Perspectives on City Scales and Cosmopolitan Cultures

Date: 12-14 May 2008 (12 May: Open to NUS staff and students; 13-14 May: closed door sessions)
Time: 9am-5.30pm
Location: USP Conference Room, ADM Block, Level 7.

• Jointly organized by FASS Migration Cluster and FASS Global Cities Cluster, Asia Research Institute
• In conjunction with the Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures, University of Manchester.
• Organising committee:
  Dr Pow Choon Piew
  A/P Tracey Skelton
  Prof Brenda Yeoh
  A/P Ho Kong Chong
  A/P Robbie Goh
  A/P Kalyani Mehta
  A/P Tan Sor Hoon
  Dr Asato Saito
  Dr Lai Ah Eng
  Dr Francis Collins

Contemporary debates on cosmopolitanism often revolve around contradictions and tensions between universal /moral idealism and the situated everyday life in particular locale and culture. This workshop aims to bring together scholars and researchers from different regions to engage in a fruitful dialogue and debate on ‘actually existing cosmopolitanism’ (Robbins 1998) with the aim of developing comparative perspectives on the diverse range of urban experiences in cities across Europe and Asia. The proposed workshop will focus on the following topics:

1. Governing the Urban.
Within this theme the ways in which cities as cosmopolitan spaces are governed, structured, monitored and contested will be investigated. What roles do the nation-states and city based-authorities play in restricting or opening up cityscapes to a variety of actors, agents and participants? What are the spatialities of governance and how are these mapped onto the social, economic and political spaces of the city? Which groups are included or excluded from governance processes within cities? Is the city a site of compliance with, or resistance to, processes of governance? How do governance and neo-liberal processes intersect to create particular social relations and patterns within the city? What are the relative roles of urban authorities and civil society - do they intersect around cosmopolitanism as practice and if so in what way; what are the tensions and connections?

2. Selling the City
How are cities selling themselves as cosmopolitan destinations in order to attract investments and visitors and what are some of the contradictions and social-spatial conflicts resulting from such endeavours? What are some of the problems that arise from the neoliberal articulation of cosmopolitan place-branding and how can we understand the relations between the state, market and urban citizenship?

3. Geographies of Everyday Cosmopolitanism
How is cosmopolitanism actually lived and experienced in the everyday life and urban spaces? How might everyday cosmopolitanism depart from and even challenge conventional notions and/or celebratory accounts of cosmopolitanism. And to what extent can the everyday mundane and even banal urban experiences in diverse locales inform theoretical debates on actually existing cosmopolitanism?

Please click here for the detailed programme.


Registration

Persons interested in attending the workshop should email their name, affiliation and email address to the following address: fasswe@nus.edu.sg by 7 May 2008.