Urban Anthropology

Adrien Fauve (University of Paris-Sud), Alima Bissenova (Nazarbayev University) and Ed Schatz (University of Toronto) review Mateusz Laszczkowski's 'City of the Future': Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana, with a response by the author.

Infrastructural practices, made by the manipulations of pumps, pipes and hydraulic expertise, play a critical role in managing urban populations. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in Mumbai, in this article I show how Muslim settlers in a northern suburb are being rendered abject residents of the city. Abjection isn’t not a lack of social and political entitlements, but a denial of them. As Muslim settlers are being pushed down to claim less desirable water through the deliberate inaction of city engineers and technocrats, this article shows the iterative process through which abjection is made through tenuous and contentious infrastructural connections between the government and the governed.

Ochocientas casitas unifamiliares de planta baja en la orilla del río Besós, cada una de un color diferente, comprimidas entre una zona industrial semiabandonada y la nueva Barcelona del AVE y del Fòrum. En este lugar de márgen, desconocido y estigmatizado, grupos de migrantes y autóctonos lucharon juntos para crear un paisaje humano excepcionalmente denso y rebelde: un barrio anticlerical y anarcosindicalista, en el cual la resistencia duró ochenta años, donde buscaron amparo Buenaventura Durruti, Quico Sabater y un sinfin de excluidos e indeseados de todos los sitios y de todas las épocas.

Mientras las excavadoras del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona avanzan en el derribo de esta ciudad horizontal, un grupo de habitantes retoma la histórica tradición de lucha del barrio para oponerse al nuevo urbanismo de bloques de pisos, reivindicando la importancia de sus calles, de sus estilos de vida, y de la convivencialidad que permitía la forma urbana de qué se habían apropiado.

Este trabajo es el resultado de una implicación a la vez etnográfica, política y humana con el barrio de Bon Pastor durante los años del derribo (2002-2012), para desvelar la profundidad del trauma que representa la desaparición progresiva de un barrio, con sus memorias de autogestión y autonomía, con su vida cotidiana basada en la proximidad, con sus fiestas que servían para resolver conflictos, y de sus conflictos que creaban comunidad.

Abstract:  This paper presents an argument for considering issues of class in analyses of communicative planning projects. In these projects, class interests tend to be obscured by the contemporary preoccupation with the class-ambiguous category of “community”. Through a case study of a project of urban redevelopment at King's Cross in London, we conceptualize and map class interests in an urban redevelopment project. Three aspects of the planning process that contain clear class effects are looked at: the amount of office space, the flexibility of plans, and the appropriation of the urban environment as exchange or use value. These aspects structure the urban redevelopment but are external to the communicative planning process. The opposition to the redevelopment has in the planning discourse been articulated as “community”-based rather than in class-sensitive terms. We finally present three strategies for reinserting issues of class into planning theory and practice.

During the 1990s, a long historical cycle of Bucharest came to an end. From the mid-19th century on, industry became an important economic and cultural presence in Bucharest's landscape. During the last 10-15 years it began to contract. Along with other urban processes such as urbanization, gentrification and emergence of ghettos, deindustrialization represents a major trend in Bucharest's recent history. Deindustrialization is both an economic and a cultural transformation. This volume uses insights from urban geography, heritage studies and urban history in order to understand the landscape of deindustrialization, situated between the fetish of gated communities and post-industrial wasteland.

Contents:

Chapter 1. Dezindustrialization and changes of urban landscape
Chapter 2. Postindustrial nostalgia, industrial heritage and refunctionalization
Chapter 3. The geography, history and the memory of Bucharest's industrialization
Chapter 4. Current usage of industrial spaces and the new urban landscape
Chapter 5. The social life of industrial ruins: The cultural reinsertion of industrial spaces

"Aux frontières de l’achevé, de l’établi, de l’ordonné, du centre et du dominant, se trouvent le précaire, l’instable, le désordre, la périphérie et le dominé : une relation dynamique voire conflictuelle existe entre ces deux réalités, qui est celle du faire-ville."

