Given the rapid diversification and mutation of public space and public life across the globe, this article theorises epistemologies of publicness that move the research agenda beyond the conceptual ...straitjacket of presence, accessibility and visibility. It develops three theoretical approaches: public space as situated and lived; public space as assemblage; and public space as a liminal zone between inclusion and exclusion. Signposting more open-ended, flexible, processual, performative and ambivalent conceptions of publicness and public space, this article represents one of the first attempts to systematically map the permutations of new theoretical and conceptual developments in the research of public space.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article approaches the question of Anglo-American hegemony in urban studies by examining publication and citation patterns. The past one or two decades have witnessed critical arguments about ...how knowledge production in social sciences is characterised by centre–periphery relations, and risks universalising US–American and European knowledge and epistemology. While not much systematic analysis has been done to address the extent to which urban knowledge has been shaped by Anglo-American centrism, it is not difficult to tell that the field is dominated by the Anglophone world in terms of authorship, institutional affiliation, the cities under scrutiny, and the urban theories arising. This article undertakes systematic analysis by collecting papers published between 1990 and 2010, in journals indexed by the categories ‘Geography’ and ‘Urban Studies’ in the ISI Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database. We develop a series of analyses by examining the sites of knowledge production, contributors, key research interests, and the circulation/impact of works. We also single out research on urban China to explore questions such as the place of research on non-Anglo-American contexts in international forums. In all, this article argues that the dominant position of the Anglophone world in the production and circulation of urban knowledge is clearly discernible. But the Anglophone dominance does not necessarily mean that other research interests and orientations have not found a footing. Instead, we suggest that the growing but still small niche of urban China research presents tremendous opportunities for generating cross-context dialogues. The potential has not been fully delivered, as yet.
本文通过考察学术文章的发表和引用模式,探讨了城市研究中的英美霸权问题。过去一二十年来,一些批判性的论点指出,社会科学领域的知识生产以中心-边缘关系为特征,并且有欧美知识和认识论普适化的风险。虽然对于城市研究在多大程度上受英美中心主义的影响,尚没有许多系统的分析,但不难判断:这一领域在作者身份、机构关联、城市研究对象以及兴起的城市理论方面都受英语世界的支配。本文通过收集 1990 至 2010 年间在 ISI 社会科学引文索引 (SSCI) 数据库的“地理学”和“城市研究”期刊中发表的论文,做了系统的分析。我们通过考察知识生产的地点、贡献者、关键研究兴趣以及作品的传播/影响,展开了一系列分析。我们也将中国城市研究单列出来,以求探讨非英美语境的研究在国际学界的地位等问题。总体上,本文认为城市知识的生产和传播中可以清晰地看到英语世界的支配地位。但英语世界的支配不必然意味着其他研究兴趣和导向没有立足之地。我们指出,不断壮大但仍然只占据一小片空间的中国城市研究为跨语境对话提供了大量机会。这一潜力尚未得到充分挖掘。
Theorising small city as ordinary city Qian, Junxi; Tang, Xueqiong
Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland),
05/2019, Letnik:
56, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
A recurrent critical argument in urban studies holds that theories about relationships between cities and globalisation need to account for a broader diversity of urban experiences and contexts. ...Scholarship needs to move beyond the narrow focus on a limited number of prototypical cities exerting high degrees of command and control in the global system through networks of specific corporations and sectors, and account for the diverse, inventive ways of being urban. This article contributes to the agendas of ordinary city and comparative urbanism by applying this epistemology to analyses of the recent urban development and urban strategies in Ruili, Yunnan, a small border city at China’s south-west frontier. It argues that, although not qualified as a global or world city, Ruili is a hub of busy connections and flows, drawing opportunities from a vast territorial frame and navigating multiple layers of social, economic, cultural and institutional embeddedness. Engaging with scale thinking to operationalise theoretical ideas in the ordinary city treatise, this study pays specific attention to two scenarios in the recent urbanisation of Ruili: (1) cross-border trade and the blueprint of local industrial upgrading; and (2) the rapid expansion of the jadeite and red timber economy.
