Global Cities - Culture, Identity and Belonging

Representation, identity and
culture in global cities
Global Cities - November 23, 2009
Adrina Ambrosii, Hani El Masry, Kerry Girvan, Chiara Camponeschi

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Presentation Outline
Context: Intro

Transnational Networks & Multiculturalism &
Consuming Global Cultures
Production Belonging

Leads: Adrina & Hani Lead: Kerry Lead: Chiara

Culture ﬂows Cosmopolis Media production centers
Cultural consciousness Global identity Technology, internet
Perspectives Post-modernism Creative City
Social & spatial polarization Global culture Subcultures
Postcolonialism

Ulf Hannerz
Steven Flusty Leonie Sandercock
Stefan Krätke
Anthony D. King Ute Lehrer
Nihal Perera

DISCUSSION: Debate ?


Introduction
“Culture is one of the
two or three most
complicated words in
the English language.”
~ Raymond Williams, 1976

-materialproduction
-symbolic systems
-sociological differences


ˈkəl ch ər: the arts and other manifestations of
human intellectual achievement regarded collectively

Civilization Language
Nationalism Religion
Ethnicity Politics
Gender Literature
Beauty Theatre
Art History
Music Heritage
Identity Traditions


Who are we anyway?
“Identity choices are
made by individuals as
they respond to social,
economic and political
inﬂuences around
them” (Taiaiake and
Corntassel, 2005).
Is it possible to choose
our own identity?


Types of
Culture
pop culture
high culture
free culture
tree culture
urban culture
rural culture


Authors: clip/video to music
Leonie Sandercock
Ulf Hannerz (Swedish, Sociologist)
Anthony D. King
Stefan Krätke
Ute Lehrer
Nihal Perera
Steven Flusty (American, Geographer)


Ulf Hannerz
White male, Swedish
Professor of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Sociologist

Research:
- urban societies
- local media cultures
- transnational cultural processes
- globalization

Most known for:
- His works Soulslide and Exploring the City are classic books in the area of urban anthropology.
- In 2000, Hannerz delivered the Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture at the University of Rochester,
considered by many to be the most important annual lecture series in the field of Anthropology.

Steven Flusty

White male, American
Professor of Geography, University of Toronto
Geographer

Research:
Global formation

9


Back In Time, video

http://www.torontourbanﬁlmfestival.com/ﬁlms/back-time


Art Gallery of Metropolitan
Moments - 3 exhibits
The global city is “a fluidly demarcated global urban
field upon which we all wrestle with the very
definitions of alien and native, foreign and
domestic, cosmopolitanism and locality.”
~ Steven Flusty


Exhibit I
Vivaldi’s violin VS.
MacIsaac’s ﬁddle ~
16th century-timeless


Transnational Networks &
Production
Flows of Culture
Cultural Consciousness (internal diversity, identity)
Commodity clusters (materiality)
Globalization
Perspectives
Cultural Interactions
Cultural Convergences
Polarization (economic, social, spatial)


Flows of Culture ~ Ulf Hannerz

1) Corporate elites (managerial
and entrepreneurial class) “Market”: culture ﬂow
as buyer and seller
2) Third world migrant
populations “Form-of-life”: free
reciprocal cultural
3) Cultural producers/ exchanges

consumers

4) Tourists - turnover


“What they have in common is the fact they are in one way or other transnational;
the people involved are physica%y present in the world cities for some larger or sma%er
parts of their lives, but they also have strong ties to some other place in the
world...Without these people, in one conste%ation or other, however, these cities would
hardly have their global character” (Hannerz, p. 314).


Cultural Consciousness
~ Steven Flusty

“We carry our worlds with us, reﬁt them to the cities in which we
ﬁnd ourselves, and transmute the city as best we can to accommodate
our worlds” (Flusty, p. 351).

Icons, idols and representations

World city systems/citydom = metapolis


“Commerce bedecked itself irrevocably in
Culture, and to this day the contemporary world
city is without a soul in the absence of the art
museum and the concert hall - without the
cultural capital, the intellectual capital at the
helm of ﬁduciary capital will not come” (Flusty, p. 348)


Internal
Diversity
Inhibitions
Restraints
Social stigma
Social Pressure
Conformity
Freedom of choice?
Individual
Co%ective


Politics of difference (hybrid identities)

Subcultures


http://losangeles.cacophony.org/consume.htm

Commodity Clusters

The cultural market-place
(Hannerz, p. 316)

Presence of expressive specialists (intellectual/aesthetic stimulation)

“local potentialities of world city interrelations” (ie. where it all
happens).

3 phases in the “career of cultural commodities”:

Meanings and meaningful form in subcultural communities

Communities at large

Wider market for more agreeable consumption


Materiality
wood vs. metal
nature vs. technology

Cyborg cities


Globalization

Subcultural, transnational communities

Centre-periphery relationships (Hannerz, p. 318)

“The world cities are no doubt still frequently the
points of origin of global cultural ﬂow, but they also
function as points of global cultural
brokerage” (Hannerz, p.318)


Metapolis rising

“The metapolis, then, is not simply a world city system but system of
world city systems, and at these systems’ proliferating intersections
divergent cities manifest within one another across wide
distances” (Flusty, p. 350).


