Global cities

Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents: Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez

by Mark Haywood

Paper given at Contemp Art 12, Minar Sinan Fine Art University,, April 2012.

Published in Duyan (ed.) 'New Questions on Contemporary Arts' (DAKAR, Istanbul, 2012)

Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents:
Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez

more Three Artists, Three Cities, Three Continents:
Weng Fen, Hema Upadhyay and Bodys Isek Kingelez


Since the millennium there have been several international curatorial surveys that have used cities as comparative exemplars. These have included Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, the opening exhibition of London’s Tate Modern in 2001, Design Cities 1851-2008 at Istanbul Modern and, earlier this year, the Pompidou Centre’s Paris-Delhi-Bombay.

In February 2008 the United Nations’ Revision of World Urbanization Prospects predicted that by the end of that year, for the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population would be living in urban, rather than rural locations. Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which prepared the report, noted that, ‘Although Asia and Africa are the least urbanized areas, they account for most of the urban population of the world.’  It is frequently predicted that the archetypal city of the twenty-first century will be the non-Western (or southern hemisphere) megalopolis.

In light of these events and trends the paper compares the work of three contemporary artists from China, India and Africa, each of whom has made large installations based on burgeoning of local megacities. The artists surveyed are Weng Fen (China), Hema Upadhyay (India) and Bodys Isek Kingelez (Democratic Republic of the Congo). It is argued that despite obvious similarities of subject and format, the three artists’ works actually reflect widely differing local perspectives, concerns and futures. 

Surveillance in the World City

by David Murakami Wood

in the International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities (Edward Elgar, 2012).

Global Cities as Actors : A Rejoinder to Calder and de Freytas

by Michele Acuto

rejoinder to: Kent E. Calder and Mariko de Freytas, “Global Political Cities as Actors in Twenty-First Century International Affairs,” SAIS Review 29, no. 1 (2009): 79–97.

Putting ANTs into the mille-feuille

by Michele Acuto

In "Assemblage and Critical Urban Praxis" forum, part 3. In response to Colin McFarlane (2011) ‘Assemblage and critical urbanism’, CITY 15(2), pp. 204–224; and Neil Brenner, David J. Madden and David Wachsmuth (2011) ‘Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory’, CITY 15(2), pp.225-40.

Socio-spatial Exclusion, Community Reactions to Homelessness, India

by Malte Warburg Sørensen

This report examines the dynamics of how socio-spatial exclusion and how it plays out around homeless shelters in the... more This report examines the dynamics of how socio-spatial exclusion and how it plays out around homeless shelters in the Indian city of Hyderabad. Using the concept of NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back_Yard), the analysis reveals how exclusion is based on the construction of prejudices, how community opposition evolves, and how different stakeholders use a variety of strategies in order to make push their agenda forward. Finally, the report relates the findings from the analysis to broader societal issues in India, particularly the themes of governance and participation.

‘Incendiary Central: The Spatial Politics of the May 2010 Street Demonstrations in Bangkok’. Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Working Paper Series, WP 12-04.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

MPI-MMG Working Paper

In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and... more In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and Asia’s second largest shopping mall. It was the climactic close to the latest major chapter of the Thai political conflict, during which thousands of protestors swarmed Ratchaprasong, the commercial centre of Bangkok, in an ultimately failed attempt to oust Abhisit Vejjajiva’s regime from power. In this paper, I examine how downtown Bangkok and exclusive malls like Central-World represent physical and cultural spaces from which the marginalized working classes have been strikingly excluded. It is a configuration of space that maps onto the contours of a heavily uneven distribution of power, and articulates a vernacular of prestige, wherein which class relations are inscribed in urban space. The significance of the red-shirted movement’s occupation of Ratchaprasong lies in the subversion of this spatialisation of power and draws attention to the symbolic deployment of space in struggles for political supremacy.

