The Making of Global Cities
Burgeoning mega-cities across the global South are striving to become global cities, attempting to join the ranks of such places as Tokyo, New York, London, and more recently Hong Kong and Singapore. The collaborative on the Making of Global Cities will bring together scholars from the global South and North to investigate the processes that have facilitated the transfer of global North models of urban transformations across cities in the global South; the social, political, and ecological consequences and limits of such models; and alternative development models, experimentations, and innovations emerging from within global South metropolises. Our goal is not only to encourage rigorous interdisciplinary research on select mega-cities in the global South, but also to develop an agenda for conducting comparative research across cities, focusing on the transnational processes that link these cities. More generally, we seek to catalyze a new way of conducting research that brings together scholars from diverse disciplines and geographical and backgrounds. In doing so, we hope to establish a new theoretical and methodological agenda that de-centers the study and analysis of global urbanism from the global North. Conveners: Michael Goldman (Sociology, CLA), Helga Leitner (Geography, CLA), Eric Sheppard (Geography, CLA), Ragui Assaad (Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs), and Joe Allen (Asian Languages and Literatures, CLA).
Past Events
Monday, September 15
"The Twenty-first-century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory" - discussion with Ananya Roy
12:00 p.m., 235 Nolte Center
Please read these papers in advance of the discussion:
"The Twenty-first-century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory" and "Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai".
"Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Frontiers of Millennial Development" - presentation by Ananya Roy
4:00 p.m., 125 Nolte Center
Friday, October 10
Making of Global Cities Lunch Discussion
Please read these papers in advance of the discussion: "Citizenship made Strange", the first chapter from James Holston's latest book on Brazilian urban life, Insurgent Citizenship, and his co-written chapter with Teresa Caldeira, "State and Urban Space in Brazil."
1:15 p.m., 140 Nolte Center
Wednesday, March 11
"'Social Municipalism' and the New Metropolis": A workshop with Janaki Nair
12:00 p.m., 235 Nolte Center
Please read this sample chapter in advance of the discussion
Wednesday, April 22
"Urban Marginality": Discussion with Teresa Gowan
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., 1229 Heller Hall
Please read the following papers in advance of the discussion, one from Loic Wacquant (UC Berkeley), in which he critiques the recent canon on the urban margins, and then a forthcoming article by Teresa in which she engages Loic through her excellent ethnographic analytics of street life.