Perspectives

Reactions to diversity (Hannerz, p.315)
centre vs. periphery

Refunctionalizing (Hannerz, p.315)
tourists “typifying” everything

Inseparability of sense from place (Hannerz, p.316)

spectacle is part of local setting


"I Will Not Lose" ~ a Haitian
Identity poem by Wilkine Brutus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6p5npKLIfY&feature=player_embedded


Cultural Interactions

Cultural Convergences

Xenophobia = Fear of the “other”

Xenophilia = an affection for unknown/foreign objects or human
beings


“Foundations of resistance (for being Indigenous) include: strong families, grounding
in community, connection to land, language, storyte%ing and spirituality” (Taiaiake
and Corntassel, 2005).


Polarization

Economic

Social

Spatial


Economic Injustice

Social
Polarization
Stereotypes
Class structures
Segregation within the city
Mobility between cities


Spatial Polarization
Scalar injustices
Access


“Suburbia is where the developer bu%dozes out the trees
then names the streets a'er them.”

Scalar injustices
Access


Highlights
Hannerz:

inhabitants of urban spaces are active co-producers and participant
observers in the process of cultural production

culture is not ﬁxed within dominant societal institutions

socio-cultural formations in world-cities do not represent linear
outcomes of abstract socioeconomic forces and hierarchical power
relationships.

Flusty:

icons, idols and representations of cultural consciousness

Xenophilia, appreciation for the unfamiliar


“Which sha% it [the world city] be?
A place where diﬀerence divides,
privilege is conserved, and the
devil take the hindmost? Or a
place where the otherness engages,
disparity is dismantled, and the
production of a metapolitan
culture becomes a common,
conscious project?
We culture the world city, so the
choice is ours” (Flusty, p. 352).


Exhibit II
The Tim Horton’s
Phenomenon - on
consignment ~
1964-timeless


Multiculturalism and
Belonging

Cosmopolitanism and Global Identity

Capitalism- global identity and class struggle

Migration

Modernism and Post-modernism


Cosmopolitanism and Global
Identity
• Cosmopolitanism: vagueness of
deﬁnition

1) ideal

2) quantiﬁable; as analytic tool


Cosmopolitanism and Global
Identity

• As liberal, western values

• Identity Politics


Canada
• Global City: Toronto

• Canadian Identity as global identity

• Tim Hortons- Symbol of Canada

• Who’s Canada, who’s values?


Global Identity and Class
Struggle

Hegemony of Multiculturalism

Bourgeois Urbanism


Migration
• Migration of People

• Migration of Ideas

• Global Culture


Modernism and Post-
modernism
• Ulrich Beck

• Challenge of cultural relativism

• Belonging and Solidarity

What do you think?


Exhibit III
Hipsters, holsters,
whores and homies ~
20,000 BCE-timeless


CONSUMING GLOBAL
CULTURES


Krätke’s

Global
Media
Cities:
Major
Nodes of
Globalizing
Culture

Photo Credits:
http://bit.ly/3dTnWI


“the positions in societies characterisedindividuals competing
for
market-related self-stylization of
by the all-embracing
mediatisation of social communication, consumption patterns

and lifestyles. ”

“incorporates different sectors and functions
as agents of information, inﬂuence and
persuasion”

“Seek a ‘subcultural’ urban district they can
use as an extended stage for self-portrayal.”

“a ﬂourishing
creative and
knowledge economy
is based on place-
speciﬁc socio-
cultural milieus
which positively
combine with the
dynamics of
cluster formation
within the urban
economic

space. ”

“Islands of
renewal in
seas of
decay.”
Urban Pioneers .


Critical
Infrastructure

Hipster Olympics: youtube.com/
watch?v=kAO4EVMlpwM


http://highrise.nfb.ca


Art Gallery of Metropolitan
Moments ~ is now open for discussion...


Quotes for discussion
“Identities are (re)constructed at multiple levels - global
scale, state, community, individual. Group identity varies
with time and place” as such “Identity can only be
conﬁrmed by others who share that identity.” (Taiaiake and
Corntassel, 2005). If this is true, then what are the
implications in a multicultural, neoliberal city such
as Toronto?
“If you do not sing the songs - if you do not tell the stories
and if you do not speak the language - you will cease to
exist (as Apache)” (Taiaiake and Corntassel, 2005). Can
culture and/or identity disappear?


Discussion Questions
Given the constant change in urban multiculturalism, how
do these various components (ie. culture, identity, etc.)
inﬂuence the built environment?
Does being part of a culture that’s “less dominant” make it
less of a culture?
Are we in North America becoming isolated in our
individualistic “culture”? Is this a direct result of
capitalism?
Is it possible to be objective when it comes to culture?


The Location
of Culture
Homi Bhabha (1994), Routledge


References
Towards cosmopolis: a postmodern agenda (2002) - Leonie Sandercock

The cultural role of world cities (1996) - Ulf Hannerz

World cities: Global? Postcolonial? Postimperial? Or just the result of happenstance?
Some cultural comments (2005) - Anthony D. King

‘Global media cities:’ major nodes of globalizing culture and media industries (2005) -
Stefan Krätke

Willing the global city: Berlin’s cultural strategies of interurban competition after 1989
(2005) - Ute Lehrer

Exploring Colombo: the relevance of a knowledge of New York (1996) - Nihal Perera

Culturing the world city: an exhibition of the global present (2005) - Steven Flusty

Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel’s “Being Indigenous: Resurgences against
Contemporary Colonialism,” Government and Opposition, 40, 4 (2005), 597-614.


Global Cities - Culture, Identity and Belonging

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