'Bangkok's Two Centers: Status, Space, and Consumption in a Millennial Southeast Asian City'. City and Society (23)S1: 66-85.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

Journal Article

Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of... more Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of power and space emphasizing center and hierarchy continue to pervade status differentiation in everyday social life. This is evident in tensions in the spatial-symbolic relations between Bangkok's politico-religious “old city” in Rattanakosin and the newer downtown consumption hub which emerged around the locales of Siam and Ratchaprasong, and highlights how urban and social transformations engendered by neoliberal market forces and embodied in downtown Bangkok's modern, consumerist milieu have mapped onto and exacerbated cultural logics of hierarchy drawn from much older notions of urban power and privilege in Southeast Asia. This produced modes of inscribing socio-economic inequality into space and a striking culture of status display uniquely shaped by the intersection of modern capitalism and Bangkok's distinctive culture and history of indigenous urbanism and suggests that understandings of space, power, and consumption in today's cities may benefit from a less Western-centric and more regionally sensitive conceptual framework.

'Angst and Enlightenment in the City of Angels'

by Sophorntavy Vorng

MPI-MMG Blog Post

Ain't about Politics? The Wicked Power‐Geometry of Sydney's Greening Governance

by Michele Acuto

The globalization of Sydney and its rise to world city status tell us a profoundly political story that presents... more The globalization of Sydney and its rise to world city status tell us a profoundly political story that presents critical challenges both in terms of local development and long‐term sustainability. Green is at the centre of this imagineering, which situates environmental sustainability at the core of Sydney's competitive and innovative edge. Yet the Harbour City, while rising to worldwide fame, has also been progressively troubled by wicked challenges that question its increasingly entrepreneurial and largely unproblematized approach to urban governance. At present, the metropolis has tackled these challenges by means of ad hoc solutions and policy‐making processes that, on deeper analysis, reveal little coordination beyond an impetus for growth as the driver of collective action at the urban scale. Due to the lack of a clear metropolis‐wide authority and the multiscalar nature of urban governance, the city has turned too much towards tackling sustainability within its urban dimension as a source of global competitiveness, while social polarization questions are steadily advancing to the forefront. It is time, I argue, for a Greater Sydney Authority.

High-rise Dubai: urban entrepreneurialism and the technology of symbolic power

by Michele Acuto

Twenty-first century metropolises are often engaged in a rivalry for primacy in many different geographical scales.... more Twenty-first century metropolises are often engaged in a rivalry for primacy in many different geographical scales. Dubai, a relatively new urban settlement, is not immune from such endeavor. The Emirate has undertaken an impressive urban revolution in a rather explicit attempt to become a novel New York. This viewpoint explores the present evolution of the city, illustrating how a centralized and hyper-entrepreneurial approach has characterized Dubai’s attempt to ascend in the ‘world urban hierarchy’ and establish itself as the image of the 21st century metropolis. Contrary to much of the eulogistic take that often features in city rankings, an analysis of this venture through the city’s contemporary urban restructuring unveils the problematic social effects of Dubai’s quest for “symbolic power” – that technique of ‘worldmaking’ that confers influence by constituting the given by stating and mediating it. The compulsive sprawl of ‘icons’ and ‘vertical cities’ associated with this practice might set the Emirate on a perilous course with disastrous social consequences. In this view, the article draws upon some of the most astonishing works-in-progress of this city – and the Burj Dubai in primis – to explain the complexity of this power, and the many contradictions that can arise with it as quickly as Dubai’s skyscrapers.

Global Cities: Gorillas in Our Midst

by Michele Acuto

This article calls for greater attention to global cities in the study of world affairs so as to promote a more... more This article calls for greater attention to global cities in the study of world affairs so as to promote a more holistic reading of global governance as a multiscalar set of processes composed by overlapping spheres of authority. The article shows how international studies have been insufficiently sensitive to the strategic role of global cities and how they are capable of acting on the global stage by exerting network power. This sheds light on the multilayered governmentality of global governance from an urban perspective. Looking through a lens of global cities, it is argued, will enable theorists to connect macro processes to micro dynamics across a far wider spectrum of governance and political agencies.

Finding the Global City An Analytical Journey through the ‘Invisible College’

by Michele Acuto

Saskia Sassen’s concept of the ‘global city’ has evolved in a complex relation with other urban, economic and social... more Saskia Sassen’s concept of the ‘global city’ has evolved in a complex relation with other urban, economic and social students that deal with these strategic sites of the contemporary global urban architecture. This multidisciplinary set of authors could be metaphorically grouped within what John Friedmann described as the ‘invisible college’ of world city researchers. In light of this tradition, the global city is described here in its various theoretical guises, in a chronological account from the early 1900s roots to present-day formulations, in order to establish an eclectic understanding that can speak beyond the college, opening the dialogue on globalisation and cities beyond urban studies. In this sense, the essay describes the ‘global city’ as the status of connectedness to the global attained by some world cities, which rests upon an urban entrepreneurial spirit that situates these metropolises as the strategic hinges of globalisation.

