- University of Western Sydney
Paul James
Western Sydney University, Institute for Culture and Society, Faculty Member
- Globalization, Papua New Guinea, Global cities, Cultural Sociology, Social Anthropology, Anthropology, and 20 moreUrban and community planning, Cultural Studies, Nationalism, Social Theory, Critical Theory, Cultural change, Sustainable Urban Environments, Cultural Globalization, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Theory, Political Theory, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Sciences, Ontology, Marxism, Cosmopolitanism, Environmental Sustainability, and Sustainable Developmentedit
- Paul James is Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Institute for Culture and Society at the Unive... morePaul James is Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Western Sydney. He has delivered invited addresses in over forty countries and is author or editor of more than thirty books including most importantly, Globalization Matters (Cambridge University Press, 2019 with Manfred Steger), Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism (Sage, 2006) Nation Formation (Sage, 1996). His other books include a sixteen-volume set mapping the field of globalization (Sage, 2006–2014). He has been an advisor to a number of agencies and governments including the Helsinki Process, the Canadian Prime Minister’s G20 Forum, and the Commission on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor. His work for the Papua New Guinea Minister for Community Development became the basis for their Integrated Community Development Policy.edit
The upcoming referendum to alter the Australian Constitution to introduce a First Nations Voice to Parliament is an important moment in the history of our country. While there is widespread agreement about some of the issues raised by it,... more
The upcoming referendum to alter the Australian
Constitution to introduce a First Nations Voice to
Parliament is an important moment in the history of
our country. While there is widespread agreement about
some of the issues raised by it, there is disagreement and
uncertainty about many others. This book is intended
as a fair and trustworthy resource summarising the key
arguments in order to help voters make up their minds.
The areas of agreement include the fact that First
Nations People have been subjected to major injustices
since the advent of European colonisation, including the
confiscation of land, removal of children, destruction
of culture and denial of basic democratic rights. As a
result, Indigenous people continue to experience major
disparities in health and economic and educational
opportunities. Most people in Australia—Indigenous and
non-Indigenous—agree that action needs to be taken to
right these wrongs. There is also wide consensus from all
sides of the political spectrum that this should involve
some form of constitutional recognition.
Constitution to introduce a First Nations Voice to
Parliament is an important moment in the history of
our country. While there is widespread agreement about
some of the issues raised by it, there is disagreement and
uncertainty about many others. This book is intended
as a fair and trustworthy resource summarising the key
arguments in order to help voters make up their minds.
The areas of agreement include the fact that First
Nations People have been subjected to major injustices
since the advent of European colonisation, including the
confiscation of land, removal of children, destruction
of culture and denial of basic democratic rights. As a
result, Indigenous people continue to experience major
disparities in health and economic and educational
opportunities. Most people in Australia—Indigenous and
non-Indigenous—agree that action needs to be taken to
right these wrongs. There is also wide consensus from all
sides of the political spectrum that this should involve
some form of constitutional recognition.
Research Interests:
The ferocity and extent of the fires that ravaged the Australian continent in late 2019 and early 2020 have been recognised as involving a qualitative ecological shift. The nature of observed and documented phenomena within these fires... more
The ferocity and extent of the fires that ravaged the Australian continent
in late 2019 and early 2020 have been recognised as involving a qualitative ecological shift. The nature of observed and documented phenomena within these fires and sheer size of areas incinerated have required a recalibration of global pyrological scales. They represent the culmination of a larger process that had been developing slowly over a long period of time. While the fires themselves were experienced by many as unexpected and overwhelming, elements of the larger ecological crisis were already very apparent to many people, including experts and ordinary citizens. Protracted and intense global debate had largely established the basic facts. Global changes in temperature, rainfall, sea levels and wind patterns are gradually making themselves felt, leading to intensifying weather events, droughts, floods and fires.
Well before the Australian summer of 2019–2020, a growing sense
of alarm had been taking hold among diverse communities across the world. Extended discussions had taken place about the possibility of disasters to come, the responsibility of the present inhabitants of the
earth to future generations, and the prospects for sustainable approaches to power-generation, agriculture, resource-use and waste-disposal. The fires demonstrated that the crisis could come upon us suddenly and with such force that the basic premises of our economy and culture would be completely thrown into question. This was compounded by the second strike of the COVID–19 pandemic, linked to closely related processes of global environmental destruction and climate change, which would in a matter of months transform not just Australia but the entire world order. This book brings together writers responding to this catastrophe. The word ‘catastrophe’ used in the title of this anthology is chosen precisely in order to signify an ‘event subverting (the) system of things’.
in late 2019 and early 2020 have been recognised as involving a qualitative ecological shift. The nature of observed and documented phenomena within these fires and sheer size of areas incinerated have required a recalibration of global pyrological scales. They represent the culmination of a larger process that had been developing slowly over a long period of time. While the fires themselves were experienced by many as unexpected and overwhelming, elements of the larger ecological crisis were already very apparent to many people, including experts and ordinary citizens. Protracted and intense global debate had largely established the basic facts. Global changes in temperature, rainfall, sea levels and wind patterns are gradually making themselves felt, leading to intensifying weather events, droughts, floods and fires.
Well before the Australian summer of 2019–2020, a growing sense
of alarm had been taking hold among diverse communities across the world. Extended discussions had taken place about the possibility of disasters to come, the responsibility of the present inhabitants of the
earth to future generations, and the prospects for sustainable approaches to power-generation, agriculture, resource-use and waste-disposal. The fires demonstrated that the crisis could come upon us suddenly and with such force that the basic premises of our economy and culture would be completely thrown into question. This was compounded by the second strike of the COVID–19 pandemic, linked to closely related processes of global environmental destruction and climate change, which would in a matter of months transform not just Australia but the entire world order. This book brings together writers responding to this catastrophe. The word ‘catastrophe’ used in the title of this anthology is chosen precisely in order to signify an ‘event subverting (the) system of things’.
Research Interests:
At the turn of the twenty-first century, globalization - both the process and the idea - bestrode the world like a colossus. Widely acclaimed by political and economic pundits as the most important phenomenon of our time, it took the... more
At the turn of the twenty-first century, globalization - both the process and the idea - bestrode the world like a colossus. Widely acclaimed by political and economic pundits as the most important phenomenon of our time, it took the world by storm. Two decades later, it has come under sustained attack from the reinvigorated forces of the extreme Right and radical Left. Does globalization still matter in our unsettled world? Responding in the affirmative, this study develops and applies a new framework of an engaged theory of globalization to analyse some of today's most pressing global challenges: the rise of national populism; ecological degradation; rapid urbanization; new sources of insecurity ; and the changing landscape of higher education. Offering a comprehensive appraisal of globalization in our unsettled times, this study addresses why and how transplanetary interrelations continue to matter in a world that is wavering between globalist expansion and nationalist retrenchment.
Research Interests:
The recent wave of revolutions across the Arab world has brought to the surface the contradictions in popular understandings of the Middle East and North Africa. The place of the region in the global history of modernity has been... more
The recent wave of revolutions across the Arab world has brought to the surface the contradictions in popular understandings of the Middle East and North Africa. The place of the region in the global history of modernity has been unsettled yet again. It is possible to identify several major trends in responses to the momentous events, coinciding with various stages in the unfolding of the revolutions. Firstly, many commentators embraced the early stages of the uprisings, precisely because they were seen to fulfil a long-overdue historical destiny of democratic flourishing — the expression of a modern teleology for some, or a postmodern emancipation for others. Alternatively, the ‘modernity’ of the recent uprisings was understood in the very shallow, popular sense of ‘contemporaneity’. A third reaction to the Arab revolutions and the civil strife brought in their wake has been a return to viewing the region as a mosaic of different religious communities, all mutually hostile and suspicious of one another. Yazidis, Alawis and Coptic Christians are suddenly capturing the imagination of Western readers. We read of ancient tribal hatreds and complex animosities incapable of resolution, this sectarian condition being understood as a
permanent impediment to social peace and material progress.
This book continues the slow work begun by critical scholars to re-imagine the region in its full complexity. It challenges the counterproductive excesses of Western engagement, the self-interested Machiavellianism of international politics, and the xenophobic prejudices of much mainstream culture. In the current political climate, where images of destruction and mayhem prevail, the task of critical engagement in the Middle East and North Africa is evermore crucial.
permanent impediment to social peace and material progress.
This book continues the slow work begun by critical scholars to re-imagine the region in its full complexity. It challenges the counterproductive excesses of Western engagement, the self-interested Machiavellianism of international politics, and the xenophobic prejudices of much mainstream culture. In the current political climate, where images of destruction and mayhem prevail, the task of critical engagement in the Middle East and North Africa is evermore crucial.
Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, Ontology, Arabic Literature, and 12 morePolitical Theory, Middle East Studies, Africa, Islamic Studies, Contemporary Social Theory, Social Ontology, Middle East Politics, Islam and Modernity, North Africa, Tradition and Modernity, Histories and theories of modernity, and Modernity/coloniality/decoloniality
Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice responds to the crises of sustainability in the world today by going back to basics. It makes four major contributions to thinking about and acting upon cities. It provides a means of... more
Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice responds to the crises of sustainability in the world today by going back to basics. It makes four major contributions to thinking about and acting upon cities. It provides a means of reflexivity learning about urban sustainability in the process of working practically for positive social development and projected change. It challenges the usually taken-for-granted nature of sustainability practices while providing tools for modifying those practices. It emphasizes the necessity of a holistic and integrated understanding of urban life. Finally it rewrites existing dominant understandings of the social whole such as the triple-bottom line approach that reduces environmental questions to externalities and social questions to background issues. The book is a much-needed practical and conceptual guide for rethinking urban engagement.
Research Interests: Social Theory, Ontology, Social Sciences, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Sustainable Transportation, and 20 moreResearch Methodology, Ethics & Social Sustainability, Community Development, Sustainability Indicators, Sustainable Development, Urban Planning, Critical Social Theory, Sustainable Urban Environments, Urban Studies, Sustainability (Organisational Strategy), Social Ontology, Social History, Urban Sociology, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Design, Social sustainability, Cities, Sustainable Cities, Education for Sustainable Development, and Social Aspects of Sustainability
In one sense, fifty years is not a long time in the course of human history, and much continuity persists. However, we have dramatically altered the way we interact with each other, and live on the planet. In 1963, the year the first... more
In one sense, fifty years is not a long time in the course of human history, and much continuity persists. However, we have dramatically altered the way we interact with each other, and live on the planet. In 1963, the year the first journal was printed, the world was in the middle of the Cold War. Capitalism appeared to be striding into a period of stable accumulation, the welfare state was relatively strong, and the Internet did not exist. Over the next fifty years, we turned the world inside out and upside down. A ‘peace’ doctrine called Mutually Assured Destruction shadowed life on Planet Earth with the threat of nuclear exterminism, and the nature of war shifted from ‘industrial’ conflict between nation-states to localized transnational violence, terrorism and counterterrorism. New social movements emerged (and dissipated), and working-class movements and union organizations lost their central place in the structures of political power. The fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the collapse of the communist movement, and the Soviet Union fell apart. Cross-cutting currents of Indigenous-settler relations swept across the Global South and North, and land rights were too often displaced by renewed policies of assimilation. Globalization intensified massively and techno-capitalism shuddered through a series of financial crises. And, underpinning all those changes, we came to the point in human history when we realized that we had the capacity to destroy or change the nature of life on Earth. In that context, the editors of Arena want to do more than just look back over fifty years of the journal’s history. This volume seeks to rethink that history.
Research Interests:
“Globalization’ is an extraordinary concept. It is a complicated concept that burst upon the world relatively recently, but soon became a household concern. It is a concept that was rarely used until the 1990s, but processes of... more
“Globalization’ is an extraordinary concept. It is a complicated concept that burst upon the world relatively recently, but soon became a household concern. It is a concept that was rarely used until the 1990s, but processes of globalization had been happening for centuries. This book follows the genealogy of the concept from its unlikely beginnings in the 1930s–1950s to the heated scholarly debates across the end of the twentieth century to the present. Drawing on textual research and interviews with key originating figures in the field of global studies, the book attempts to get past the usual anecdotes about the formation and etymology of the concept that center on alleged inventors of the term or references to first use.
Research Interests:
Despite the long history of globalizing political relations, world politics can still not be described as a comfortably integrated system. There is, for example, little possibility—even on the far horizon—of the emergence of a single... more
Despite the long history of globalizing political relations, world politics can still not be described as a comfortably integrated system. There is, for example, little possibility—even on the far horizon—of the emergence of a single global government. Neither can it be simply said that there is a single co-ordinated system of global governance. Even the United Nations, for all its globalizing reach, does not constitute the overriding locus of global governance. The closest we have come to an integrated system in the political-cultural domain is the global system of nation-states organized around the now-global principle of state sovereignty. However, in narrow political terms, each nation-state continues to treats its own political and legal foundations as self-generated and self-constituting. The faltering political (including legal) co-ordination between the world’s nation-states continues to mean that it is possible to negotiate many different political (and economic) outcomes by moving either between different nation-states or between different levels of jurisdiction—national, regional and global. This is, for example, the modus operandi of globalizing corporations as they optimize their situations by constant legal adjustment and movement of capital. How then is the global governance system best described?
Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, Political Philosophy, Globalization, and 10 morePolitical Theory, International Law, Global Governance, Political Science, Governance, International Human Rights Law, United Nations, Contemporary Social Theory, Global History, and Cultural Globalization
The contestation over existing and projected forms of globalization across the turn of the millennium was crucial to bringing together a loosely aligned set of globalizing social movements both as a global movement-of-movements, and a... more
The contestation over existing and projected forms of globalization across the turn of the millennium was crucial to bringing together a loosely aligned set of globalizing social movements both as a global movement-of-movements, and a movement-for-itself. Although it was once reductively named as ‘the anti-globalization movement’, the movement included individuals with many different standpoints ranging from those who were singularly anti-globalization to others who argued for ‘another kind’ of globalization. This book explores those movements.
Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Social Theory, Social Networks, and 11 moreGlobalization, Political Theory, Global Civil Society, Community Development, Global Governance, Global media, Critical Social Theory, Politics, Globalisation and Development, Contemporary Social Theory, and Cultural Globalization
There are many different approaches to the study of globalization. This simple point testifies at once to the vitality of the field of global studies, but also to the contested and diverse nature of contemporary social theory. Alongside... more
There are many different approaches to the study of globalization. This simple point testifies at once to the vitality of the field of global studies, but also to the contested and diverse nature of contemporary social theory. Alongside this diversity of theory in general, the range of approaches to the global is difficult to categorize into straightforward theoretical lineages. This is in part precisely because the intellectual climate in which most of the studies of globalization emerged was one of fundamental fracturing across many different fields. Studies of globalization and, more generally, studies in the broad and loosely defined field of global studies, became conscious of themselves as such during the 1990s at a time when the direct-line lineages of classic social theory were being broken or at least segmented.
As we will argue, this had profoundly contradictory implications for the narrative of globalism, the newest and grandest of all the grand narratives. Paradoxically, globalism was the one generalizing narrative that seemed to escape this critique, at least in the mainstream. This was partly because the dominant ideological expression of globalism at the time—neoliberalism, which was yet to be named as such—was also beginning to take questions such as movement across borders and the dissolution of national sovereignty as both self-evidently good things. Concurrently, many critics of emergent neoliberalism came to the same political conclusions on these matters, albeit with quite different normative content. That is, while methodologically everything conspired against an integrated theory of globalization, normatively there was a shift in the dominant common sense of the age, such that both right-oriented economists and some left-oriented theorists and activists began to advocate a ‘borderless world’.