城市研究中反复出现的一个批判观点认为,关于城市与全球化之间关系的理论需要考虑更广泛多样的城市经验与背景。学术研究需要超越狭窄的聚焦,不要仅盯着那几个通过特定法人团体和行业网络在全球系统内呼风唤雨的原型城市,而是解释城市的多样创新之路。本文通过运用这种认识论分析中国西南边陲小城云南瑞丽近年来的城市发展和城市战略,为普通城市研究和比较城市研究工作作出贡献。文章认为,虽然瑞丽不算一个全球城市或世界城市,但它是繁忙的连接和流动枢纽,从广阔的地域资源中汲取机会,并在多层次的社会、经济、文化和制度积淀中穿梭自如。本研究结合规模思维,运用普通城市论题中的理论概念,特别关注瑞丽近年来城市化过程中的两种情景:(1)跨境贸易和地方产业升级的蓝图;和(2)翡翠和红木经济的迅速扩张。
This article examines cultural practices and social life in urban public spaces of postreform China, focusing on the everyday leisure, entertainment, and cultural activities spontaneously organized ...by grassroots residents or groups. It examines performativity in constituting cultural meanings, reproducing everyday identities, and building up mutual engagements, and unravels the ways in which ordinary people devote resources, labor, and energy to keep alive individual or collective identities. Performances of cultural identities in public spaces entail improvised and temporary social relations which emerge from the immediate contexts of mundane spatial practices. Empirical analyses of public performativity in Guangzhou identify three scenarios, namely, the performativity of public teaching, public shows and performances, and the performative displays of cultural difference between carnivalesque dancing and “high‐end culture” in public leisure.
Representando el Hombre Público: Cultura e Identidades en la Clase Ociosa Popular en China
Resumen
Este artículo examina las prácticas culturales y la vida social en espacios públicos de la China post‐reforma, enfocándose en el ocio cotidiano, entretenimiento y actividades culturales organizadas espontáneamente por residentes o grupos populares. Se examina las representaciones en la constitución de significados culturales, la reproducción de identidades cotidianas y la construcción de compromisos mutuos, y se muestran las formas en las que personas comunes invierten recursos, trabajo y energía para mantener vivas identidades individuales o colectivas. Las representaciones de identidades culturales en espacios públicos ligan relaciones sociales improvisadas y temporales que emergen de los contextos inmediatos de prácticas espaciales mundanas. El análisis empírico de representaciones públicas en Guangzhou identifica tres escenarios, a saber, representaciones de enseñanza en público, espectáculos y representaciones públicas, y muestras representativas de la diferencia cultural entre baile carnavalesco y “alta cultura” en el ocio público.
This article uses the conceptual constructs of ‘public’ and ‘counterpublic’ to examine the collective singing of ‘Red Songs’, a state-approved, ideology-laden popular culture, in the city of ...Guangzhou, China. It approaches these two concepts from actions, practices and shared meanings which render the public/counterpublic visible and concrete. In Guangzhou, the interplays between hegemonic ideas expressed in the red songs and ordinary singers’ agency of re-interpreting and re-reading have shaped the fluidity and complexity of the cultural meanings and political discourses in which this grassroots public dwells. Singers do not simply re-assert the post-reform party-state’s political legitimacy by expressing political allegiance via red songs, but also creatively reconstruct and re-appropriate the meanings woven into red songs to critically reflect upon the social, cultural and moral transformations, as well as new cultural and ethical zeitgeists in the post-reform context. In the meantime, red song singing is also appropriated by New Leftist activists for cultivating new counterpublic political potentials.
This article provides a multi-scaled, grounded understanding of how secularization and resacralization occur simultaneously in a context of rapid modernization. Recent geographical scholarship in the ...geography of religion have exhibited deficient reflection over the geo-historical contingencies and complexities of secularization and secularity. This article seeks to re-conceptualize secularization as a multi-scaled, grounded and self-reflective process through an empirical study of the hybrid, contradictory processes of secularization and postsecular religious revival in a ‘gospel village’ in Shenzhen, China. In this rapidly urbanizing village, Christian belief inherited from Western missionary work has gradually lost its hold amidst modernization and urbanization. However, the inflow of rural migrant workers has re-invigorated the church. Christianity has created possibilities for postsecular ethics and resistances, enabling migrant workers to materially, symbolically and emotionally settle in a new socio-economic environment. Also, new situated religiosities arise as theological interpretations are used to negotiate and even legitimize social inequalities and alienation. This article therefore argues that the postsecular turn in human geography needs to consider how the postsecular articulates, and co-evolves with, secular conditions of being in the world. It highlights the hybrid and contested nature of the secularization process, which gives rise not only to disengaged belief and immanent consciousness but also to new aspirations for, and formations of, religiosities.