Table des matières:

Avant-propos
Introduction. De l’ethnographie des marges à l’anthropologie de la ville

Première partie. La ville des anthropologues
Chapitre 1. La ville comme hologramme
Chapitre 2. Les savoirs urbains de l’anthropologie
Chapitre 3. Les situations élémentaires de la vie urbaine

Deuxième partie. La ville à l’œuvre
Chapitre 4. Ce qui rend la ville familière
Chapitre 5. Lieux, non-lieux, hors-lieux
Chapitre 6. Brouillons de ville

Troisième partie. La ville en mouvements
Chapitre 7. La culture des villes, ou l’habit d’Arlequin
Chapitre 8. Imaginaire et politique des marges
Chapitre 9. Occupations, invasions, installations : l’agir urbain

Conclusion. Du « droit à la ville » au « faire-ville »

Situated in the heart of Paris, France, Père-Lachaise is a magnificent monumental cemetery with more than two centuries of history. Every year 2.5 million people visit Père-Lachaise as if it was a big open air museum; every day hundreds of Parisians decide to go to Père-Lachaise for a walk, to meet other people and do open air activities. For many people who live in the same neighbourhood as the cemetery, it is a recognized place and a precious source of income. So, besides its principal function as a necropolis, the cemetery has become a unique and extremely complex place, where collective memory is connected to particular ideologies of resistance and transgression. It's a multifunctional space which allows and encourages practices and behaviors elsewhere unthinkable. For example, Père-Lachaise is one of the favourite places of eroticism in Paris. Transgression marks, in different forms and in a deep way, the daily life and perception of the world's most famous cemetery.

Initially, euro-maidan that started on Maidan Nezalezhnosty/Independence Square on Nov 21, 2013 in Kyiv was intended to be a peaceful protest. But on Nov 30, after the riot police detained dozens of protesters in a violent crackdown it has become massive/mass and open-ended. After 22 Jan 2014 when two protesters were killed during clashes with police, protests spread across the country. Having become a metaphor, Euromaidan in Kyiv celebrates its rebellious character and appears to be not just a protest, but a self-managed civic body with its everyday routines, toponyms and spatial practices living a life of its own in the very center of the city. Through several situated 'group-identities' (e.g. self-defense, kitchen aid, doctors-volunteers, automobile-maidan, and volunteers of the hospital-guard) we look at the ways the city inhabitants have organized themselves to reclaim their basic civic rights and to govern the urban commons. The special interest presents the mapping of 'euromaidan' as a spatial configuration that occupies certain space and interacts with the rest of the city (segregated and sometimes even aggressive) on the principles of a military camp, however freely accessible for all; we also intend to analyze the practice of building the barricades that refers to the practices of urban revolutions, the ones the city did not experience in previous times. In all its complexity, euromaidan could be grasped as a metaphor of civility, as reclaiming the public life in a city, thus turning segregated and commercialized spaces into inclusive public ones. 

Coauthors: Dr. Svitlana Shlipchenko

Like other towns that are the product of a colonial history, Angolan towns are usually described in dualist terms that refer to, on the one hand, a ‘centre’ and, on the other, a ‘periphery’. This dualist description of Angolan urban space is expressed in the case of Luanda through the terms of baixa and musseque and in the case of Benguela through cidade and bairro. Even if Angolan towns are in reality more complex and heterogeneous than what this conceptual duality portrays, these terms are widely employed and their use strongly entrenched in Angolan society. Looking at the case of Benguela, this article explores the usage of the duality bairro and cidade and argues, following Bourdieu, that these terms function as classificatory categories with strong symbolic power, through which cidade is associated with the urban, order and the ‘proper place’, and bairro with the sub-urban, disorder and chaos. The article further argues that the symbolic power of cidade is predicated on historical, social, economic, cultural and political relationships with ‘development’.

Urban pride is an individual and collective response to living in a given city. Unlike other emotions such as life satisfaction or happiness with which it is weakly positively correlated, pride involves stake holding; to be proud of something requires having an investment in its success emotionally, financially or culturally. For this study I specify a multilevel model based on responses to a five category survey question which asks residents how proud they are in the ‘look and feel of their city’. Responses to the 2008 survey are distributed over almost 6000 residents across 12 cities in New Zealand. Although the primary variation is among individuals, urban pride also varies by city and I show how differences in urban context affect the way different types of stake holding temper urban pride. JEL classification: R19, R590, I390, H890