As we will argue, this had profoundly contradictory implications for the narrative of globalism, the newest and grandest of all the grand narratives. Paradoxically, globalism was the one generalizing narrative that seemed to escape this critique, at least in the mainstream. This was partly because the dominant ideological expression of globalism at the time—neoliberalism, which was yet to be named as such—was also beginning to take questions such as movement across borders and the dissolution of national sovereignty as both self-evidently good things. Concurrently, many critics of emergent neoliberalism came to the same political conclusions on these matters, albeit with quite different normative content. That is, while methodologically everything conspired against an integrated theory of globalization, normatively there was a shift in the dominant common sense of the age, such that both right-oriented economists and some left-oriented theorists and activists began to advocate a ‘borderless world’.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, Comparative Politics, and 11 moreGlobalization, Political Theory, Global Governance, Political Science, Critical Social Theory, Politics, Global Justice, Globalisation and Development, International Politics, Global History, and Cultural Globalization
The question of where an ethical position can legitimately ground its principles became a basic question of contemporary ethics, as did the issue of where does an ethics derive its authority and how universalizing should and can its reach... more
The question of where an ethical position can legitimately ground its principles became a basic question of contemporary ethics, as did the issue of where does an ethics derive its authority and how universalizing should and can its reach be. The intensification of globalizing processes across the course of the twentieth century redoubled the urgency of working this through. Whether it was the debates in Parliament of the World’s Religions over a possible Western bias or the postmodern move to destabilize all foundations of ethical certainty, older lineages of philosophy and ethics were drawn into debates over the meaning of a global ethics.
The first part of this essay outlines important lineages and debates in global ethics. The second part of this essay, explores the philosophical and social foundations of a sense of global connectedness, beginning with Plato’s allegory of the cave and moving across some basic positions from Emmanuel Kant to Martin Heidegger. The third section, ‘Towards an Ethics of Global Relations’, begins with a discussion of a philosopher writing in the 1970s who is still working out of a national framework, John Rawls. Because his work becomes so significant for a series of abstracted cosmopolitans who later take on a global remit, there can be no better starting point for illustrating the movement from the dominance of a national imaginary to a global imaginary. This is takes us to a discussion of the communitarian critique of cosmopolitanism by such writers as Michael Walzer and to attempts by other writers such as Charles Beitz to retrieve its strengths. The fourth section, ‘Debating Cosmopolitanisms’ sets out an argument for an alternative form of cosmopolitanism—grounded cosmopolitanism.
The first part of this essay outlines important lineages and debates in global ethics. The second part of this essay, explores the philosophical and social foundations of a sense of global connectedness, beginning with Plato’s allegory of the cave and moving across some basic positions from Emmanuel Kant to Martin Heidegger. The third section, ‘Towards an Ethics of Global Relations’, begins with a discussion of a philosopher writing in the 1970s who is still working out of a national framework, John Rawls. Because his work becomes so significant for a series of abstracted cosmopolitans who later take on a global remit, there can be no better starting point for illustrating the movement from the dominance of a national imaginary to a global imaginary. This is takes us to a discussion of the communitarian critique of cosmopolitanism by such writers as Michael Walzer and to attempts by other writers such as Charles Beitz to retrieve its strengths. The fourth section, ‘Debating Cosmopolitanisms’ sets out an argument for an alternative form of cosmopolitanism—grounded cosmopolitanism.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Political Sociology, Anthropology, Ontology, and 21 moreSocial Policy, Informal Learning, Community Engagement & Participation, Community Development, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Monitoring And Evaluation, Sustainable Development, HIV/AIDS, Microfinance, Social Ontology, Public Health, Modernism, Environmental Sustainability, Papua New Guinea, Social Impact Assessment, Learning, Microcredit, Community participation and engagement, Neo-tribalism, Tribalism, and Papua New Guinea Politics
Settler colonialism as a practice is a subset of colonial history, one where the colonial relationship converts into a very specific cultural practice. It is where the ‘settler culture’ seeks a permanent place in the colonial setting and,... more
Settler colonialism as a practice is a subset of colonial history, one where the colonial relationship converts into a very specific cultural practice. It is where the ‘settler culture’ seeks a permanent place in the colonial setting and, as such, enters an unrelenting cultural logic of misrecognition and blindness towards the cultural other, issuing in acts of objective cruelty and cultural destruction. Because this relationship is based in cultures, which are prior to the individual (while simultaneously forming the individual), it is a relationship that is especially difficult to put aside. Empirically speaking, there are many such examples in history, many arising in the period of Western Empire associated with modernity and expansionism in the New World. Settler colonialism as a field illuminates the history of these myriad examples while bridging into accounts of contem -porary expressions of the settler phenomenon, from the continued cultural suppression arising out of nineteenth-century Empire (in Africa, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, for example) to twentieth-century expressions in Palestine.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This book examines the relationship between globalization and religion from a variety of perspectives. After establishing working definitions for both core concepts, it considers certain conceptual homologies between globalization and... more
This book examines the relationship between globalization and religion from a variety of perspectives. After establishing working definitions for both core concepts, it considers certain conceptual homologies between globalization and religion, but also several points of divergence. The universalist and universalizing dimensions of both notions are compared alongside some reflections on the differences between religion and ideology—two terms often used interchangeably. The central theme is globalization and religion in the contemporary era, beginning with the historical role of religion in the emergence of the global system of empires, markets, and eventually nation-states, examining how world political powers have at times articulated their claims within and through religious frameworks. As we enter the most immediate period of globalization following World War II, we consider religious responses to various dimensions of globalization as expressed through new social movements and new theologies. We also consider the views of those who have argued that contemporary globalization, representing as it does a relative decline in the importance of the nation-state as an actor on the world stage, paves the way for non-state forces—such as cultures and religions—to dominate global affairs.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Religion, Christianity, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and 12 moreSociology of Religion, Ontology, Globalization, History of Religion, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ideology, Social Ontology, Islam, Critical and Cultural Theory, Cultural Globalization, Universalism, and Particularism v.s Universalism
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Sociology of Culture, and 9 moreWorld Literatures, Globalization, Identity (Culture), Global Studies, Consumption Studies, Culture, Consumption and Material Culture, History of Commodities in a Global Perspective, and Cultural Globalization
Research Interests:
"Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence: Beyond savage globalization? is a collection of essays by scholars intent on rethinking the mainstream security paradigms. Overall, this collection is intended to provide a broad and systematic... more
"Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence: Beyond savage globalization? is a collection of essays by scholars intent on rethinking the mainstream security paradigms.
Overall, this collection is intended to provide a broad and systematic analysis of the long-term sources of political, military and cultural insecurity from the local to the global. The book provides a stronger basis for under-standing the causes of conflict and violence in the world today, one that adds adifferent dimension to the dominant focus on finding proximate causes and making quick responses.
Too often the arenas of violence have been represented as if they have been triggered by reassertions of traditional and tribal forms of identity, primordial and irrational assertions of politics. Such ideas about the sources of insecurity have become entrenched in a wide variety of media sources, and have framed both government policies and academic arguments. Rather than treating the sources of insecurity as a retreat from modernity, this book complicates the patterns of global insecurity to a degree that takes the debates simply beyond assumptions that we are witnessing a savage return to a bloody and tribalized world."
Overall, this collection is intended to provide a broad and systematic analysis of the long-term sources of political, military and cultural insecurity from the local to the global. The book provides a stronger basis for under-standing the causes of conflict and violence in the world today, one that adds adifferent dimension to the dominant focus on finding proximate causes and making quick responses.
Too often the arenas of violence have been represented as if they have been triggered by reassertions of traditional and tribal forms of identity, primordial and irrational assertions of politics. Such ideas about the sources of insecurity have become entrenched in a wide variety of media sources, and have framed both government policies and academic arguments. Rather than treating the sources of insecurity as a retreat from modernity, this book complicates the patterns of global insecurity to a degree that takes the debates simply beyond assumptions that we are witnessing a savage return to a bloody and tribalized world."
Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Peace and Conflict Studies, Social Sciences, Sociology of Violence, and 17 moreViolence, War Theory, Sociology of the Military, International Security, War Studies, Security, Political Science, Critical Social Theory, Security Studies, Political Violence and Terrorism, Social History, Social Conflict Theory, Ethnic Conflict and Civil War, War on Terror, War, Social Conflict, and Post Conflict Issues
Capitalist production, trade, and market relations are driving forces of contemporary globalization. While globalization cannot be reduced to its economic dimension as some economists have been prone to do, there is no doubt about the... more
Capitalist production, trade, and market relations are driving forces of contemporary globalization. While globalization cannot be reduced to its economic dimension as some economists have been prone to do, there is no doubt about the central importance of exchange and production in the extension of social relations across world-space. Globalizing exchange goes back long before the emergence of modern capitalism. Long-distance market relations drew connections between peoples along lines of trade such as the Silk Route between Europe and China; lines that stretched for thousands of miles. In the contemporary period, layers of modern and postmodern capitalism have taken these interconnections to new levels of integration and intensity. The process remains uneven, but notwithstanding the continuing importance of national and regional economies today, global capitalism is undoubtedly the dominant framework of economics in the world. There are many debates about what this means, but across the political spectrum ‘capitalism’ has become the taken-for-granted way of naming the economic pattern that weaves together the current dominant modes of production and exchange.
Ideas and practices as diverse as consumerism, entertainment, liberalism, cosmopolitanism, tourism and sport are now so bound up with processes of globalizing production and exchange that it is difficult to extricate broader social relations from their grip. It seems that everything can now be conceived of in terms of goods and services that can be sold (commodification) or processes that are organized to offer a return on investment (capital accumulation). Each of these processes has spread across the globe. This volume, as the first in a set of four volumes on economic globalization, begins with the emergence of a globalizing market and subsequently the consolidation of what some writers have called the modern capitalist ‘world system’. It examines the relationship between global trade, commodity relations and economic development across the course of traditional and modern history, and into the present. Along the way, the volume covers the major radical approaches to global markets—world systems theory, Marxism, and more mainstream approaches to economic globalization including Keynesianism and neoliberalism. Later volumes take up the issues of global finance systems, global economic institutions, the globalization of labour, respectively.
Ideas and practices as diverse as consumerism, entertainment, liberalism, cosmopolitanism, tourism and sport are now so bound up with processes of globalizing production and exchange that it is difficult to extricate broader social relations from their grip. It seems that everything can now be conceived of in terms of goods and services that can be sold (commodification) or processes that are organized to offer a return on investment (capital accumulation). Each of these processes has spread across the globe. This volume, as the first in a set of four volumes on economic globalization, begins with the emergence of a globalizing market and subsequently the consolidation of what some writers have called the modern capitalist ‘world system’. It examines the relationship between global trade, commodity relations and economic development across the course of traditional and modern history, and into the present. Along the way, the volume covers the major radical approaches to global markets—world systems theory, Marxism, and more mainstream approaches to economic globalization including Keynesianism and neoliberalism. Later volumes take up the issues of global finance systems, global economic institutions, the globalization of labour, respectively.
Research Interests:
Does the contemporary dominance of haut finance, or ‘mighty finance’, constitute a new era of globalizing economics? Or is it just another phase of globalization and not much different from the processes of financial exchange evident at... more
Does the contemporary dominance of haut finance, or ‘mighty finance’, constitute a new era of globalizing economics? Or is it just another phase of globalization and not much different from the processes of financial exchange evident at the end of the nineteenth century? These questions are dramatic but unhelpful. Such dichotomous ways of understanding globalizing finance have been behind a series of debates in the globalization literature. They have tended to disallow the possibility of talking about both long-run processes and significant (qualitative) changes in the contemporary period of intensifying globalization. This volume presents many different takes on these central questions of globalizing finance. Nevertheless, the framing consideration of the volume is that we need to be able to say, without being contradictory, that at one level we can see long-term continuities in the mode of exchange; at another level there are new formations of practice that in their emerging dominance have reconstituted the face of contemporary global finance.
Financial exchange, as an expression of the changing modes of exchange across history began as far back as the development of coinage in antiquity. It has undergone significant and momentous shifts in its dominant forms of practice. However, these have tended to layer across prior formations rather than simply replace them. For example, derivatives exchange as one of the driving globalizing modalities of the last decade, and which involves hedging against fluctuations in the value of a currency, overlays the agricultural futures markets of the nineteenth century when the producers of such basics as wool and wheat hedged against the possibility that when their produce went to market the price may have fallen. In other words, the emerging dominance of derivatives might be said to represent a further aspect of what Karl Polanyi calls the ‘Great Transformation’ of international financial exchange, even as it has it historical antecedents in dealing with the long-run practical problems of a time-delay between seeding a crop and selling it in an international market.
Financial exchange, as an expression of the changing modes of exchange across history began as far back as the development of coinage in antiquity. It has undergone significant and momentous shifts in its dominant forms of practice. However, these have tended to layer across prior formations rather than simply replace them. For example, derivatives exchange as one of the driving globalizing modalities of the last decade, and which involves hedging against fluctuations in the value of a currency, overlays the agricultural futures markets of the nineteenth century when the producers of such basics as wool and wheat hedged against the possibility that when their produce went to market the price may have fallen. In other words, the emerging dominance of derivatives might be said to represent a further aspect of what Karl Polanyi calls the ‘Great Transformation’ of international financial exchange, even as it has it historical antecedents in dealing with the long-run practical problems of a time-delay between seeding a crop and selling it in an international market.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Finance, Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, and 10 moreFinancial Economics, Political Economy, Globalization, Political Theory, Risk and Vulnerability, Financial Risk Management, Financial Markets, Financial Crisis of 2008/2009, Global Financial Crisis, and Political Economy and History
Globalizing economic institutions such as transnational corporations and forums of economic governance are a central part of the world today. The World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World... more
Globalizing economic institutions such as transnational corporations and forums of economic governance are a central part of the world today. The World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Economic Forum, for example, are crucial institutions mediating, administering, or providing forums for discussing economic processes of globalization. They bear the brunt of the critique of the anti-corporate globalization movement discussed in a later volume in the present series: Globalizing Movements and Global Civil Society. However, they are only the most prominent face of the changing institutions and regimes of global economics. The present volume documents the practices of these globalizing institutions, but more importantly it broadens out the discussion to cover questions of power and institutionalization. The volume examines the patterns of change across the globe from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. It includes material which debates the place of these economic institutions and regimes, but the emphasis is on understanding the modalities of economic regulation and institutionalization, and how they relate to state sovereignty, market law, and economic power. Whereas the previous volume in the ‘Central Currents in Globalization’ series focused on the way in which processes of globalization are extended by capitalism as a mode of production and exchange, the present volume focuses on the dominant mode of organization, including the instituting of patterns of power. The volume takes a special interest in the state as part of the globalization process. Expressed in a different way, this volume focuses on global economic integration, regulation and governance, while a complementary volume later in the ‘Central Currents in Globalization’ series, Global Legal and Political Governance, takes up the theme of political governance, including examining the new multilateral political regimes.
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Investigations into the political economy of globalization usually concentrate upon three related developments—the expansion of international trade and the growth in transnational production, including the rise of transnational... more
Investigations into the political economy of globalization usually concentrate upon three related developments—the expansion of international trade and the growth in transnational production, including the rise of transnational corporations; the creation of a world-wide market for finance and credit; and finally, the development of regimes and institutions of global economic governance. By comparison, the role and significance of labour and labourers tends to be neglected in most studies. Yet, from its very inception, the process of globalization has been marked by the different methods of organizing work and organizing the activity of workers themselves.