Currently, the research agenda of energy transition is gaining momentum. This paper conducts a comprehensive review of this body of research by presenting a framework that describes the connotations, ...mechanisms, and effects of energy transitions. The study concludes that the energy transition will lead to the reconstruction of energy system elements beyond the energy sector, with the dual connotations of explicit transition and implicit transition. The explicit transition is usually captured by statistic data and information, for instance, energy utilization type, structure, form, transportation mode, and spatial pattern. The implicit transition involves shifts in energy security, geopolitical structure, energy power, energy justice, and energy governance, which receives relatively less attention in current literature. The energy transition is a highly socialized process, driven by many intertwined factors such as technological innovation, market mechanisms, policy arrangements, and sociocultural factors, triggering profound socio-economic and ecological effects. Looking ahead, it is urgent to pay attention to the multi-scale effects of energy transition, avoid the risks brought by energy transition, and ultimately achieve just energy transition. This paper provides a novel perspective and contributes to the literature on theoretical understanding and advancement of energy transition.
•This paper proposes an analytical framework to enrich energy transition research.•Energy transition has dual connotations of explicit transition and implicit transition.•Energy transition is a highly socialized process driven by a multitude of factors.•Energy transition brings profound socio-economic and ecological effects.
Place is an aggregate of meanings based on the emotional connection between people and a physical locality, fraught with social and cultural significances. It provides a spatial anchor for memory ...construction, value perception, and emotional experience for individuals and groups. Among the variegated factors that contribute to the construction of place, collective memory assumes a prominent role. On the one hand, local material conditions and landscapes provide clues and references to the past, essential for the construction of collective memory. Conversely, collective memory is embedded in the ongoing negotiation and production of locality and spaces, which contributes to specific ways of narrating a fluid and dynamic place identity. Taking Xinzhuang Village in Binchuan County, Yunnan Province as a case study, this article analyzes the process of place reconstruction based on local collective memory in the context of red tourism development, focusing on its specific spatial manifestations of memory and analy
This paper presents one of the first theoretical interventions that apply a perspective of everyday urbanism to the research of (internal) migrants in reform-era urban China. Theoretically, the paper ...draws on two approaches that theorise the multifaceted relationships between everyday life and capitalist urbanization. The first, informed by Lefebvre's works, stresses the alienation of everyday life and the rationalisation of urban spaces, while asserting that everyday life contains the seeds of resistance to the colonising logics of capitalism. In the second approach, everyday urban practices are analysed in terms of a transversal logic to the state regime and the formal economy, or as the provisional intersections of heterogeneous social and material conditions that generate contingent outcomes and possibilities. Based on these theoretical premises, the paper develops a reinterpretation of existing literatures on migrants in China to see how a perspective of everyday urbanism enables us to rethink this field. The paper concludes by proposing everyday urbanism as a new frontier for research, and several ways in which future works can enrich our understandings of migrant lives, spaces and communities by engaging with this perspective.
•This paper advocates an everyday urbanism perspective for studying migrants in China.•It develops this perspective by engaging with two theoretical approaches.•The first approach is informed by Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life.•The second is interested in transversality and urban life as provisional intersections.•It develops a re-interpretation of extant studies on migrants in China based on this perspective.
This paper investigates the interconnections between sense-of-place dimensions across different geographical scales. While existing knowledge on sense of place has demonstrated that place meanings ...rest at various scales, little attention has been devoted to exploring how sense-of-place dimensions at different geographical scales can be interconnected in forming a multi-scalar construction of place meanings. In this paper, we approach this under-theorization of multi-scalarity of sense of place by looking at urban migrants’ sense of place at two geographical scales – a community culture center and the city of Guangzhou, China. In so doing, we also contribute to the scholarship on Chinese urban migrant, particularly in terms of how urban migrants reestablish their psychological connections with place of destination through specific place experiences. Our research methodology combines both quantitative (structural equation modeling analysis with 104 questionnaires) and qualitative (12 in-depth interviews) approaches. Quantitative study reaches a structural model that has not been observed by existing research, while qualitative data provide strong empirical evidence in support of the statistical relations in the structural model. Major findings in this research include: 1. at the scale of culture center, place dependence contributes strongly to both place identity and place attachment, while the latter two dimensions can be seen as parallel constructs; 2. at the scale of Guangzhou, place dependence is a dimension independent of both place identity and place attachment, and on the other hand, it is place identity that has a strong impact on place attachment; 3. migrants’ place dependence on the culture center significantly influences their place identity to Guangzhou, which further contributes to the migrants’ place attachment to the city. Although the scope of this research is limited in its sampling and research location, the empirical evidence in this paper provides a basis to argue that the construction of sense of place involves the working of sense-of-place constructs at various geographical scales. Particularly, we also argue that connecting different places across geographical scales requires a delicate network that involves various sense-of-place constructs that work both within and across scales.
► This paper studies sense-of-place dimensions over different geographical scales. ► This paper looks at the sense of place of Chinese urban migrants. ► The relations between sense-of-place dimensions are unique at two scales. ► Sense-of-place dimensions are interconnected across different geographical scales.