RESUMEN
La relación interna entre filosofía, literatura y arte permite examinar con propiedad qué significan la pluralidad y complejidad en los usos de la razón. Posibilita la aproximación a esos usos y figuras desde un ángulo privilegiado. El interés por lo literario y artístico no tendría por qué significar un apresurado abandono del modelo discursivo y analítico -que es característico de la filosofía-, sino más bien el acceso a un punto de vista más completo, un nuevo método reflexivo, otro límite crítico. Esta perspectiva facilita la puesta al día de las tesis modernas sobre la filosofía como emancipación, esto es, como su salida de la minoría de edad.
Espacios ficcionales, campos de proyección de la experiencia, métodos y perspectivas trasdisciplinarias constituyen los distintos niveles a través de los cuales se trata de definir un nexo complejo entre discursos. La ficción como conocimiento, subjetividad y texto, así como la relación entre mundo y lenguaje pretenden acotar algunas dimensiones de esa relación.
A través de la literatura llegamos a estar familiarizados con situaciones, sentimientos, formas de vida, obteniendo así una mirada desde dentro -epistemológicamente empática-. Cada nueva visión del mundo constituye un nuevo tipo de conocimiento, un conocimiento que puede incluir aspectos cognitivos y emotivos y que demandará, probablemente, algún tipo de lógica paraconsistente. De modo que a la par que por nuestras narrativas creamos o descubrimos mundos (dependiendo del estatuto ontológico otorgado a la ficción) también establecemos o desentrañamos la legislación lógica, según la cual tal curso de sucesos o tal tipo de entidades son o no admisibles al interior de este particular mundo posible.
Precisamente, es en la constante re-creación de sus objetos, práctica que surge en una comunidad de problemas -un espacio de representación colectiva- el espacio en que se da la ciencia. Es, precisamente, en una particular forma de hablar y de referirse a objetos, creándolos con el habla, el que funda a la medicina -por ejemplo- como cuerpo autónomo de conocimientos, vale decir como ciencia de primer orden. Las disciplinas, pues, en tanto discursos, están, literalmente, constituidas por él. Por ello es necesario estudiar el discurso científico en tanto que discurso, hay que reflexionar sobre sus orígenes y modo de constitución, hay que aceptar que no es sólo un producto sino una fuerza productiva. La realidad es una narrativa exitosa. Es aquello que se hace hablando. Las comunidades científicas son comunidades de problemas y, sobre todo, de retóricas, reconstrucciones de objetos que sólo existen en tanto se habla de ellos de una determinada manera,
Hasta los mundos narrativos más imposibles tienen como fondo lo que es posible en el mundo que concebimos como real. Las entidades y situaciones que no son explícitamente nombradas y descritas como diferentes del mundo real son entendidas a partir de las leyes que aplicamos a la comprensión del mundo real.
Así, pues, la narración de ficción construye un modelo análogo del universo real, una proyección...lo que permite conocer la estructura y los procesos internos de la realidad y manipularla cognitivamente. Se otorga así un valor cognoscitivo a la ficción, de modo tal que todas las posibles connotaciones, no expresadas directamente por el texto, sino -más bien- mostradas implícitamente o implicadas contextualmente en lo allí dicho, iluminan aspectos de la realidad que sin estas extrapolaciones ficcionales permanecerían en penumbras.
La perspectiva crítica -propia de la filosofía- puede hallarse así implícita en escritos de ficción, de la misma manera como las teorías filosóficas pueden aceptar como suyos a los argumentos procedentes del discurso literario. La reflexión filosófica se articula, pues, desde distintos ámbitos y modalidades discursivas.
Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

This article examines how a Spanish telecom giant legitimizes its market expansion through a corporate social responsibility (CSR) narrative that links generic notions of technological innovation and children's rights to projects of development and democracy. At a broad level, I explore how the neoliberal privatization of the telecommunications industry has involved a reconfiguration of corporate-state relations rather than an erasure of the state in corporate discourse. I trace how TelefónicaTelef´Telefónica accrues currency as a digital pioneer and provider of a social good by incorporating consumers, state actors, and other corporations into its moral apparatus. My point of entry is a smartphone application that the company's Colombian subsidiary developed and subsequently gamified to empower consumer-citizens to end street-based child labor. Within a digital economy of "instant gratification" and national context of securitization, the process whereby consumers are interpellated as citizen-activists highlights the thin line between profiling techniques and humanitarian action, and between surveillance and activism, while disguising the limits of the state bureaucracy and the company's own distance from its purported beneficiaries. Ultimately, I show how the company maintained its narrative about its innovative and sustainable commitment to children even when explaining the failures of its CSR strategy. [digital activism, corporate social responsibility, children's rights, corporate-state relations, urban Latin America]

... a typical naive set of assumptions about "group oriented" cultures it that the participants within them are basically altruistic, self-effacing, self-sacrificing and sociable. A society of such individuals should exhibit the very best of human civilization working in equitable, democratic communities. By contrast, those from individualistic cultures should be cold, grasping, selfish, egotistical and almost incapable of the cooperation demanded by a civil society. Indeed, a society of individualists, by this stereotype would be a dog eat dog affair, dedicated to conflict, riven with disloyalty and betrayal, forever failing to build a stable and humanistic community.