This volume goes some way in restoring labour to a proper place in the globalization literature. The title 'Globalizing Labour' has a dual meaning. On the one hand it refers to increasing connectedness of workers and work as the globalization of integrated trade, financial and production systems merges economic activity from around the world. Labour is globalizing in the sense that it is connected to world-wide production and exchange structures. On the other hand, the title refers to the activities of workers themselves as their political and economic activities influence broader globalization structures. Labour is globalizing in the sense that workers are themselves building organizational links between different communities and are engaging global power structures whether they be globalizing corporations or international organizations. This volume introduces the subject of labour and globalization by examining four elements of the relationship. Firstly, the historical relationship between labour and globalization is briefly reviewed. Secondly, the condition of various forms of labour since the end of the Cold War is surveyed. Thirdly, the issue of labour, the state and regulation of globalizing corporations is highlighted. The volume concludes with some thoughts on key issues facing global labour in the twenty-first century.
This volume goes some way in restoring labour to a proper place in the globalization literature. The title 'Globalizing Labour' has a dual meaning. On the one hand it refers to increasing connectedness of workers and work as the globalization of integrated trade, financial and production systems merges economic activity from around the world. Labour is globalizing in the sense that it is connected to world-wide production and exchange structures. On the other hand, the title refers to the activities of workers themselves as their political and economic activities influence broader globalization structures. Labour is globalizing in the sense that workers are themselves building organizational links between different communities and are engaging global power structures whether they be globalizing corporations or international organizations. This volume introduces the subject of labour and globalization by examining four elements of the relationship. Firstly, the historical relationship between labour and globalization is briefly reviewed. Secondly, the condition of various forms of labour since the end of the Cold War is surveyed. Thirdly, the issue of labour, the state and regulation of globalizing corporations is highlighted. The volume concludes with some thoughts on key issues facing global labour in the twenty-first century.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory, and 13 morePolitical Economy, Globalization, International organizations, Critical Social Theory, International Political Economy, Neoliberalism, Social Exclusion, Work and Labour, International Mangement, Labor unions, Trade unions, Power, and Labour markets
Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism establishes a new basis for understanding the changing nature of polity and community and offers unprecedented attention to these dominant trends. The book charts the contradictions and tensions we all... more
Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism establishes a new basis for understanding the changing nature of polity and community and offers unprecedented attention to these dominant trends. The book charts the contradictions and tensions we all encounter in an era of increasing globalization, from genocide and terrorism to television and finance capital.
Globalism is treated as an uneven and layered process of spatial expansion, not simply one of disorder, fragmentation or rupture. Nor is it simply a force of homogenization.
Nationalism is taken seriously as a continuing and important formation of contemporary identity and politics. The book rewrites the modernism theories of the nation-state without devolving into the postmodernist assertion that all is invention or surface gloss.
Tribalism is given the attention it has long warranted and is analyzed as a continuing and changing formation of social life, from the villages of Rwanda to the cities of the West.
Theoretically adept and powerfully argued, this is the first comprehensive analysis that brings these crucial themes of contemporary life together.
Contents
PART ONE: RETURNING TO A THEORY OF SOCIAL FORMATION / Social Relations in Tension
/ Contending Approaches in Outline / Theory in the Shadow of Terror / PART TWO: RETHINKING
FORMATIONS OF PRACTICE AND BEING / Constituting Customary Community / Communication
and Exchange, Money and Writing / Time and Space, Calendars and Maps / Bodies and Symbols, Blood
and Milk / PART THREE: REWRITING THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT / State Formation:
From Kingdoms and Empires to Nation-States / Nation Formation: From the Medieval to the
Postmodern / Global Formation: From the Oecumene to Planet Exploitation / Conclusion: Principles for
a Postnational World
April 2006 · 392 pages
Cloth (0-7619-5513-5)
Paper (0-7619-5514-3)
""
Globalism is treated as an uneven and layered process of spatial expansion, not simply one of disorder, fragmentation or rupture. Nor is it simply a force of homogenization.
Nationalism is taken seriously as a continuing and important formation of contemporary identity and politics. The book rewrites the modernism theories of the nation-state without devolving into the postmodernist assertion that all is invention or surface gloss.
Tribalism is given the attention it has long warranted and is analyzed as a continuing and changing formation of social life, from the villages of Rwanda to the cities of the West.
Theoretically adept and powerfully argued, this is the first comprehensive analysis that brings these crucial themes of contemporary life together.
Contents
PART ONE: RETURNING TO A THEORY OF SOCIAL FORMATION / Social Relations in Tension
/ Contending Approaches in Outline / Theory in the Shadow of Terror / PART TWO: RETHINKING
FORMATIONS OF PRACTICE AND BEING / Constituting Customary Community / Communication
and Exchange, Money and Writing / Time and Space, Calendars and Maps / Bodies and Symbols, Blood
and Milk / PART THREE: REWRITING THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT / State Formation:
From Kingdoms and Empires to Nation-States / Nation Formation: From the Medieval to the
Postmodern / Global Formation: From the Oecumene to Planet Exploitation / Conclusion: Principles for
a Postnational World
April 2006 · 392 pages
Cloth (0-7619-5513-5)
Paper (0-7619-5514-3)
""
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, and 15 moreSocial Theory, Anthropology, Ontology, Cultural Sociology, Social Sciences, Globalization, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Theory, Critical Social Theory, Nationalism, Contemporary Social Theory, Social Ontology, Nation, Cultural change, and Global
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
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We face a globalizing world beset by raging violence and deep national, religious and individual insecurities. ‘Globalization’ may be the catch-cry of our times, but the ‘War on Terror’ has given it a harder and more tragic resonance. In... more
We face a globalizing world beset by raging violence and deep national, religious and individual insecurities. ‘Globalization’ may be the catch-cry of our times, but the ‘War on Terror’ has given it a harder and more tragic resonance. In order to confront this development critically the book turns upon a matrix of contradictory phenomena—globalism, nationalism, and state-terror. These are phenomena that seem to defy understanding, at least in their strange intersections. Too many commentators still maintain the mythologies that globalization is predominantly a neo-liberal economic phenomenon; that nation-states are on the way out, and that terror is something that primarily comes from below. Global Matrix exposes those half-truths, though without simply turning them on their head. Half-truths have a habit of being just that—half true.
The book sets out to confront the problems of understanding with a dual emphasis on critically mapping the cultural politics of the present, and setting these phenomena in the context of deep continuities from the past. The two authors write independently but in continual dialogue as they attempt to answer four main questions. What is the cultural-political nature of contemporary globalization? How adequate, particularly in the context of globalizing nation-states, is a politics of nationalism? How are we to understand new and old nations in the context of changes across the late twentieth century and into the present? Where does national violence come from and what does it mean for a globalizing war on terror?
Global Matrix confronts mythologies and opens debate.
The book sets out to confront the problems of understanding with a dual emphasis on critically mapping the cultural politics of the present, and setting these phenomena in the context of deep continuities from the past. The two authors write independently but in continual dialogue as they attempt to answer four main questions. What is the cultural-political nature of contemporary globalization? How adequate, particularly in the context of globalizing nation-states, is a politics of nationalism? How are we to understand new and old nations in the context of changes across the late twentieth century and into the present? Where does national violence come from and what does it mean for a globalizing war on terror?
Global Matrix confronts mythologies and opens debate.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Media and Cultural Studies, and 17 moreCultural Sociology, Globalization, Terrorism, International Terrorism, Social and Cultural Anthropology, War Studies, Cultural Theory, Political Violence and Terrorism, Politics, Identity politics, Nationalism, Political Violence, National Identity, War and violence, Globalism, War on Terror, and United States
The nation is at once assumed to be a rich and inalienable relationship of specifiable compatriots, at the same time it connects anonymous strangers most of whom will probably never even pass each other in the street. It is lived as a... more
The nation is at once assumed to be a rich and inalienable relationship of specifiable compatriots, at the same time it connects anonymous strangers most of whom will probably never even pass each other in the street. It is lived as a ‘concrete’ relationship which each individual takes to his or her grave, and yet it is abstracted across time and space in ways that leave us culturally oblivious to the particular deaths of any other than those persons who are our immediate associates or who in some way have publicly walked the national stage. National community is subjectively experienced as a ‘primordial’ relation which, except for a few late arrivals who have to be naturalized, is said to be traceable deep into the past as a complex though specific genealogy. Yet the bounding of such ties by the nation state is objectively quite modern: most of us in the contemporary nation state, must now self consciously rediscover our own personal genealogies our roots back into the dead generations.
Such contradictions, themselves historically specific, form the background to my attempt to characterize the nation as a changing but distinctive kind of abstract community. Since this entails something of a new departure, or at least a new emphasis in method, the book begins by outlining a theoretical approach for describing the changing dominant social forms of the national community. It argues that the commonly acknowledged failure of commentators to theorize the nation adequately is partly due to an inattention to the complications ensuing from the necessarily abstracting nature of theorizing as an intellectual technique. More broadly, it is due to an inattention to the implications of contradictions arising out of the wider, material abstractions of social relations. How can the nation be experienced as a concrete, gut-felt relation to common souls and a shared landscape, and nevertheless be based upon abstract connections to largely unknown strangers and unvisited places? As part of the ‘nation of strangers’ we live its connectedness much more through the abstracting mediations of mass communications and the commodity market than we do at the level of the face-to-face, but we continue to use the metaphors of the face-to-face to explain its cultural power.
Such contradictions, themselves historically specific, form the background to my attempt to characterize the nation as a changing but distinctive kind of abstract community. Since this entails something of a new departure, or at least a new emphasis in method, the book begins by outlining a theoretical approach for describing the changing dominant social forms of the national community. It argues that the commonly acknowledged failure of commentators to theorize the nation adequately is partly due to an inattention to the complications ensuing from the necessarily abstracting nature of theorizing as an intellectual technique. More broadly, it is due to an inattention to the implications of contradictions arising out of the wider, material abstractions of social relations. How can the nation be experienced as a concrete, gut-felt relation to common souls and a shared landscape, and nevertheless be based upon abstract connections to largely unknown strangers and unvisited places? As part of the ‘nation of strangers’ we live its connectedness much more through the abstracting mediations of mass communications and the commodity market than we do at the level of the face-to-face, but we continue to use the metaphors of the face-to-face to explain its cultural power.
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Responding to the contributors of this special issue, this essay is organized as a series of questions (and responses). These questions facilitate our selective engagement with critical themes raised by the contributors such as the... more
Responding to the contributors of this special issue, this essay is organized as a series of questions (and responses). These questions facilitate our selective engagement with critical themes raised by the contributors such as the significance of engaged globalization theory and critical reflexivity; the relationship between globalization capitalism, imperialism and colonialism; the global-local nexus; and the development of an integrated method of analysis. The article also offers a list of 'core configurations of social activity' as a point of departure for further critical reflection of the changing dynamics of globalization. Ultimately, the authors do not seek to construct a single integrated theory of globalization, but rather strive for a theory endowed with coherence and systematicity that recognizes the value of different concepts, emphases, and approaches that nurtures the development of theories (plural) of the global.
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The planet is facing manifold crises that are fundamental, comprehensive, and abstracted from the senses. This sensory abstraction, compounded by the non-palpable accumulation of risks, complicates any artistic practice that would seek to... more
The planet is facing manifold crises that are fundamental,
comprehensive, and abstracted from the senses. This sensory
abstraction, compounded by the non-palpable accumulation of
risks, complicates any artistic practice that would seek to apprehend
these crises. How, for example, is an artist to represent
climate change adequately in relation to its consequences when
our knowledge of the process is mediated by statistics, indicators,
and monitoring technologies? What images can be used to
condense the meaning of the Sixth Extinction when it is a process
of moving toward the end, for all time, of multiple categories of
being? This chapter develops an understanding of how artists can adequately represent the crises that we face.
comprehensive, and abstracted from the senses. This sensory
abstraction, compounded by the non-palpable accumulation of
risks, complicates any artistic practice that would seek to apprehend
these crises. How, for example, is an artist to represent
climate change adequately in relation to its consequences when
our knowledge of the process is mediated by statistics, indicators,
and monitoring technologies? What images can be used to
condense the meaning of the Sixth Extinction when it is a process
of moving toward the end, for all time, of multiple categories of
being? This chapter develops an understanding of how artists can adequately represent the crises that we face.
Research Interests:
This article analyzes the complex and subtle dynamics involved in producing and representing the global-local nexus in everyday life. Its socio-historical context is the destabilization of the current globalization system-and its... more
This article analyzes the complex and subtle dynamics involved in producing and representing the global-local nexus in everyday life. Its socio-historical context is the destabilization of the current globalization system-and its associated global imaginary-marked by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, continuing with the populist explosion in the mid 2010s, and climaxing in the 2020 Global Coronavirus Pandemic. But rather than mischaracterizing the current context as "deglobalization", we describe it as a contemporary intensification of what we have been calling the "Great Unsettling". This era of intensifying objective instability is linked to foundational subjective processes. In particular, we examine the production of an "unhappy consciousness" torn between the enjoyment of global digital mobility and the visceral attachment to the familiar limits of local everyday life. In doing so, we rewrite the approach to the sources of ontological security and insecurity.
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Globalization is now at its most disjunctive phase in human history. The planetary COVID-19 crisis has combined with the vulnerabilities of global capitalism to break down social routines. Yet, the current moment of the Great Unsettling... more
Globalization is now at its most disjunctive phase in human history. The planetary COVID-19 crisis has combined with the vulnerabilities of global capitalism to break down social routines. Yet, the current moment of the Great Unsettling also offers a critical opportunity to take stock of the present state of globalization. To this end, this article revisits and re-engages some pertinent themes raised in the pathbreaking 1990 TCS Global Culture issue. In particular, the article explores the crucial role of structural divergences that have been developing among major formations of globalization. Gaining a better understanding of the current globalization system requires a new conceptual framework that captures different formations of globalization, ranging from the embodied to the disembodied. The multiple disjunctive relationships that have developed among and within these formations shape not only the morphology of the contemporary globalization system but also cast a long shadow on its future dynamics.
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What is the relationship between right-wing populism and contemporary fascism? How has fascism changed since the 1920s? And how do the answers to these questions concern a global shift that can be called the Great Unsettling—including a... more
What is the relationship between right-wing populism and contemporary fascism? How has fascism changed since the 1920s? And how do the answers to these questions concern a global shift that can be called the Great Unsettling—including a postmodern fracturing of prior modern ‘certainties’ about the nature of subjectivity, political practice and meaning, deconstructing the consequences of ‘truth’? This essay seeks to respond to these questions by first going back to foundational issues of definition and elaborating the meaning of populism and fascism in relation to their structural ‘moving parts’. Using this alternative scaffolding, the essay argues that right-wing populism and an orientation to postmodern fascism represented by Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have converged. The context of this convergence is a globalizing shift that now challenges democratic politics.
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It is becoming clear that we are living through a period in which our relationships to the basic conditions of existence are being fundamentally unsettled: fire, climate change, storms, and viruses are changing how we live. Songwriters,... more
It is becoming clear that we are living through a period in which our relationships to the basic conditions of existence are being fundamentally unsettled: fire, climate change, storms, and viruses are changing how we live. Songwriters, poets and film-makers are increasingly setting their narratives in the end of days. Journalists go on journeys to the dark side to meet mid-western survivalists and purveyors of luxury underground bunkers. Social theorists write about living through the end-times. This chapter explores how the fires of Australia's Black Summer represent an elemental turning point in how we live on this planet.