Cities and Globalization

by Georgios Alexandrou

This is a research on the Global Cities theory.
It was accomplished with the valuable help of prof. Vasiki Petridou at the Architectural Faculty of the University of Patras.
(Text in Greek language)

The effect of globalization in the modern cities is decisive. The
configuration of new economic conditions, the... more The effect of globalization in the modern cities is decisive. The
configuration of new economic conditions, the import of new
technologies and the abandonment of older models of urban growth reshape the space of the city. The city is disconnected by the industrial production with the mass consuming models and turns itself in the flexible production and the fragmented consumption. Through this change new economic and social oppositions are given birth. At the same time the city extends, occupying vast areas and incorporating half of the world population. The urban landscape becomes complex and is altered dynamically. Architecture and urban planning are the tools that are used for the territorial expression of these dynamics.

The modern sociology of city uses the term “Global City” in order to describe the size, the role and the dynamics of modern big cities. The cities shape new geographic structures through a world urban net. In the global cities new territorial structures are presented that did not exist in the past. The economic capital takes the place of State as critical perpetrator that shapes the urban landscape, while the residents lose the control and are alienated by the environment of city. The architecture produces spectacular buildings that attract tourists and investors the same moment that the ghettos of the poor and immigrants are multiplied. The modern city presents new oppositions and problems that the architects, as co-formers of the urban landscape, should process and face.

Global Citizenship in 2040: Six Scenarios

by Vahid V. Motlagh

1- Placeless Brains Triumph, 2-Planetary Second Life, 3-Multicultural City Islands, 4-Cherished Mental Model, 5-Lagging Global Education, 6-Tribal Towers Tremble

After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments,... more After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments, participants in the workshop titled Global Placeless Brains at the conference Reconciling Babel – Education for cosmopolitanism were directed in a brief method based scenario planning exercise that was designed and run by the author.They were encouraged to do some “disciplined imagination” about the alternative futures of the global citizenship in 2040. One week after the workshop was concluded their written inputs were analyzed and subsequently six scenarios were developed and named. For more detail about how the tacit knowledge of the participants was tapped and thus documented as explicit knowledge see the Method section below

Globalização e gentrificação: teoria e empiria

by Walter Rodrigues

published in SOCIOLOGIA, problemas e práticas, nº29, 1999

Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. 43 (2), 525-562.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article... more In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.

Issue 5.1 Postcolonial Cities: Africa, Table of Contents

by Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings

Cities of the Future? Megacities and the Space/Time of Urban Modernity

by Austin Zeiderman

Critical Planning 15:23-39 (2008)

Transnational Nation-Building: Beijing's 798 Art Zone

by Christen Cornell

Chapter in "China and the West: Encounters with the Other in Culture, Arts, Politics and Everyday Life, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming early 2012

This essay is a study of Beijing’s most celebrated contemporary art district, 798 Art Zone (798), specifically its... more This essay is a study of Beijing’s most celebrated contemporary art district, 798 Art Zone (798), specifically its production as a national cultural space in a global context. Its primary interest is in the relationship between the national and the transnational in 798, or the Chinese and the “cosmopolitan”, and the ways these work together to contribute to the post-socialist Chinese nation-building project. 798 began as a community of primarily Chinese artists and a transnational arts industry, supported with transnational capital, and, until 2006, was viewed with suspicion by the national government and its subsidiary groups. The area is today, however, a national showpiece for China’s “open and progressive society,” administered by the local government as an official Cultural Creative Industries Precinct  and promoted as a symbol of “new Chinese culture” . Still comprised largely of transnational arts workers, and (more than ever) flush with global capital, the district now plays an important role in the rhetoric of China’s harmonious society while providing a cosmopolitan face for Beijing. By outlining some of the forces that shaped this process, this essay argues that in 798 the transnational is essentially reinforcing the national – a newly perceived national culture forged in the context of globalisation.

City. I: Ancient Near East

by Ömür Harmansah

Harmansah, Ömür; in press. "City. I: Ancient Near East" in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Edited by Hermann Spieckermann et al. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York.