Discute os quintais urbanos enquanto espaços privados das habitações e no contexto urbano de cidades amazônicas. Dada a escassez de registros históricos e acadêmicos sobre os mesmos, procura resgatar referências sobre os quintais urbanos amazônicos na arte literária regional e em reportagens jornalísticas. Sugere que, nas cidades amazônicas, os quintais refletem uma visão de valorização da natureza, além de serem elementos de identidade social. Conclui que, apesar de para os agentes produtores do espaço urbano os quintais representam espaço de valorização econômica, como espaço privado das habitações, proporcionam melhor qualidade de vida para as famílias que deles usufruem, e, na perspectiva do interesse coletivo, podem ser considerados como áreas de conservação do meio ambiente urbano, contribuindo para a sustentabilidade ambiental das cidades.

Esta monografia é um resultado da participação na pesquisa realizada durante o segundo semestre de 2011 pelo projeto MEDEA 1 que tinha como objetivo principal a coleta de dados sobre a formação e o acesso ao trabalho na Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) na cidade de Volta Redonda – RJ. Aqui são discutidas alterações históricas da cidade e da indústria à luz de discussões antropológicas tendo como tópicos principais as alterações nos modos de trabalho e suas repercussões.

Gambling in Macau was liberalised in 2002, when the People’s Republic of China was also campaigning for the city to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 2005, while the opening of new monumental casino venues began to critically transform the cityscape, Macau’s Historic Centre became China’s 31st World Heritage site. In this chapter, I examine how the expansion of gambling and global recognition of the city’s heritage have generated urban and political ambivalences stemming from the intersections of global capitalism, identity formation, and development, despite new regulations and coordinated efforts across the fields of urban planning, heritage preservation, and land use. I analyse how China’s national program for Macau has entailed both the regeneration of gambling as a powerful regional industry and the ‘essentialisation’ of heritage, showing that the attendant processes of city-making and urbanism have continued to allow flexibility and improvisation under the pressures of tourism promotion.

Il laboratorio intende offrire ai partecipanti un’esperienza legata ai contenuti e alla metodologia del progetto “Migrantour. Intercultural Urban Routes”. La rete Migrantour, nata a Torino nel 2009 e oggi attiva in una ventina di città italiane ed europee, propone la realizzazione di itinerari urbani di turismo responsabile ideati e accompagnati da migranti di prima e seconda generazione: passeggiate interculturali finalizzate a diffondere il contributo che le migrazioni hanno dato alla trasformazione urbana dei quartieri e a favorire l’incontro con i cittadini che oggi li abitano.

The article considers the character of social relationships in an urban high-rise settlements. It analyses the influence of time and physical space on the  level of inter-human relationships. A section of the largest settlement in Slovakia,  Bratislava-Petržalka, is the locality for author´s empirical qualitative research. Here  he identifies  social groups and opportunities; he analyses the influence of time and  physical space on the level and quality of inter-human contacts. He shows how  established contacts can contribute to raising of social capital and quality of life in  locality.

Key words: social networks, urban high-rise settlements, social capital

In Lithuanian and English, on everyday rhythms, routes, urban rituals and collective behaviour in public spaces. | Anglų ir lietuvių kalbomis: kasdieniai ritmai, judėjimo trajektorijos, miesto ritualai, kasdieniai scenarijai viešosiose erdvėse.