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If good ethics is the process of ongoing dialogical deliberation on basic normative questions for the purpose of instituting principles for action, then the COVID crisis, or any crisis, is not a good time for developing ethical precepts... more
If good ethics is the process of ongoing dialogical deliberation on basic normative questions for the purpose of instituting principles for action, then the COVID crisis, or any crisis, is not a good time for developing ethical precepts on the run. Given dominant ethical trends, such reactive ethics tends to lead to either individualized struggles over the right way to act or hasty sets of guidelines that leave out contextualizing questions concerning regimes of care. Good people will find themselves suggesting strange things, from setting up lifeboat scenarios to supporting structural racism. This essay argues against both these paths-crisis-ridden agonism or algorithmic resource-allocation-and turns instead to a form of ethics of care which takes its departure from older forms of ethics, while recognizing that modern and postmodern challenges no longer allow their grounding in animated relations, natural rights, or cosmological truths.
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Two comfortably understood processes—firstly, the way that embodied communication has across human history been divided by languages; and, secondly, the contribution that cities to bringing strangers together across such communicative... more
Two comfortably understood processes—firstly, the way that embodied communication has across human history been divided by
languages; and, secondly, the contribution that cities to bringing strangers together across such communicative divides—have also contributed to stopping us seeking to understand the contradictory relationship between media and the city. It is not as obvious as its sounds but media mediate—they abstract relations over extensions of space. They also provide the means for mutually interactive connections. What does it mean, for example, that the media, both in content and form, divides citizens of a global city, even as it brings them together? What does it mean that cities are intensely local places but the same media that represents citizens to each other also connects them globally? These two questions weave through this chapter, which explores how global and local forces coalesce in mediated urban spaces.
languages; and, secondly, the contribution that cities to bringing strangers together across such communicative divides—have also contributed to stopping us seeking to understand the contradictory relationship between media and the city. It is not as obvious as its sounds but media mediate—they abstract relations over extensions of space. They also provide the means for mutually interactive connections. What does it mean, for example, that the media, both in content and form, divides citizens of a global city, even as it brings them together? What does it mean that cities are intensely local places but the same media that represents citizens to each other also connects them globally? These two questions weave through this chapter, which explores how global and local forces coalesce in mediated urban spaces.
Research Interests:
Global relations remain uneven and contested, but the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Now, following a global financial crisis, the emergence of local versus global populism, the... more
Global relations remain uneven and contested, but the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Now, following a global financial crisis, the emergence of local versus global populism, the continuing intensification of global ecological crisis, and the Covid crisis, it is important to reflect on both the positive possibilities and confronting challenges of globalization. This essay examines the complexity of contemporary globalization focusing on questions of what makes for a positive world. A manifesto for sustainable globalization needs to confront the contemporary human condition, ecologically, economically, politically, and culturally. In ecological terms, this means more than setting up carbon-accounting schemes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In economic terms, it means rethinking the ever-expanding reach of global capitalism, particularly its more rapacious modalities. Politically, though the usual response is to argue for more cosmopolitanism, this has become complicated by the 'return' to reactionary forms of localism. And in cultural terms, we need principles for celebrating differences while recognizing rather than overcoming the continuing boundaries of identity and meaning. In these terms, this essay seeks to respond to present challenges and set out a matrix of principles-principles in tension-for living in a complex global world. Globalization today is intense, uneven, contentious, and contested. With the recent rise of right-wing populism, the sounds of anti-globalist rhetoric and threats to withdraw from global political and economic agreements are now at their most vociferous since World War II. At the same time, contradictorily, but in clear relationship to that anti-globalism, the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Downward fluctuations in trade figures and the Covid crisis notwithstanding, flows of digital communications and coded capital continue to intensify. Across the turn of the twenty-first century, recognition of this intensity
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Measuring the dynamic shape of digital practices and their near ubiquitous relationship to daily life is an elusive quest, one that must contend with temporal and relational limits. Research instruments employing categories and indicators... more
Measuring the dynamic shape of digital practices and their near ubiquitous relationship to daily life is an elusive quest, one that must contend with temporal and relational limits. Research instruments employing categories and indicators struggle with the transient and interconnected character of the digital 'social fact'. Longitudinal studies pose special difficulties: a 1990s study of browsing and searching would need to be updated to account for the rise of blogging, gaming and media sharing in the 2000s, and again for mobile devices, virtual reality and home automation in the 2010s. Accounting for the volatility of digital life requires, we argue, an adaptive theoretical approach that acknowledges its integral temporal and relational character. We introduce 'digital capacity' as the key organising concept for this approach. Alongside the productive capacities of digital objects, the concept doubles as a description of the responsive and generative abilities of digital users. Such capacities are not invariant, and evolve reflexively through multiple sociotechnical milieu: local neighbourhoods, regional configurations of law and infrastructure, and global networks, standards and platforms. Today, capacities respond, for example, to complex arrangements of face-to-face relations, nation-state norms, and the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, telecommunications and platforms. Despite the rapidity and complexity of this change, practitioner and research communities need some stability in definitions and measures of capacities, and we further discuss an approach, based on community indicator work, to research instrument design that admits both comparison and sensitivity to time, place and context. We include illustrative data from a pilot study of Australian digital capacities.
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The concept of 'resilience' is everywhere. It has become all the rage in describing the base-level capacities required by households, communities, cities, and nations. Concerned organizations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, set out... more
The concept of 'resilience' is everywhere. It has become all the rage in describing the base-level capacities required by households, communities, cities, and nations. Concerned organizations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, set out in good faith to contribute to positive urban practice, and a hundred cities around the world now proudly call themselves ‘Resilient Cities’. Unfortunately, however, the term has in some hands become one-dimensional and reductive. In other hands, the very attempt to make resilience a positive virtue has undermined its usefulness as a concept. Resilience is now too often associated with the easy deferral of state and corporate action in mitigating the risks structurally, even as its use appears to coincide with public sympathetic for community needs.
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It is a cruel irony when good people act to destroy something that they love in the name of keeping it going. Intellectuals unfortunately have a proclivity for such activity. We do not need hard-edged neoliberals to do it to us: academic... more
It is a cruel irony when good people act to destroy something that they love in the name of keeping it going. Intellectuals unfortunately have a proclivity for such activity. We do not need hard-edged neoliberals to do it to us: academic managers can be calmly efficient about the process, and, despite an articulate and active critical minority, many academics have over the last couple of decades quietly allowed it happen with little sustained response. This article describes the plight of universities in Australia at a time when the COVID crisis becomes an excuse for neoliberal restructuring.
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If humans construct and imagine their worlds, what then is the common grounding condition of that construction? Or, more prosaically, what are the dominant social imaginaries, local and global, through which we as humans live in these... more
If humans construct and imagine their worlds, what then is the common grounding condition of that construction? Or, more prosaically, what are the dominant social imaginaries, local and global, through which we as humans live in these worlds? These questions suggest the emerging dominance of a modern constructivist orientation. Even if not under conditions of our choosing or understanding, we act in the world to make that world. The first variation of this orientation was psychoanalytic tending towards the psychosocial—from Jacques Lacan and Jean-Paul Sartre to writers as diverse as Cornelius Castoriadis and Kathleen Lennon. The second variation was constitutively social, and here the key figures are Charles Taylor and Manfred Steger. This essay lays out the case for the approach developed by Manfred Steger (2008). It suggests that his definition of the social imaginary as a patterned convocation of the social whole through which people express their social existence—for example in the figure of the globe, of the nation, or even of the abstracted order (or disorder) of our time—provides a point of departure for handing the complexities that have inevitably arisen with using a far-ranging term, especially one that carries so much baggage.
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This systematic review aims to understand the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development, including the health and wellbeing of local host communities. The protocol is guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for... more
This systematic review aims to understand the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development, including the health and wellbeing of local host communities. The protocol is guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. It highlights the scope and methodology for the systematic review to be conducted. Studies will be included if they: (i) were conducted in English; (ii) were published between January 2000 and December 2018; (iii) used quantitative and/or qualitative methods; and (iv) analysed the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development and/or the health of local host communities. Data extraction will be informed by Cochrane Collaboration. The quality of evidence of the studies included will be assessed using validated tools. Findings will be summarised into themes and narrated. The systematic review will establish the impact of heritage tourism on sustainable community development including health and well-being. It also aims provide a theoretical framework which will inform recommendations to improve the life-worlds of local host communities and moderate any tensions between the expanding heritage reach of states and the maintenance of customary and traditional value systems, community governance structures, and associated community development and health benefits. Systematic review registration: This protocol is registered with the international prospective register of systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PROSPERO) with the registration reference CRD42018114681.
How can we develop an alternative approach to understanding religion and secularity? How does this relate to what it means to live on this planet in this time of crises of escalating existential crises? Responding to these questions will... more
How can we develop an alternative approach to understanding religion and secularity? How does this relate to what it means to live on this planet in this time of crises of escalating existential crises? Responding to these questions will take us through the problems of talking about epochs, ages, zeitgeists and conditions. Except when projected as provisional and deeply qualified descriptions of a period, naming a time-span in terms of a social dominant tends, on the one hand, to ignore that it co-exists with and dominates other ways of life. On the other hand, in examples such as Beck’s ‘risk society’ or Bauman’s ‘liquid modernity’, naming a period tends to reductively over-accentuate a singular dimension of the contemporary world, make that domination singular. It then distorts our understanding of that singular dimension. This is a complex problem from which it is difficult to escape. This train of argument leads us to three proposals that lies at the heart of this essay. Firstly, the social whole can better be understood in terms of changing intersecting levels of ontological formations — life-ways formed in tension with each other. In these terms, ontological formations are themselves understood as patterns of practice and meaning constituted at different dominant levels of abstraction. Secondly, faith in the transcendental (religion) and ‘opposing’ arguments that God does not exist as social belief systems (atheism), originate from different dominant ontological valences, emerging at different times in human history, but carrying forward to the present. Thirdly, the basis of good human flourishing is living positively in through our relation to others and to nature. In other words, the constitutive levels approach developed in this essay grounds human flourishing in relationality between persons and others — that is, with other humans and the others other-than-human (of which God, gods, or other senses of Transcendental Being and Ultimate Truth, may or may not relevant: that is a question for the faith of the persons concerned).
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This article explores Timor-Leste's long history of colonial encounters with modernity and globalisation. Over a couple of centuries these forces contributed to creating a particular form of customary nationhood that differed from other... more
This article explores Timor-Leste's long history of colonial encounters with modernity and globalisation. Over a couple of centuries these forces contributed to creating a particular form of customary nationhood that differed from other nations which, on the face it, appear to have parallel histories. More than that, a sense of nationhood came later in Timor-Leste than in most colonial and postcolonial settings. Through an analysis of Timor's predominantly customary forms of sociality and organisation, this article explores why political nationalism came so late to a territory that like many other colonies had an established generalising cultural identity and was part of a global history of colonisation. Drawing in issues such as Timor's place in global history, conflict, resistance, Indigenous power, the unevenness of Portuguese colonisation, rejection of the homogenising process and the naming of the Timorese people, it is concluded that the continuing depth of customary-traditional cultures and the nature of the colonial experience cut against the early formation of a sense of nationhood, even as this became one of the strengths in the Timorese fight against colonial oppression.
Research Interests:
What capacities make for conditions of human flourishing? If we can give a working answer to that question, then we have the foundation for answering all those other more narrowly framed or precisely oriented questions concerning social... more
What capacities make for conditions of human flourishing? If we can give a working answer to that question, then we have the foundation for answering all those other more narrowly framed or precisely oriented questions concerning social life. Put the other way around, if we want to know the answers to practical and policy issues such as what makes for a liveable city, what constitutes good digital engagement or what capacities we need to learn in order to live a good life, we need to go back to the basics concerning human flourishing in general. This move will not give us one-to-one or complete answers concerning what should be done – which in any case would partly depend upon differences in time and across place. But at least it will slow down the current tendency towards falsely connected fashion statements about what constitutes good ways of doing things. Wherever such statement-chains begin, they all tend to end in the same ideologically condensed place: the dominance of a certain regime of economics. For example, one recent chain instrumentalises mindfulness: “a good life is mindful”, “mindfulness is smart”, “smart cities are better cities”, “better cities require fast connectivity”, “connectivity brings growth”, and “economic growth is the only way to increase the quality of life”. Providing a different basis to understanding human capacities is the task of the present chapter.
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For all the importance of food, and for all of the theorists, practitioners and activists who have suggested that the planet faces a generalised and interconnected set of food crises, the widely shared popular sense in the global North is... more
For all the importance of food, and for all of the theorists, practitioners and activists who have suggested that the planet faces a generalised and interconnected set of food crises, the widely shared popular sense in the global North is one of occasional spiked dismay and relative general comfort. On the one hand, close to home, good food is treated as a personal and individual choice — I/we/they need to eat less sugar and junk food. Beyond a certain moral and to an extent class-driven imperative to ‘make healthy choices’ concerning food with regard to one’s individual nutritional status, the foods one eats and their provenance have in many privileged centres of the North become deeply intertwined with questions of individual and collective identities and, in some instances, politics.
On the other hand, in relation to the rest of the world, it is acknowledged episodically that in faraway places there exist zones of food insecurity brought on by droughts, hurricanes, or war. Inevitably such intrusions into the popular Northern consciousness are accompanied by fund-raising drives among aid agencies entrusted with the responsibility of ‘providing food to the poor’.
The present article builds on the work of critical and engaged theorists in the task of taking this critique to a food-systems level.
Our argument is simple: food is basic to living across all the domains of social life — ecology, economics, politics and culture — and this existential foundation is becoming profoundly unsettled by global capitalism, techno-science and digital mediatism, all intersecting in a world of swirling images, hyperbole and capital.
On the other hand, in relation to the rest of the world, it is acknowledged episodically that in faraway places there exist zones of food insecurity brought on by droughts, hurricanes, or war. Inevitably such intrusions into the popular Northern consciousness are accompanied by fund-raising drives among aid agencies entrusted with the responsibility of ‘providing food to the poor’.
The present article builds on the work of critical and engaged theorists in the task of taking this critique to a food-systems level.
Our argument is simple: food is basic to living across all the domains of social life — ecology, economics, politics and culture — and this existential foundation is becoming profoundly unsettled by global capitalism, techno-science and digital mediatism, all intersecting in a world of swirling images, hyperbole and capital.
Research Interests:
Food is basic to human existence. Across the entire period that humans have lived on this planet, food has been central to our social being. The production, exchange, consumption and narrating of the meaning of food has been, and... more
Food is basic to human existence. Across the entire period that humans have lived on this planet, food has been central to our social being. The production, exchange, consumption and narrating of the meaning of food has been, and continues to be, fundamental to every family, community, ethnic grouping, religion, nation and civilisation. Food nourishes us - body and soul. It gives us energy - material and social. Eating together is a focus of personal conviviality. It is one of the founding conditions of social engagement and social symbolism. In an inchoate or undefined way, we still feel ourselves to be what we eat, and we identify with those people with whom we eat.
