what is commonly and problematically referred to as “race riots” in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. In particular, we will look into how place-based urban policy, as we know it today, was born out of the attempts of the states to pacify the threat and demands of the urban rebellions of the racialized excluded since the 1960s in these three major geographies of urban policymaking. We then continue our discussion on how this history is related to the Black Lives Matter movements of the more recent years. One of the major components of this course is to help students unpack and critically engage with place-based policy concepts. This is important because, ultimately, how we conceive certain concepts (such as poverty, danger, development, security, etc.) actively impacts how we define urban problems, and in turn, how we address these problems by means of policies. Specifically, understanding how policies travel from global to local circles, and from international to urban scales help us have a more concrete and critical understanding of their claims to objectivity and science. In my view, this is important not only for questioning the legitimacy of some of the current dominant urban policies, but also for envisioning urban policy as a tool of social justice and citizenship.  
Q. What do you hope students will gain from taking this course? 

A: First, I hope students will be able to recognize the importance of engaging with policy concepts and not taking them for granted. In emphasizing the histories and historical contexts of urban policy making, my hope is that students will see the richness and significance of thinking historically about various forms of urban policy, and how they have formed and implemented in different geographies. In other words, I hope students can walk away from the course with more grounded knowledge and skills that would allow them to critically engage with urban policy (which is different from condemning urban policy) and ultimately, to reclaim urban policy as a tool of social and racial justice in our deeply divided and polarized society.   

Second, I hope the course will help students begin to recognize the relationship between urban policy and policing. Oftentimes, we view these two as independent and separate processes with policing being understood as the oppressive and violent form of state intervention and urban policy being understood as the productive and good form of state intervention. By looking at the historical evolutions of both policing and urban policy, I hope students will learn about how policing and urban policy have developed in a complementary relation to each other, rather than being opposite to each other. In fact, the state has historically used urban policy as a form of disciplining and policing racialized communities that are perceived and targeted as “problem populations.” I also hope this course will allow students to see how urban policy—in addressing issues related to marginalization and racialized exclusions— has played an active role in the process of reproducing racialization, marginalization, and territorial stigmatization.  

As mentioned earlier, one major message of this course is that, despite its contradictions and limits, we can reclaim urban policy as a tool of social justice. In order to do this, we need to learn about the histories of the formation and implementation of urban policy and policing in different geographies. By doing this, we get closer to creating a just city; one that is liveable not for the few, but equally for everyone.  

Q. What is one fun fact about you? 

A: I am a very proud cat mom! My cat’s name is Misha, and she made many appearances in my virtual classes last year. I also got the chance to meet many of my students’ cats and dogs—which is one thing I will miss about online classes.