"Kiekvienas architekto suprojektuotas objektas ilgainiui „apauga“ miestelėnų interpretacijomis. Naudodami miesto erdves, miestelėnai plečia architektų ir dizainerių numatytas erdvių ir jų elementų funkcijas, išvysto alternatyvius naudojimosi jomis scenarijus, steigia naujas vietų reikšmes ir priskiria įvairiems miesto objektams neoficialius pavadinimus. Pagrindinis miesto interpretacijos įrankis miestelėnui yra jo paties kūnas. Kai kurie kūniškosios interpretacijos pėdsakai lengvai aptinkami: tai nušlifuoti turėklai ir apsitrynę suoliukai, praminti takeliai ir asfalte įspaustos aukštakulnių žymės, tai tipiškose vietose pametamos pirštinės (ir ant stulpų bei sienų užklijuoti skelbimai apie pamestus ir rastus daiktus su nuplėštais kontaktų lapeliais). Architektų ir dizainerių suprojektuotų objektų naudojimas pagal paskirtį – tai elementariausias kūniškosios interpretacijos lygmuo: pvz., atpažindami originalios formos objekte suoliuką ir atsisėsdami ant jo, praeiviai „palaiko“ pirminę šio objekto funkciją. Savo ruožtu miesto erdvių organizavimas ir miesto objektai formuoja miestelėnų choreografiją: daro įtaką judėjimo trajektorijoms, ritmui, žvilgsnių ir gestų dinamikai. Siekdami kuo greičiau „prašokti“ nemielą objektą,
miestelėnai pagreitina tempą, nuleidžia galvą, stengdamiesi į jį nežiūrėti – arba spontaniškai ima koreguoti įprastus maršrutus. Ir atvirkščiai – kartais vienas nedidelis elementas virsta nauju traukos centru. Taip nutiko Gitenio Umbraso „Stebuklo“ plytelei Katedros aikštėje: ji ėmė keisti praeivių judėjimo trajektorijas ir ritmą. Supratę, kad plytelė su užrašu „Stebuklas“ yra vieta, kur sugalvojami norai, miestelėnai ėmė stotis ant plytelės ir suktis aplink savo ašį, taip užtikrindami sau, kad jų norai išsipildys.

Taip nedidelis elementas lėmė naujo miesto ritualo atsiradimą. Tokios mikrointervencijos „kviečia“ praeivius aktyviau naudoti miesto erdvęs ir taip skatina miestelėnų kūrybingumą. Kartais pakanka „įmesti“ į tam tikrą erdvę laikiną objektą, kad praeiviai įsitrauktų į žaidybinę komunikaciją. [...] Kitais atvejais, siekiant atkreipti miestelėnų dėmesį į „pamirštą“ miesto vietą, pakanka išvystyti miesto ritualą – t. y. periodiškai atkartojamą (ir kolektyviai palaikomą) veiksmą, kuris dažniausiai yra susijęs su tam tikra vieta"

.................................................................................
"Every object designed by an architect becomes covered by citizens' interpretations. By using city space, citizens broaden the functions foreseen by architects and designers for spaces and urban elements, and develop alternative scenarios for using them giving new meanings to localities and new, unofficial, names to various sites around the city. [..] In their turn, city objects and the organization of city spaces shape the choreography of city users: they influence movement trajectories, rhythm, the dynamics of glances and gestures [..] Seeking to appropriate new public spaces and to revitalize forgotten places, it is sufficient to develop urban ritual - i.e. a periodically recurring and collectively supported that is usually "embedded" in a certain place.

Keywords: urban rituals, temporal communities, communication, art interventions, symbolic appropriation of public space, revitalisation of public space

De antropoloog Filip De Boeck en de fotograaf Sammy Baloji werkten tussen 2013 en 2014 samen aan een onderzoeksproject rond stad en stedelijkheid in Congo. Het project mondde uit in het boek Suturing the City. Living Together in Congo's Urban Worlds en de door Devrim Bayar gecureerde rondreizende tentoonstelling Urban Now: City Life in Congo. Boek en expo denken de relatie tussen tekst en beeld op een andere manier: terwijl de foto's in het boek intiem verweven zijn met de tekst van De Boeck, ontbreekt die tekst in de tentoonstelling en hangen de beelden van Baloji haast contextloos op de muur. Toch blijven zij, dankzij enkele ingrepen van de curator, (relatief) leesbaar. Alhoewel geïnformeerd door de antropologische studie van De Boeck, krijgen ze hier de kans een eigen verhaal te schrijven.

How do poverty, youth and crime relate to the concept of being 'cool'? Jonathan Ilan presents a unique, theoretically informed overview of street culture in various parts of the world – its origins, functions, manifestations and appeal – examining both its bearing on criminal lifestyles and on the cultivation of 'cool.'

Drawing on contemporary research and original examples to evidence new ways of thinking about street culture - from the favelas of Brazil to housing projects in the USA - the text locates street culture within its particular social, cultural and economic contexts. Covering diverse subjects from brutal violence to contemporary fashion it explores the ways in which street culture is intertwined with processes of social exclusion and inclusion.