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Où devrions-nous donc commencer l’important et complexe processus de systématisation des thèmes liés aux politiques alimentaires durables en milieu urbain ? Le point de départ habituel est le thème des aliments tel que nous le comprenons... more
Où devrions-nous donc commencer l’important et complexe processus de systématisation des thèmes liés aux politiques alimentaires durables en milieu urbain ? Le point de départ habituel est le thème des aliments tel que nous le comprenons à l’heure actuelle : produits par l’agriculture, distribués par les mécanismes du marché et consommés dans les restaurants et les foyers domestiques. Comme d’autres descriptions, Wikipedia offre un aperçu différent de cette conception dominante de ce que sont les aliments, définissant le système alimentaire comme la culture, la récolte, la transformation, l’emballage, le transport, la commercialisation, la consommation et l’élimination des aliments et éléments liés à l’alimentation. Bien que cela semble être une description globale des catégories intervenant dans le système alimentaire, il s’agit d’une chaîne mécanique de l’alimentation, de la production à l’élimination, de la ferme à la cuisine et à la poubelle—utile d’un point de vue temporel pour l’analyse des cycles de vie, mais restrictif lorsqu’il s’agit d’étudier des questions de durabilité urbaine ou de politiques, en particulier par rapport au pouvoir politique ou à la signification culturelle. Finalement c’est plus une chaîne de valeur économique sur laquelle se greffent d’autres éléments.
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The problem with most arguments concerning intervention across borders, including the most detailed and sophisticated renditions of humanitarian interventions such as the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), is that the compounding... more
The problem with most arguments concerning intervention across borders, including the most detailed and sophisticated renditions of humanitarian interventions such as the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P), is that the compounding imperial restructurings, colonisations, resentments, humanitarian interventions, uneven globalising pressures, withdrawals, guided reconstructions, reinterventions, neo-traditional backlashes and interventions-from-a-distance have produced a world of
such complexity that is now impossible to ‘do the right thing’. There
are no innocent political factions to protect. There is no moment that
marks the winning of interventionary war. There is no adequate endplan
other than withdrawal after having restored semi-chaos.
In order to begin the task of establishing an alternative framework
for intervention – not necessarily to argue against or replace
the R2P doctrine, but to reframe it – this chapter firstly sets out
some definitional claims. It begins with an argument for returning
to encompassing definitions based on the idea of humanity as
historically constituted and made up of persons-in-relation. Second,
the chapter argues that the nature of contemporary conditions
makes conventional interventions unviable. Intervention requires a
different grounding process. For example, part of the problem of
learning lessons is that each act of intervening is judged as a separate
act in a modernist timeline of separate events and separable spatial
zones. Third, the chapter argues for a more synthetic ethics of
intervention, suggesting that the different forms of ethics need to be
brought into interrelation: a code-based ethics, including an ethics of
rights; a consequentialist ethics based on assessing outcomes, and a
virtue-based ethics based on arguing for a grounded sense of human
values about what is good.
such complexity that is now impossible to ‘do the right thing’. There
are no innocent political factions to protect. There is no moment that
marks the winning of interventionary war. There is no adequate endplan
other than withdrawal after having restored semi-chaos.
In order to begin the task of establishing an alternative framework
for intervention – not necessarily to argue against or replace
the R2P doctrine, but to reframe it – this chapter firstly sets out
some definitional claims. It begins with an argument for returning
to encompassing definitions based on the idea of humanity as
historically constituted and made up of persons-in-relation. Second,
the chapter argues that the nature of contemporary conditions
makes conventional interventions unviable. Intervention requires a
different grounding process. For example, part of the problem of
learning lessons is that each act of intervening is judged as a separate
act in a modernist timeline of separate events and separable spatial
zones. Third, the chapter argues for a more synthetic ethics of
intervention, suggesting that the different forms of ethics need to be
brought into interrelation: a code-based ethics, including an ethics of
rights; a consequentialist ethics based on assessing outcomes, and a
virtue-based ethics based on arguing for a grounded sense of human
values about what is good.
Research Interests:
What is the relationship between culture, globalisation, and development? This apparently simple question leads us down an extraordinary pathway. If culture signifies the domain of social meaning that grounds human existence, if... more
What is the relationship between culture, globalisation, and development? This apparently simple question leads us down an extraordinary pathway. If culture signifies the domain of social meaning that grounds human existence, if globalisation refers to the process of extending social relations across world space, and further, if development names the nature of social change across time as it affects different human cohorts and communities, then this triangle of concepts – culture, globalisation, and development – should be fundamental to the human condition. By the same argument, analysis of this triangle of concepts should be crucial to political debate and social theory. My provisional definitions of culture, globalisation, and development are not the mainstream definitions. Nevertheless, it remains the case that however those concepts are defined our understanding of their relationship is rarely systematically explored. It should be an important conceptual constellation for explicit enquiry, but something must be getting in the way – because this three-way relation is not much discussed at all. In asking the driving question of this chapter we thus are already faced with a quandary. Why is it that despite the centrality of these concepts they have only rarely been considered explicitly in relation to each other? Contemporary interest mostly occurs as a series of two-way discussions around three basic sets of questions: (1) to what extent does globalisation change the nature of cultural or economic processes – locally, nationally and globally (the dominant globalisation–culture set)? (2) How do cultural issues contribute to or hinder modern economic development (the dominant culture–development set)? (3) How much does globalisation contribute to development and underdevelopment (the dominant globalisation-development set)? There are related three-way explorations, but a fourth concept always seems to intervene at the apex of the triangle, displacing one of the other three terms in the globalisation/culture/development/ nexus. This concept is 'economics'.
Research Interests:
In the emerging realisation of the precariousness of the human condition an increasing urgency surrounds discussions of sustainability. Much of this urgency centres on attempts to find alternative paradigms for life on this planet. The... more
In the emerging realisation of the precariousness of the human condition an increasing urgency surrounds discussions of sustainability. Much of this urgency centres on attempts to find alternative paradigms for life on this planet. The dominant developmental paradigm currently assumes the centrality of modern, human-centred, market-driven, economic growth as the basis of human flourishing, marginally offset by ameliorative efforts to take the environment into account. Responses swirl through public discourse and practice. This chapter addresses two such alternative paradigms. The first is posthumanism, coming out of a critical postmodernism mixed with a new materialities discourse. The second is the Triple Bottom Line approach, much more conventional—hardly a paradigm break at all. Both these alternatives, it is argued, are fundamentally flawed. They both leave the dominant paradigm largely intact—the first because it caricatures what it is criticising and then allows a posthuman future of disassembled, fragmented, and technologized bodies/minds to become part of its contradictory alternative; the second because, in its utter pragmatism, it fails to actually challenge what should be the object of its critique: human-centred development based on the single bottom-line of profit. The essay introduces a further alternative, the Circles of Social Life approach, as one of a number of potentially viable ways of thinking through basic tensions.
Research Interests:
Dealing adequately with themes as fundamental as economy and class takes incredibly systematic theoretical work. This complexity is compounded when adding in issues of changing historical context , contemporary social consequence and... more
Dealing adequately with themes as fundamental as economy and class takes incredibly systematic theoretical work. This complexity is compounded when adding in issues of changing historical context , contemporary social consequence and intersecting ontological formations — issues that writers associated with Arena have over the last fifty years sought to think through with considerable intensity. With these demands, adequately theorizing economy and class becomes a massive task. It needs to draw upon different disciplines, from anthropology and cultural theory to political economy, economic history and contemporary financial analysis. More than that, as I will argue, understanding basic themes such as economy and class requires a generalizing theory of the social. Unfortunately, however, mainstream approaches to economy and class have turned either to acting as if economy and class no longer need theorizing, or to naturalizing the meaning of both terms as simple empirical descriptors — though for apparently very different reasons in relation to each of these themes. On the one hand, while class remains a background concern in contemporary sociology and political studies, it has lost the interrogative and master-concept status that it had until as late as the end of the twentieth century. To the extent that it continues to be used academically, class is usually linked to the thin but scientific-sounding concept of ‘social stratification’. Every so often the concept surfaces as way of naming one’s relationship to felt disparities of political power or economic opportunity — for example, recently 60 per cent of Britons described themselves a ‘working class’ — but for many commentators this is seen as a quaint anachronism in a world of changing assemblages of power. With life constantly in flux, and with the lingering after-effects of post-structuralism still profoundly influencing ways of theorizing, the concept of ‘class’ is now seen as too static to be used more than casually. When the concept comes into contention it thus tends to become a shallow descriptive term: for some uncomfortably evoked in passing; for most others used loosely to signal the experience of intensifying economic inequity.
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One dominant framework sets the terms for almost all thinking today about questions of sustainability. Whether contemporary policy-makers are aware of it or not, this structure is the basis of the way that most practitioners and thinkers... more
One dominant framework sets the terms for almost all thinking today about questions of sustainability. Whether contemporary policy-makers are aware of it or not, this structure is the basis of the way that most practitioners and thinkers across the globe approach sustainability issues. The framework assumes that sustainability should be
understood in terms of three domains: the economy, the environment, and the social. These domains are said to relate to each other as three independent spheres of life. They are usually depicted visually as three pillars, as a Venn diagram of three intersecting circles, or as three nested concentric circles with the economy at the center. In each case their combined outcome is one of supposed sustainability.
Today, sustainability is a foundational concept for public administration, policy-making and political governance, and versions of this three-domain framework are everywhere in policy documents. Despite this prevalence, however, the framework is rarely interrogated in either an intensive or sustained way. By comparison, policy content is regularly examined for its potential impact on sustainability outcomes. Practices of sustainability are routinely evaluated for their consequences. And indicator sets are carefully formulated for assessing sustainability. At the same time, the frame for defining and operationalizing sustainability is usually left as an assumed set of categories: economy, environment (or ecology), and social (or society), with the economy usually striding out in front as the first among “equals.” In other words, economic considerations have become the center of almost all decision-making processes, and the economy (note the definite article “the” here denoting the singularity of the concept) is treated as central to the human condition, qualifying and providing a measure of comparison for everything else. In the late 1990s, a team of economists even set out to put an economic value on the world’s biosphere. This chapter sets out to provide a systematic critique of the dominant understanding of sustainability, and to develop a viable alternative.
understood in terms of three domains: the economy, the environment, and the social. These domains are said to relate to each other as three independent spheres of life. They are usually depicted visually as three pillars, as a Venn diagram of three intersecting circles, or as three nested concentric circles with the economy at the center. In each case their combined outcome is one of supposed sustainability.
Today, sustainability is a foundational concept for public administration, policy-making and political governance, and versions of this three-domain framework are everywhere in policy documents. Despite this prevalence, however, the framework is rarely interrogated in either an intensive or sustained way. By comparison, policy content is regularly examined for its potential impact on sustainability outcomes. Practices of sustainability are routinely evaluated for their consequences. And indicator sets are carefully formulated for assessing sustainability. At the same time, the frame for defining and operationalizing sustainability is usually left as an assumed set of categories: economy, environment (or ecology), and social (or society), with the economy usually striding out in front as the first among “equals.” In other words, economic considerations have become the center of almost all decision-making processes, and the economy (note the definite article “the” here denoting the singularity of the concept) is treated as central to the human condition, qualifying and providing a measure of comparison for everything else. In the late 1990s, a team of economists even set out to put an economic value on the world’s biosphere. This chapter sets out to provide a systematic critique of the dominant understanding of sustainability, and to develop a viable alternative.
Research Interests:
I was never told in school that Australia emerged out of an imperial arrangement and ‘settled’ as a divided land on the basis of an early modern treaty that had particular significance to Latin America. I never knew that the First Fleet... more
I was never told in school that Australia emerged out of an imperial arrangement and ‘settled’ as a divided land on the basis of an early modern treaty that had particular significance to Latin America. I never knew that the First Fleet to Australia came via Rio de Janeiro — as did Captain Cook on his way to discover Australia in 1770. I did not know that the man who first settled Australia, Captain Arthur Phillip, previously worked for the Portuguese navy in a Latin American war connected to the Treaty of Tordesillas that eventually led to the formation of Uruguay — the Third Colonia War of 1773–1777. I had no idea that the first Labour Prime Minister of Australia in 1904, John Christian Watson, was born in Chile. Coming forward to the present, until I read the present book, I did not know that contemporary migrants to Australia from Mexico come primarily for quality of life, security and adventure. Like me, most Australians know little about the long and uneven history and politics of relations between Latin America and Australia. And despite the growing importance of contemporary relations, we know little more than anecdotal stories about the present interchange: salsa, coffee and the Buena Vista Social Club. This uneven knowledge is a manifestation what might be called patchy globalization — that is, despite the objective blanketing of the world by a complex fabric of economic, ecological, political and cultural relations, the global imaginary leaves out and highlights different patches in the world.
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Các đô thị đã luôn luôn có vai trò quan trọng với những tiến trình toàn cầu hóa và thay đổi toàn cầu, trong quá khứ và hiện tại. Các đô thị là trung tâm của những đế chế, ít nhất là vào giai đoạn mà người La Mã tuyên bố gửi thành La Mã và... more
Các đô thị đã luôn luôn có vai trò quan trọng với những tiến trình toàn cầu hóa và thay đổi toàn cầu, trong quá khứ và hiện tại. Các đô thị là trung tâm của những đế chế, ít nhất là vào giai đoạn mà người La Mã tuyên bố gửi thành La Mã và thế giới (urbis et orbis) rằng: Thành phố La Mã chính là Hòn ngọc của Thế giới. Vào thế kỷ 16 Thành phố Seville chứng kiến sự trở lại của chiếc thuyền buồm Victoria, chiếc thuyền chở những con người đầu tiên đi vòng quanh thế giới. Kể từ thế kỷ 19 tới đầu thế kỷ 20, Thành phố London là trung tâm của một đế chế đã chiếm lĩnh hơn một phần tư diện tích lãnh thổ trên trái đất. Sử dụng cách gọi tên tương tự của Đế chế Tây Ban Nha, London tuyên bố mình là thủ phủ của một đế chế nơi mặt trời không bao giờ lặn. Dù một số tác giả gợi ý rằng ‘những thành phố toàn cầu’ là hiện tượng của thế kỷ 21 và chúng có được vị thế toàn cầu chủ yếu nhờ sự dịch chuyển nguồn vốn tài chính, quá trình toàn cầu hóa các thành phố đã tăng mạnh từ rất lâu rồi. Tuy nhiên, dù toàn cầu hóa và đô thị hóa đã giao thoa với nhau trong nhiều thế kỷ, có một số thay đổi đã tạo ra chuyển biến về chất trong từ bốn tới năm thập niên qua. Tất cả những diễn biến trên đã để lại tác động sâu sắc với đời sống xã hội. Trong tham luận này tôi muốn phân tích rõ hơn mỗi khía cạnh trong bốn khía cạnh nói trên của đời sống xã hội và cho thấy là mỗi trường hợp đều không có câu trả lời đơn giản. Thay vào đó chúng ta gặp phải những nghịch lý, khó khăn và thách thức đan xen nhau đòi hỏi ta phải có góc nhìn mới trong lựa chọn các phương án. Trước hết tôi muốn vạch ra một số những nghịch lý ở đây. Sau đó tôi sẽ sử dụng hướng tiếp cận tương tự để thiết lập một tập hợp quy tắc toàn diện nhằm cải thiện các đô thị. Hướng tiếp cận tôi sử dụng được gọi là ‘Nghiên cứu Gắn kết’. Hướng tiếp cận này rất coi trọng quan niệm rằng đời sống xã hội là đa diện và không thể bị quy giản thành những toan tính kinh tế cũng như những mệnh lệnh toàn cầu thuần túy. Bởi đời sống xã hội là phức tạp, đa chiều và khả biến, nghiên cứu kết nối đòi hỏi phải liên tục khám phá những mối giao thoa giữa rất nhiều điều kiện tồn tại có tính thời điểm và ngẫu nhiên – trong văn hóa, kinh tế, chính trị và sinh thái. Vì thế mà nghiên cứu kết nối là một cách để hiểu những tập hợp, cấu trúc, giao điểm, thay đổi và diễn tiến xã hội phức tạp. Để thực hiện tốt nghiên cứu kết nối ta phải có năng lực mà Ien Ang gọi là ‘trí tuệ văn hóa’ (cultural intelligence). Ở đây, hướng tiếp cận này được sử dụng để chỉ ra những mâu thuẫn và nghịch lý.
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Cities have always been important to processes of globalization and global change, past and present. Cities were the loci of empires, at least going back to the period when the Romans declared urbis et orbis — the City of Rome and the Orb... more
Cities have always been important to processes of globalization and global change, past and present. Cities were the loci of empires, at least going back to the period when the Romans declared urbis et orbis — the City of Rome and the Orb of the World are one. In the sixteenth century the City of Seville witnessed the return of the sailing vessel Victoria, carrying the first humans to circumnavigate the globe. From the nineteenth century to early twentieth century, the City of London was the centre of an empire that colonized more than a quarter of the total land-area of the earth. Following the Spanish Empire's use of the same epithet, London described itself as the metropole of an empire upon which the sun never set. While some writers give the impression that 'global cities' are a twentieth-century phenomenon and the movement of finance capital predominantly defines their global status, the globalization of all cities has been intensifying across a very long history. Nevertheless, while globalization and urbanization have been intertwined for centuries, there are a number of changes that suggest a qualitative shift across the last four or five decades. All of these developments have had a profound effect on social life. In this paper I want to examine each of these four domains of social life a little more closely and show that in each case there are no simple answers. Rather we are confronted by paradoxes, quandaries and cross-cutting challenges that require a different way of thinking about alternatives. First I want to draw out a few of these paradoxes. I will then use the same approach to suggest an integrated set of principles for making better cities. The approach taken here is called ‘Engaged Research’. It takes seriously the idea that social life is multifarious and cannot be reduced to the dominance of economic considerations nor to global imperatives. Because social life is complex, layered and changing, engaged research involves long-term exploration of the intersections of various conjunctural and contingent conditions of existence—cultural, economic, political and ecological.
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Since the arrival of the World Wide Web and the spread of mobile communications, mediated connectivity has been quietly normalized as central to a consolidating ‘global imaginary’. In conjunction with the concept (and practice) of the... more
Since the arrival of the World Wide Web and the spread of mobile communications, mediated connectivity has been quietly normalized as central to a consolidating ‘global imaginary’. In conjunction with the concept (and practice) of the ‘network’ and ‘networking’, connectivity has become foundational to an era of intensifying globalization—both objectively and subjectively. While communications-based and networked forms of connectivity represent, objectively, only one aspect of globalization, subjectively these forms have assumed an unprecedented centrality. Both this phenomenal sense and practical consciousness of the importance of ‘being connected’ has borne back upon mainstream writing in fields as diverse as sociology and the digital humanities—and not always in helpful ways. We argue in this chapter that one way out of this reductive tendency is to analyse the theme of connectivity through an understanding of different levels of social meaning: ideas, ideologies, imaginaries and ontologies. These are only analytical distinctions, and the notion of ‘levels’ serves as a metaphor designed to avoid the problem of analytical conflation. Still both of these concepts are both useful and necessary for showing—among other purposes—how the theme of connectivity can be valorised and taken for granted at the same time. What follows is our elaboration upon a method that we have been developing over the last few years as part of our efforts to produce ‘engaged theory’ that would help us understand the many aspects involved in the contemporary rise of a global imaginary. We contend that the theme of connectivity should be understood in terms of each of these levels of social meaning.
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This essay explores the meaning of Brexit. The culture/politics/economics of our time is stretched by raging contractions. This means that without emphasizing the contradictions themselves any analysis will be hopelessly out of its depth.... more
This essay explores the meaning of Brexit. The culture/politics/economics of our time is stretched by raging contractions. This means that without emphasizing the contradictions themselves any analysis will be hopelessly out of its depth. Four examples are developed, themes that are hard to express in newspaper headlines. The essay argues that we are seeing firstly the globalized resurgence of an inward-regarding nationalism; secondly, the globally fuelled intensification of a particular kind of localized democracy; thirdly, the local/global exacerbation of cross-cutting social divisions; and, fourthly, an increasingly dependency of national economies upon a global market that intensifying globalizing contradictions between national and global, modern and postmodern layers of the economy in turn renders increasingly fragile.
Research Interests:
Global organizations providing network relations for cities are bourgeoning. Organizations such as Metropolis, UN-Habitat, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Global Compact Cities Programme, and the C40, as well as... more
Global organizations providing network relations for cities are bourgeoning. Organizations such as Metropolis, UN-Habitat, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Global Compact Cities Programme, and the C40, as well as City-to-City arrangements, have become increasingly important to managing urban networking and global urban governance. The growing literature on global urban networking tends to assume that networking is bringing positive outcomes for urban
development and that increased connectivity is making a significant difference to enhancing political engagement in itself. In practice, there is considerable interchange
happening, and globally accessible websites and global newsletters outlining the latest and best practices are omnipresent. However, the extent to which networked
relations provide direct guidance for governance, let alone changes existing paradigms, remains utterly contestable.
development and that increased connectivity is making a significant difference to enhancing political engagement in itself. In practice, there is considerable interchange
happening, and globally accessible websites and global newsletters outlining the latest and best practices are omnipresent. However, the extent to which networked
relations provide direct guidance for governance, let alone changes existing paradigms, remains utterly contestable.
Research Interests:
The question of what it means to use the concepts of modernity and the modern sounds like an arcane theoretical concern. Were not those issues sorted out at the end of the twentieth century in the Great Debate between the moderns and... more
The question of what it means to use the concepts of modernity and the modern sounds like an arcane theoretical concern. Were not those issues sorted out at the end of the twentieth century in the Great Debate between the moderns and postmoderns? Did not the postmoderns win that struggle, only to disintegrate a decade later in their infinite recursions into relativism? Are not we now living in a time when we are all a bit modern and a bit postmodern, variously immersed in digital and personal networks of swirling meaning? The present essay uses these questions as a point of departure to go back to basics. It begins by exploring the general problem of defining modernity and the modern. It then focuses on Bruno Latour’s 'We Have Never Been Modern' because many
people have turned to this text as a way out of the modernist
problem.
people have turned to this text as a way out of the modernist
problem.
Research Interests:
Understanding how the identity of a Hutu person is different from a Tutsi and why nearly a million people were murdered in the name of this difference is not handled adequately in the current literature. Drawing on parts of the world as... more
Understanding how the identity of a Hutu person is different from a Tutsi and why nearly a million people were murdered in the name of this difference is not handled adequately in the current literature. Drawing on parts of the world as different as Rwanda and Sri Lanka, this essay takes up this theme through three main arguments. Firstly, categorizations about identity, even when hardened into ugly typologies by processes of colonization or state formation, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Secondly, negotiating ontological difference is foundational to what it means to be human. We cannot simply hope for the end of such negotiation and wish away categories of identity such as nation, ethnicity, religion and tribe. These categories are not the problem, so much as the ways in which
difference is negotiated, instrumentalized and shoved into typologies of hierarchical status. Negotiating the terms of identity through categories of difference is fundamental to questions of power, meaning, violence and creative social practice. Thirdly, while processes of categorization are part of
the human condition, modern processes of typologizing serve all too often to reconstitute and destructively distort older layered forms of identity. This is the source of practices as diverse as racism, chauvinism and genocide. Sometimes tensions between ontological formations can be positive, but all
too often instrumental use of these tensions in the contemporary world has led to aggressive violence and defensive mayhem. Running beneath all these arguments is the methodological proposition that, in order to get past either ‘clash of cultures’ descriptions or ‘flows of difference’ analyses, it is useful to develop a systemic understanding of ontological formations and their difficult intersection.
difference is negotiated, instrumentalized and shoved into typologies of hierarchical status. Negotiating the terms of identity through categories of difference is fundamental to questions of power, meaning, violence and creative social practice. Thirdly, while processes of categorization are part of
the human condition, modern processes of typologizing serve all too often to reconstitute and destructively distort older layered forms of identity. This is the source of practices as diverse as racism, chauvinism and genocide. Sometimes tensions between ontological formations can be positive, but all
too often instrumental use of these tensions in the contemporary world has led to aggressive violence and defensive mayhem. Running beneath all these arguments is the methodological proposition that, in order to get past either ‘clash of cultures’ descriptions or ‘flows of difference’ analyses, it is useful to develop a systemic understanding of ontological formations and their difficult intersection.
Research Interests:
In the early part of the twenty-first century, we are still engaged in ‘superlative degrees of comparison’. Planting trees will save the planet; individual action on climate change will make little difference. President Xi Jinping’s... more
In the early part of the twenty-first century, we are still engaged in ‘superlative degrees of comparison’. Planting trees will save the planet; individual action on climate change will make little difference. President Xi Jinping’s announcement in October 2014 that China agrees that its carbon emissions will only continue to rise for the next 16 years till 2030 was greeted with this familiar tension of superlative comparison: excitement that one cog in the global carbon-machine was tempering itself; and despair that it will be too late to mitigate 2 degrees temperature rise.
In continuity with earlier competing descriptions, both responses are perfectly defensible. However, two significant differences have emerged. Firstly, a new process that allows relative deferral of fundamental action on basic questions has slipped between the modern dialectical struts of hope and despair. This constant deferral of more than incremental structural changes to business–as-usual is carried by the contradictory idea that life on our planet can go on much as before, so long as it is supported by a ‘digital revolution’ and enhanced technological platforms.
In continuity with earlier competing descriptions, both responses are perfectly defensible. However, two significant differences have emerged. Firstly, a new process that allows relative deferral of fundamental action on basic questions has slipped between the modern dialectical struts of hope and despair. This constant deferral of more than incremental structural changes to business–as-usual is carried by the contradictory idea that life on our planet can go on much as before, so long as it is supported by a ‘digital revolution’ and enhanced technological platforms.
Research Interests:
Cosmopolitanism is a philosophy of our modern/postmodern times. Since the late-twentieth century, it has spread far beyond those few Greek Stoics, eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophes and nineteenth-century intellectuals who gave... more
Cosmopolitanism is a philosophy of our modern/postmodern times. Since the late-twentieth century, it has spread far beyond those few Greek Stoics, eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophes and nineteenth-century intellectuals who gave the ethos a long living lineage without naming it as such. At the same time, but intensifying over the past two or three decades, the global imaginary from which cosmopolitanism derives its ideological power has become increasingly compelling. Most activists and philosophers, including the many radical alter-globalization figures who now argue for localism, are culturally compelled to acknowledge that the local is related to the global.
Against this generalization, it is true that even positive global exchange between people concerned about fairness and justice, still has its nationalist, realist and provincial critics. However, for most part, cosmopolitanism has become the ideology of choice in a globalizing world. The problem for this kind of politics is that cosmopolitanism and grounded localism are usually brought together without explicitly working through their associated tensions. This essay attempts to do so.
The essay sets up an argument for having it both ways—a cosmopolitanism that is both grounded in the local and reaches across the global. This essay elaborates a form of engaged cosmopolitanism that seeks to recognize and work with the tensions between the global, national, regional and the local; between the universal, general and particular; and between the ethical and institutionalized. These tensions remain real and important. In the present argument, it is suggested that a positive reflexive politics needs to take different orientations of these tensions seriously.
The other task of the essay is to seek a more grounded basis for valuing cosmopolitanism as an ethic. Cosmopolitanism can be defined as a global-local politics that, firstly, projects a sociality of common political engagement among all human beings across the globe, and, secondly, suggests that this sociality should be ethically and/or organizationally privileged in relation to other forms of sociality. The key phrase for contestation here is ‘privileged in relation to’. Usually the phrase would be ‘privileged over’. In the ‘privileged over’ rendition, the global dimension of cosmopolitanism would be seen as primary. This, I suggest, is not helpful. Cosmopolitanism is not good in itself. However, even in the ‘privileged in relation to’ version, questions remain about what this means. Engaged cosmopolitanism is a particular form of cosmopolitanism that treats deliberative negotiation across levels of engagement as a way of handling these questions.
Against this generalization, it is true that even positive global exchange between people concerned about fairness and justice, still has its nationalist, realist and provincial critics. However, for most part, cosmopolitanism has become the ideology of choice in a globalizing world. The problem for this kind of politics is that cosmopolitanism and grounded localism are usually brought together without explicitly working through their associated tensions. This essay attempts to do so.
The essay sets up an argument for having it both ways—a cosmopolitanism that is both grounded in the local and reaches across the global. This essay elaborates a form of engaged cosmopolitanism that seeks to recognize and work with the tensions between the global, national, regional and the local; between the universal, general and particular; and between the ethical and institutionalized. These tensions remain real and important. In the present argument, it is suggested that a positive reflexive politics needs to take different orientations of these tensions seriously.
The other task of the essay is to seek a more grounded basis for valuing cosmopolitanism as an ethic. Cosmopolitanism can be defined as a global-local politics that, firstly, projects a sociality of common political engagement among all human beings across the globe, and, secondly, suggests that this sociality should be ethically and/or organizationally privileged in relation to other forms of sociality. The key phrase for contestation here is ‘privileged in relation to’. Usually the phrase would be ‘privileged over’. In the ‘privileged over’ rendition, the global dimension of cosmopolitanism would be seen as primary. This, I suggest, is not helpful. Cosmopolitanism is not good in itself. However, even in the ‘privileged in relation to’ version, questions remain about what this means. Engaged cosmopolitanism is a particular form of cosmopolitanism that treats deliberative negotiation across levels of engagement as a way of handling these questions.
Research Interests:
‘Globalization’ is an extraordinary concept. It is a complicated concept that burst upon the world relatively recently, but soon became a household concern. It is a concept that was rarely used until the 1990s, but processes of... more
‘Globalization’ is an extraordinary concept. It is a complicated concept that burst upon the world relatively recently, but soon became a household concern. It is a concept that was rarely used until the 1990s, but processes of globalization had been happening for centuries. This article follows the genealogy of the concept from its unlikely beginnings in the 1930s–1950s to the heated scholarly debates across the end of the twentieth century to the present. Before it became a buzz word, the concept of ‘globalization’ began to be used in the most unlikely fields: in education to describe the global life of the mind; in international relations to describe the extension of the European Common Market; and in journalism to describe how the ‘American Negro and his problem are taking on a global significance’. The article begins to answer the question ‘Through what lineages and processes did the concept of globalization become so important?’ Drawing on textual research and interviews with key originating figures in the field of global studies, the article attempts to get past the usual anecdotes about the formation and etymology of the concept that centre on alleged inventors of the term or references to first use of ‘globalization’ various dictionaries. The article tracks the careers of major scholars in relation to the career of the concept.
Research Interests:
Ontological design is a nascent practice that implies a paradigm shift in the theory and practice of architecture, urban design and design in general; it cannot be appealed to as if it were an independent agency or off-the-shelf method.... more
Ontological design is a nascent practice that implies a paradigm shift in the theory and practice of architecture, urban design and design in general; it cannot be appealed to as if it were an independent agency or off-the-shelf method. It requires the ontological transformation of us as designers. This essay proceeds by first outlining an approach to ontological difference. It goes onto to paint some rough pictures of the various ontological intersections in three Global Cities—Port Moresby, Dili and Johannesburg. This is done in ways that intentionally emphasizes problems and contradictions. This is done to set the scene for the last section of the essay: a discussion of how, using Port Moresby as an example, the city might be configured differently and more positively.
Establishing the foundations of ontological design requires attention to basic ontological categories—that is, fundamental categories of existence and how they are lived across human history. For the purposes of establishing a starting point, we use the terms of the ‘constitutive abstraction’ approach, a form of ‘engaged theory’ that begins with the ontological categories of space, time, embodiment, knowing and performing as foundational to being human (James 2006). Each of these terms summarizes the very different ways in which we live spatially and temporally as embodied persons, performing sociality in relation to others and nature, and knowing in different ways what it means to do so. The concept of ‘ontological formations’, or ‘ways or being’, is intended to name different formations in which a particular set of orientations or valences to basic categories of being, such as temporality and spatiality, frame the dominant practices and meanings of social life.
Establishing the foundations of ontological design requires attention to basic ontological categories—that is, fundamental categories of existence and how they are lived across human history. For the purposes of establishing a starting point, we use the terms of the ‘constitutive abstraction’ approach, a form of ‘engaged theory’ that begins with the ontological categories of space, time, embodiment, knowing and performing as foundational to being human (James 2006). Each of these terms summarizes the very different ways in which we live spatially and temporally as embodied persons, performing sociality in relation to others and nature, and knowing in different ways what it means to do so. The concept of ‘ontological formations’, or ‘ways or being’, is intended to name different formations in which a particular set of orientations or valences to basic categories of being, such as temporality and spatiality, frame the dominant practices and meanings of social life.
Research Interests:
Intensifying processes of globalization have led to a series of tensions around the way in which even the most cosmopolitan democracies now treat people who move across their borders. Non-citizens have become problems. The postcolonial... more
Intensifying processes of globalization have led to a series of tensions around the way in which even the most cosmopolitan democracies now treat people who move across their borders. Non-citizens have become problems. The postcolonial settler nation-states—Australia, Canada, the United States and others—were ‘founded’ by immigrants and refugees who moved globally to become citizens in these ‘new lands’. Such countries were made by migrants displacing indigenous others. However, in a conflict-ridden world in which the displacement of persons has become endemic—and in a media-connected world where the possibility of finding a better place to live has become increasingly imaginable and desired—these countries are now attempting to manage that global flow of people by stringent homeland security measures that are becoming increasingly problematic. While they are constituted through the modern imaginary of liberal democratic norms, human rights and rule of law, in each country over the last few years, rules have been bent, breached or bolstered in order to keep people out. The essay argues that given the globalization of people-movement, the nation-state has reached the limits of responding though unilateral or even regional multilateral arrangements.
Research Interests:
Petrarch stands at the top of Mount Ventoux and proclaims his longing to return home. His soul turns toward Italy. Yet Petrarch has no “home” as such, and Italy does not exist at this time except as a post-imperial territorial... more
Petrarch stands at the top of Mount Ventoux and proclaims his longing to return home. His soul turns toward Italy. Yet Petrarch has no “home” as such, and Italy does not exist at this time except as a post-imperial territorial designation. There certainly is no Italian nation. How can we understand these paradoxes? How does Petrarch’s passion relate to the question of nation formation? Through an exploration of Petrarch’s emotional responses to Italy, and by tracking his variable senses of space and time, this essay explores the tensions expressed by a deracinated intellectual caught between two different but contemporaneous ontological formations: the traditional and the modern. Here, the concept of “the traditional” is not treated as being the same as “the pre-modern.” Rather the essay works with a post-binary method of ontological valences or orientations. The colliding valences of Petrarch’s evocations are used to illustrate the ways we can open up alternative lines of inquiry into a crucial period in the life of Italy. The essay seeks an alternative to the mainstream tendency to either to make contentious overstatements or to slide into overcautious interpretative ambiguity.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Space and Place, and 14 morePoetry, Nationalism, Petrarch, Italy (History), National Identity, Philosophy of Time, Sociology of Intellectuals, Community, Medieval Italy, Writing systems, History of Nationalism and Nation-Building, Italy, Petrarchism, and Nationality
"Rather than getting buried in debates over the narrow version of security—namely, freedom from fear—versus the broad version of freedom both from fear and want, this chapter takes a couple of steps into the task of redefining human... more
"Rather than getting buried in debates over the narrow version of security—namely, freedom from fear—versus the broad version of freedom both from fear and want, this chapter takes a couple of steps into the task of redefining human security by treating security and risk as part of the contingent and negotiated condition of human living. In these terms, the liberal notion of “freedom from”, for all its importance, is exposed as a limited reduction of the richness of positive human security. Emphasizing what we want to escape “from” is to remain with the classical notion of negative freedom. Adding to this the concept of “freedom to”, that is, positive freedom, where people begin to debate the complex meaning of what it is to live with the tensions of both security and risk, is to take one step forward conceptually.
Taking freedom out of its currently privileged singular place at the centre of the discussion is to take a further step forward into a more complex sense of human flourishing. The alternative negotiated themes of human security that need to be brought into contention include the relationships between freedom and obligation, between security and risk, between needs and limits and between authority and participation, amongst many others. In relation to the security/risk dialectic, for example, there can never be total security from the risk of natural disaster. To project such a scenario of “zero risk” as Tepco and the Japanese Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency did for the Fukushima reactors prior to their meltdown is political myth-making. To attempt to achieve such a practical impossibility is a folly and would be to begin annul the terms of a second tension between needs and limits. On the other hand, treating security/risk as simply a cost-benefit ratio is to rationalize human needs as if they can be turned into an economic calculus of life and death, suffering and compensation.
"
Taking freedom out of its currently privileged singular place at the centre of the discussion is to take a further step forward into a more complex sense of human flourishing. The alternative negotiated themes of human security that need to be brought into contention include the relationships between freedom and obligation, between security and risk, between needs and limits and between authority and participation, amongst many others. In relation to the security/risk dialectic, for example, there can never be total security from the risk of natural disaster. To project such a scenario of “zero risk” as Tepco and the Japanese Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency did for the Fukushima reactors prior to their meltdown is political myth-making. To attempt to achieve such a practical impossibility is a folly and would be to begin annul the terms of a second tension between needs and limits. On the other hand, treating security/risk as simply a cost-benefit ratio is to rationalize human needs as if they can be turned into an economic calculus of life and death, suffering and compensation.
"
Research Interests:
One of the taken-for-granted frameworks of contemporary political theory and practice is that states provide security for their citizens. Going back to Max Weber’s classical definition of states as holding the legitimate monopoly over the... more
One of the taken-for-granted frameworks of contemporary political theory and practice is that states provide security for their citizens. Going back to Max Weber’s classical definition of states as holding the legitimate monopoly over the means of violence within a given territory, states have been seen as the protectors of the people who reside within their territorial boundaries. More recently, and in line with this definition, there has been serious concern expressed about weak or failing states contributing to foundational issues of human insecurity. Thus, regular calls go out for the necessity of state-building support for weak states. The other side of this process, one less often directly discussed, is that strong states are part of the problem. Strong states contribute to foundational issues of human insecurity through wars of ‘humanitarian’ or pre-emptive intervention, support for corrupt regimes, hard-line negotiation over resources, and insufficient action on existential issues such as climate change. The fall-out from a world-in-tension is that states, in attempting to secure the lives of their citizens, effect contradictory outcomes. The overall argument of this chapter is that attempts by strong states to re-secure aspects of their sovereignty are currently either making things worse or flattening out the possibilities of a more complex negotiated human security. One group of people who suffer the brunt of the unintended effects of securing the sovereignty of citizens are those who move across state borders without legally protected status. In the face of heightened security measures against certain kinds of cross-border movement, asylum seekers and others sometimes turn to ‘people smugglers’ to navigate their passage. In doing so, they confront a circle of insecurity. Citizens who read in newspapers of these transnational markets in human traffic feel increasingly insecure; and governments respond, in turn, with ever more restrictive, one-dimensional security management against unwanted flows. Closing the circle, this, for an increasing number of asylum seekers, makes people smugglers a necessary conduit to movement.
Research Interests:
Is religion an anachronism in an intensely globalizing and secular world? Despite commonplace assumptions that the world’s religions are anachronistic, examples of the intertwining of religion and globalization abound. A low-budget... more
Is religion an anachronism in an intensely globalizing and secular world? Despite commonplace assumptions that the world’s religions are anachronistic, examples of the intertwining of religion and globalization abound. A low-budget Islamaphobe film called Innocence of Muslims was recently posted on You Tube, picked up by an opportunistic TV host in Egypt, and set off a US Embassy attack in Cairo. It led to a global controversy with demonstrations in over 20 countries and internet argument around the world. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt and the Catholic Pope entered the debate. Soon after that, the increasingly frail Vatican leader decided to abdicate because his body was failing him. The subsequent period to replace the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church was attended to by millions around the world, including the 2.5 million who follow his Twitter account.
The central themes of the present essay can thus be expressed in two propositions. Firstly religion and globalization have been intertwined with each other since the early empires attempted to extend their reach across what they perceived to be world-space. Processes of globalization carried religious cosmologies—including traditional conceptions of universalism—to the corners of the world, while these cosmologies legitimated processes of globalization. This dynamic of inter-relation has continued to the present, but with changing and sometimes new and intensifying contradictions.
Secondly, contemporary religion needs to be understood in the context of a globalizing world in which given meanings have become radically destabilized and old ontological securities have been shaken to the core. Under these conditions, religion—as a relatively closed and ordered system of symbols, values, and moral purpose—is both fundamentally challenged and begins to take on a new appeal either as a radical critique of the mainstream world (through, for example, emancipatory theologies) or as mainstream reassertions of neo-traditional religiosity, such as in the examples of contemporary Pentecostalism.
The central themes of the present essay can thus be expressed in two propositions. Firstly religion and globalization have been intertwined with each other since the early empires attempted to extend their reach across what they perceived to be world-space. Processes of globalization carried religious cosmologies—including traditional conceptions of universalism—to the corners of the world, while these cosmologies legitimated processes of globalization. This dynamic of inter-relation has continued to the present, but with changing and sometimes new and intensifying contradictions.
Secondly, contemporary religion needs to be understood in the context of a globalizing world in which given meanings have become radically destabilized and old ontological securities have been shaken to the core. Under these conditions, religion—as a relatively closed and ordered system of symbols, values, and moral purpose—is both fundamentally challenged and begins to take on a new appeal either as a radical critique of the mainstream world (through, for example, emancipatory theologies) or as mainstream reassertions of neo-traditional religiosity, such as in the examples of contemporary Pentecostalism.
Research Interests:
The subjective dimensions of globalization have not received even close to the level of attention that has been paid to the objective dimensions of global interchange and extension. Seeking to rectify this neglect, we argue that the... more
The subjective dimensions of globalization have not received even close to the level of attention that has been paid to the objective dimensions of global interchange and extension. Seeking to rectify this neglect, we argue that the subjective dimensions of globalization can be conceptualized in terms of three dimensions or levels: ideologies, imaginaries, and ontologies. The Occupy Movement in several global locations seeks to challenge global capitalism as the dominant system of economics. At the ideological level, activists connected to Occupy tend to engage in fijerce contestation of the global structuring of greed, thus exhibiting clear signs of global rebellion. However, the terms of debate and critique tend to become increasingly uncontested as we go deeper into examining the dominant social imaginary and the ontologies of modern time and space that underpin this general sense of the global. Occupy is clearly an important variant of “justice globalism” that has inspired scores of young activists to protest against increasing inequal-ity and the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority. Still, we suggest that this important alter-globalization movement often works within many of the same subjective frameworks and precepts as the market-globalist world that it criticizes.
Research Interests: Social Movements, Globalization, Visual Culture, Global Civil Society, Global media, and 15 moreIdeology, Culture, Resistance (Social), Culture Studies, Subjectivity (Identity Politics), Social Ontology, Theories of Ideology, Neoliberalism, Global History, Social Exclusion, Globalization and Media, Ideology and Discourse Theory, Power, Cultural Globalization, and Occupy Wall Street
Existing approaches to sustainability assessment are typically characterized as being either ‘‘top–down’’ or ‘‘bottom–up.’’ While top–down approaches are commonly adopted by businesses, bottom–up approaches are more often adopted by civil... more
Existing approaches to sustainability assessment are typically characterized as being either ‘‘top–down’’ or ‘‘bottom–up.’’ While top–down approaches are commonly adopted by businesses, bottom–up approaches are more often adopted by civil society
organizations and communities. Top–down approaches clearly favor standardization and commensurability between other sustainability assessment efforts, to the potential exclusion
of issues that really matter on the ground. Conversely, bottom–up approaches enable sustainability initiatives to speak directly to the concerns and issues of communities, but lack a basis for comparability. While there are clearly contexts in which one approach can be favored over another, it is equally desirable to develop mechanisms that mediate between both. In this paper, we outline a methodology for framing sustainability assessment
and developing indicator sets that aim to bridge these two approaches. The methodology incorporates common components of bottom–up assessment: constituency-based engagement processes and opportunity to identify critical issues and indicators. At the same time, it uses the idea of a ‘‘knowledge base,’’ to help with the selection of standardized, top–down indicators. We briefly describe two projects where the aspects of the methodology have been trialed with urban governments and communities, and then present the methodology in full, with an accompanying description of a supporting software system.
organizations and communities. Top–down approaches clearly favor standardization and commensurability between other sustainability assessment efforts, to the potential exclusion
of issues that really matter on the ground. Conversely, bottom–up approaches enable sustainability initiatives to speak directly to the concerns and issues of communities, but lack a basis for comparability. While there are clearly contexts in which one approach can be favored over another, it is equally desirable to develop mechanisms that mediate between both. In this paper, we outline a methodology for framing sustainability assessment
and developing indicator sets that aim to bridge these two approaches. The methodology incorporates common components of bottom–up assessment: constituency-based engagement processes and opportunity to identify critical issues and indicators. At the same time, it uses the idea of a ‘‘knowledge base,’’ to help with the selection of standardized, top–down indicators. We briefly describe two projects where the aspects of the methodology have been trialed with urban governments and communities, and then present the methodology in full, with an accompanying description of a supporting software system.
Research Interests: Assessment, Ethics & Social Sustainability, Sustainability Indicators, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Urban Environments, and 6 moreEnvironmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainability Reporting, Ecological Indicators, Integrated Reporting, and Sustainability in construction industry
Two defining influences of the last hundred years have been population growth and rapid urbanization. At the start of the twenty-first century, it was recognized, often with an element of shock, that more than half of the world’s... more
Two defining influences of the last hundred years have been population growth and rapid urbanization. At the start of the twenty-first century, it was recognized, often with an element of shock, that more than half of the world’s population had become concentrated in urban areas. It is now clear that this trend is continuing unabated as people move from rural to urban areas, lured by what is perceived as enhanced opportunities. This chapter, based on the work of Metropolis’s Commission 2, Managing Urban Growth, explores the importance of managing urban growth as a manifold and integrated process, involving many initiatives and bringing together governments, municipalities, civil society, and business. We begin with a discussion of the challenges, move to discuss the various domains in which urban growth management should be considered, and then emphasize a series of dialectic tensions that require careful negotiation: authority–participation, inclusion–exclusion and needs–limits.
Research Interests:
The biography of a nation is not the same as the biography of a person. That much is simple. One is about a single person’s life history and the other is about the formation of a community of persons. On the other hand, analytically... more
The biography of a nation is not the same as the biography of a person. That
much is simple. One is about a single person’s life history and the other is about
the formation of a community of persons. On the other hand, analytically
describing how a biographical method can be used for both persons and nations
is not straightforward. The central crossover occurs in the concept of ‘the social’.
An individual identity, like the projection of a national identity, is a social
identity. Thus, biographies, whether of persons or of nations, are specific social
genealogies, social histories, social mappings—call them what you like—graphic
narratives of the bios or ‘ways of life’ of a person or community of persons. In
this understanding, ‘the social’ is thus not just a background context, nor is
it just another dimension to be considered among others. The social does not
act as the stage on which characters walk around. The social is us—as persons
and communities. In this sense, the ‘social context’ is a complex metaphor that
describes our interrelations with others and with nature, including particular
spatial configurations, specific organisational contexts and distinctive self-andother
understood histories, whether they be personal or national. The notion of
a ‘social context’ can thus be a useful metaphor, but it is too often abused.
Taking this issue as its touch-point, this essay draws on the other papers presented
at the Nationalism and Biography conference to explore a ‘constitutive levels’
approach to understanding the social biographies of both nations and persons.
much is simple. One is about a single person’s life history and the other is about
the formation of a community of persons. On the other hand, analytically
describing how a biographical method can be used for both persons and nations
is not straightforward. The central crossover occurs in the concept of ‘the social’.
An individual identity, like the projection of a national identity, is a social
identity. Thus, biographies, whether of persons or of nations, are specific social
genealogies, social histories, social mappings—call them what you like—graphic
narratives of the bios or ‘ways of life’ of a person or community of persons. In
this understanding, ‘the social’ is thus not just a background context, nor is
it just another dimension to be considered among others. The social does not
act as the stage on which characters walk around. The social is us—as persons
and communities. In this sense, the ‘social context’ is a complex metaphor that
describes our interrelations with others and with nature, including particular
spatial configurations, specific organisational contexts and distinctive self-andother
understood histories, whether they be personal or national. The notion of
a ‘social context’ can thus be a useful metaphor, but it is too often abused.
Taking this issue as its touch-point, this essay draws on the other papers presented
at the Nationalism and Biography conference to explore a ‘constitutive levels’
approach to understanding the social biographies of both nations and persons.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, and 11 moreCultural Policy, Sociology of Knowledge, Nationalism, Culture, Biographical Methods, Social History, Epistemology of the Social Sciences, Cultural Globalization, Classical and Contemporary Social Theory, Historical and Comparative Sociology, and Sociology of the State
As the dominant site and sign of human settlement, the city exemplifies and displays the fundamental concerns of the human condition in the twenty-first century. Just as urban living concentrates us in close proximity, the city clusters... more
As the dominant site and sign of human settlement, the city exemplifies and displays the fundamental concerns of the human condition in the twenty-first century. Just as urban living concentrates us in close proximity, the city clusters clichés and sermons, critiques and self-serving assurances. The world’s most liveable cities are well planned and prosperous. Slums are disgusting. Congestion causes road rage. Electric vehicles are the answer. Planning is good.
But why, if we seem to be able to identify the core problem, do our cities continue to slide into a slow and generalized crisis? Across the world we are facing crises of sustainability, resilience, and adaptation. Our cities have become sprawling, bloated, impossible. In the meantime our politicians squabble over schedules, timetables, and buck-stops. From problems associated with climate change or sustainable water supply to those concerning increasing economic inequality or the break-up of communities, processes such as escalating resource use and cultural anomie that we once responded to as singular concerns are now bearing back upon us in a swirl of compounding pressures.
But why, if we seem to be able to identify the core problem, do our cities continue to slide into a slow and generalized crisis? Across the world we are facing crises of sustainability, resilience, and adaptation. Our cities have become sprawling, bloated, impossible. In the meantime our politicians squabble over schedules, timetables, and buck-stops. From problems associated with climate change or sustainable water supply to those concerning increasing economic inequality or the break-up of communities, processes such as escalating resource use and cultural anomie that we once responded to as singular concerns are now bearing back upon us in a swirl of compounding pressures.
Research Interests:
Understanding the uneven resilience of communities has been a preoccupation of the social sciences since the nineteenth century. Classical social theory and sociology was preoccupied with themes and questions about the cohesion, stability... more
Understanding the uneven resilience of communities has been a preoccupation of the social sciences since the nineteenth century. Classical social theory and sociology was preoccupied with themes and questions about the cohesion, stability and integration of communities. While terminology has changed, debates in this area are still to be resolved. Despite, or perhaps because of this lack of resolution, enquiry over the past two decades has shifted sideways to potentially more fruitful lines of inquiry. The task of understanding “society”, and more locally, “community”, has increasingly intersected with a new set of preoccupations—sustainability, wellbeing and quality of life. The underlying task of enquiry thus has moved, at least rhetorically, from questions of social structure, regulation and function, to more agency-focussed questions dealing with issues such as sense of sustainability, community, wellbeing, quality of life, security from ‘risk’ or inclusion and participation.
It is in this context that we developed a questionnaire instrument that provides an integrated assessment of community sustainability. The particular instrument we introduce is oriented towards these dilemmas in the following ways. It aims to measure the subjective attitudes of a community towards sustainability. It is geared towards understanding these attitudes both individually and as they relate towards the community as a whole, thereby treating community as a distinct and irreducible entity. It focuses upon both present wellbeing and future sustainability of the community. Finally, it adopts a “top–down” approach, where variables are predefined.
It is in this context that we developed a questionnaire instrument that provides an integrated assessment of community sustainability. The particular instrument we introduce is oriented towards these dilemmas in the following ways. It aims to measure the subjective attitudes of a community towards sustainability. It is geared towards understanding these attitudes both individually and as they relate towards the community as a whole, thereby treating community as a distinct and irreducible entity. It focuses upon both present wellbeing and future sustainability of the community. Finally, it adopts a “top–down” approach, where variables are predefined.
Research Interests:
How do ‘we’ in the wealthy parts of the world rationalize our constant deferral of doing anything much, beyond symbolic moments of ameliorative action, about the problems starkly presented every night on the world news? Intensifying... more
How do ‘we’ in the wealthy parts of the world rationalize our constant deferral of doing anything much, beyond symbolic moments of ameliorative action, about the problems starkly presented every night on the world news? Intensifying globalization, from electronic capitalism to techno-science, has drawn the fate of the world into an ever-tightening orbit. Indeed, the plight of others has become increasingly immediate. Images of crisis abound. However, despite the presence of these crises—including projections of global climate change, food insecurity and the deaths of over three million children a year from malnutrition in the global South—life goes on in the North. While there are many ways to approach such an issue, this article asks, ‘What kind of individualism, and what kinds of values and norms, allow for the deferral of an alternative politics of consequence?’ Part of the answer, it argues, is found in a form of projective individualism. This we suggest is a dominant condition of the autonomous personhood long associated with modernization and globalization. It is asserted that desires for self-improvement and self-affirmation have emerged as commonsense understandings of life’s possibilities. In this situation, persons are confronted with a tension between the joyfulness of achieving desires and the world-weariness which accompanies awareness of the scale of global problems. The article examines how the purveyors of a form of soft consumption have stepped in to ameliorate this tension, offering new places and experiences—third spaces of comfortable pleasure, ethically adjudicated experiences—that address the cultural and political needs of projective individuals. Through a series of examples, the article argues that projective individualism prompts a form of sympathy-without-empathy that undermines possibilities for solidarity with the Global South on social and environmental issues.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Social Theory, Media Studies, Globalization, Visual Culture, and 10 moreParticipatory Culture, Digital Culture, Culture, Culture Studies, Subjectivity (Culture), Subjectivity (Identity Politics), Social History, Culture and Communication, Consumption and Material Culture, and Material Culture
Cities, from their precincts to their hinterlands, have always been critical for the sustainable development. At the same time, sustainable development now faces unprecedented and increasing challenges. The complexities of contemporary... more
Cities, from their precincts to their hinterlands, have always been critical for the sustainable development. At the same time, sustainable development now faces unprecedented and increasing challenges. The complexities of contemporary social life are compounding. It is not just climate change and ecological crisis that we are confronted with, including what is now being called the Great Acceleration of resource-use and ‘the sixth extinction’ of species. We are also faced with economic unsettling and tensions over increasing inequalities, crises of cultural meaning and upheavals of politics, which taken together add up to a Great Unsettling. ‘Principles for Better Cities’ is a collective response to that set of tensions. The document attempts to meet those contradictory needs by outlining a set of layered principles (Part I) while providing a method for translating between other existing charters, frameworks and sets of principles such as the Sustainable Development Goals (Part II). This document was commissioned by the Sustainable Cities Collaboratory and the City of Berlin to guide cities through the complexity of creating vital, sustainable, productive and relational places to live. It is one of the outcomes of the Metropolis project 'Sustainable Cities Collaboratory' led by the City of Berlin.
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This report assesses the Spatial Development Plan for Trinidad and Tobago. It argues that the Plan is positive and generally optimistic. However, in light of the likely challenges a small nation-state like Trinidad and Tobago is likely to... more
This report assesses the Spatial Development Plan for Trinidad and Tobago. It argues that the Plan is positive and generally optimistic. However, in light of the likely challenges a small nation-state like Trinidad and Tobago is likely to face, we suggest that substantial additional work needs to be done to elucidate and specify challenges and threats. It would be useful in future to develop a deeper sense of potential threats to the vision of sustainability that is expressed in the Strategy. Some pointed concerns would include the following:
• The impact of global climate change and the development of an adaptation policy framework.
• The consequence of global economic instability—particularly concerning fluctuations in the price of oil, and the country’s dependence on imports, including most acutely even food. Food insecurity is one of the critical issues that is only just beginning to bear down upon small economies.
• The possibility, however seemingly remote, of internal unrest—particularly given emergent responses to economic inequality, social differences between the island Trinidad and the island of Tobago, and the potential of increasing inequalities between regions on the island of Trinidad.
• The probability of increasing sprawl, or suburbanization of an unsustainable kind, with settlements stretching down the west coast of Trinidad in a way that hinders good development.
• The ongoing impact of organized crime—particularly given Trinidad and Tobago’s position relative to drug trafficking between Columbia, Venezuela and the United States and European markets.
• The impact of global climate change and the development of an adaptation policy framework.
• The consequence of global economic instability—particularly concerning fluctuations in the price of oil, and the country’s dependence on imports, including most acutely even food. Food insecurity is one of the critical issues that is only just beginning to bear down upon small economies.
• The possibility, however seemingly remote, of internal unrest—particularly given emergent responses to economic inequality, social differences between the island Trinidad and the island of Tobago, and the potential of increasing inequalities between regions on the island of Trinidad.
• The probability of increasing sprawl, or suburbanization of an unsustainable kind, with settlements stretching down the west coast of Trinidad in a way that hinders good development.
• The ongoing impact of organized crime—particularly given Trinidad and Tobago’s position relative to drug trafficking between Columbia, Venezuela and the United States and European markets.
Research Interests:
Culture is a fundamental domain of social life. However, there are currently no developed guidelines for assessing the cultural impact, sustainability or vibrancy of cultural development. While well-established economic and environmental... more
Culture is a fundamental domain of social life. However, there are currently no developed guidelines for assessing the cultural impact, sustainability or vibrancy of cultural development. While well-established economic and environmental impact assessments exist, in the domain of culture there are no more than a series of beginnings in the fields of heritage and indigenous studies. The overall goal of this Report is to develop the principles, protocols, indicators and tools for a cultural impact assessment process. The Report was commissioned in the framework of the revision of Agenda 21 for culture (2013-2015) and it also contributes to the activities of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for Post-2015 Development Agenda towards Habitat III (2016).
Research Interests:
La culture est un domaine fondamental de la vie sociale. Il n’existe cependant pas pour le moment de protocoles pour évaluer l’impact, la durabilité ou la vitalité du développement culturel. S’il existe de bonnes évaluations de l’impact... more
La culture est un domaine fondamental de la vie sociale. Il n’existe cependant pas pour le moment de protocoles pour évaluer l’impact, la durabilité ou la vitalité du développement culturel. S’il existe de bonnes évaluations de l’impact économique et environnemental, dans le domaine de la culture on n’en est qu’à des balbutiements dans des aspects relatifs au patrimoine et aux études des peuples autochtones. Le but principal de cet article est de développer les principes, les protocoles, les indicateurs et les outils pour le processus d’évaluation de l’impact culturel. En voici les objectifs :
• S’assurer que le processus d’évaluation culturel fonctionne pour les projets à base urbaine et est applicable dans différentes villes à travers le monde, en tenant compte de leurs différentes formes ;
• S’assurer que le processus répond aux besoins des cités et gouvernements locaux par rapport à un certain nombre de conditions préalables telles qu’être accessible, se baser sur l’apprentissage, être simple d’un point de vue graphique, être construit autour d’un engagement de participation, etc.; et
• Offrir une base de recherche qui étaye les bonnes pratiques dans cette zone.
• S’assurer que le processus d’évaluation culturel fonctionne pour les projets à base urbaine et est applicable dans différentes villes à travers le monde, en tenant compte de leurs différentes formes ;
• S’assurer que le processus répond aux besoins des cités et gouvernements locaux par rapport à un certain nombre de conditions préalables telles qu’être accessible, se baser sur l’apprentissage, être simple d’un point de vue graphique, être construit autour d’un engagement de participation, etc.; et
• Offrir une base de recherche qui étaye les bonnes pratiques dans cette zone.
Research Interests:
The various dimensions of climate change remain uncertain. It is doubtful whether the aim of limiting temperature increase to no more than two degrees can be adhered to. Mitigation remains essential, but it needs to be supplemented by... more
The various dimensions of climate change remain uncertain. It is doubtful whether the aim of limiting temperature increase to no more than two degrees can be adhered to. Mitigation remains essential, but it needs to be supplemented by adaptation. In the best possible case, responsive measures will involve synergy effects between mitigation and adaptation. It is therefore necessary to achieve a balance between effective CO2 reduction (mitigation) and adaptive social responses to those impacts of climate change which are anticipated (adaptation). This requires that we pursue long-term objectives which require action to be taken here and now in a sustainable way in order to adapt to climate change and make cities more resilient. Such action is best conceived around clear principles and a systematic sense of the comprehensiveness of what is to be done. Hence our No Regrets Charter.
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Rea Vaya, Johannesburg‘s Rapid Bus Transit system, was initiated in 2006 and three years later — in August 2009 — the first dedicated trunk route was operationalised from Soweto in the south-west to the inner city of Johannesburg. In... more
Rea Vaya, Johannesburg‘s Rapid Bus Transit system, was initiated in 2006 and three years later — in August 2009 — the first dedicated trunk route was operationalised from Soweto in the south-west to the inner city of Johannesburg. In 2013, at the time of the project, this Phase 1A service carried 43,000 passengers per day and traveled 6.5 million kms per annum on the trunk, as well as linking to feeder and complementary buses that travel in mixed traffic. The decision on the selection of the route was influenced by the facts that it is a high-demand corridor which links Soweto to Sandton and thus the poor south with the rich north. Moreover, it linked the Soccer City and Ellis Park Stadiums to the ‘accommodation hub’ in Sandton during the FIFA World Cup in 2010. In 2013, the BRT covered 25 kms of a dedicated trunk route for 18-metre articulated buses. The project involved a Peer Review assessment of the Rea Vaya system to provide guidance on future developments.