An in-depth and even-handed guide to understanding the practices, styles and struggles associated with a particular section of the socio-economically disadvantaged, this text stands as an invaluable resource for students and academics across a range of disciplines, including youth studies, urban studies, criminology, sociology, cultural studies and geography.

What is the role of urban theory in the spread of Covid-19, and the politics around it, in the United States? This essay outlines the part in this played by "Vulgar Wirthism," the notion that the country is divided into "urban" and "rural" places based on relative levels of density, population, and heterogeneity. Vulgar Wirthism has formed the conceptual basis for the idea that urban places are especially susceptible to spread of the virus, and rural places protected from it, an idea that has influenced pandemic policy and politics in dangerous and even lethal ways. In particular, I argue that Vulgar Wirthism has underwritten the emergence of a spiteful anti-urbanism, a form of necropolitics embracing the sacrifice of one's own political allies in exchange for damaging one's political enemies. I conclude by arguing that in the context of pandemic, theories of "planetary urbanization," despite their limitations and blind spots, facilitate a less dangerous form of socio-spatial imaginary.

What does it mean to make a life in an African city today? How do ordinary Africans, surrounded by collapsing urban infrastructures and amid fantastical promises of hypermodern, globalised futures, try to ensure a place for themselves in the city's future?

Nairobi, like many cities across the globe, is on the cusp of radical urban change. Yet as a city born of British colonialism, Nairobians also live amongst the dilapidated vestiges of imperial urban planning; spaces designed to regulate urban subjects. Focusing on life in a colonial-era public housing project now slated for demolition as part of state-led urban renewal, this book explores six intersecting challenges facing contemporary urban Africa: making a home amidst the remains of colonial urban planning; the management of urban decay and renewal; the politics of the past and the making of urban history; the generative relationship of the urban to the rural; terror and the construction of security; and how to belong to the future.

Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

Einkaufen-Gehen ist etwas, was allein in der Stadt wirklich geht. lm Dorf kann man nur Besorgungen machen, und in der Kleinstadt kann man darüber hinaus höchstens zum Einkaufen fahren. lch gehe Einkaufen meint im urbanen Kontext etwas anderes als Ich mache Besorgungen. Gehen und Kaufen sind beim Einkaufen-Gehen in dieselbe flache, in sich selbst ein wenig verschobene Gegenwart verfügt, und diese Gegenwart lässt kaum Ansatzpunkte für eine Zäsurierung des Gehens erkennbar werden, an denen man eine Kauf-Handlung von der Geh-Bewegung abtrennen könnte.

Children, Rights, and Modernity in China is an ethnographic study of the emergence of a new type of thinking about children and their entitlements in contemporary urban China. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in primary schools and homes in the city of Shanghai, and on diverse evidence from government, academic, media, and pedagogic publications, the book debunks many popular and scholarly stereotypes about the predominance of Confucian ideas of parental authority in China or about the indifference to individual human rights in the political and public culture of the PRC. The author also recognizes the conflicts that exist in Chinese discourses about and practices toward children, as older ideas of filiality, neoliberal ideologies, and the new awareness of children's right to privacy, to expressing their views, and to protection against violence compete and collude in complicated, often contradictory ways.

Taksim 360, located in the Tarlabaşı neighborhood of Istanbul, is one of the first state-led urban transformation projects in Turkey. Originally scheduled to be finished in 2014, the project is still under construction. Concordant with broader discussions, Tarlabaşı's urban transformation has been largely studied through spatial lenses centered on accumulation by dispossession and displacement. These works assume that urban transformation projects necessarily follow a linear trajectory from inception to completion. Building on and diverging from this body of research, I examine the relationships between construction companies, subcontractors, and politicians involved in Taksim 360 through ethnographic fieldwork and media analysis with a critical emphasis on temporality. I argue that urban transformation in fact works through manipulations of time, which necessitates a temporal analytical lens that does not take teleologies of buildings projects for granted. It is specifically through delays that economic and political power is exerted, navigated, and negotiated within Taksim 360 using legal contracts, work stoppages, and stand-offs; conjuring of continued investment; and improvisations with labor and political capital. And so, delays emerge as modus operandi of urban transformation rather than measures of its failures.

In this essay I examine the racial achievement gap in American education in terms of an impaired psychosocial developmental process. I argue that the well-documented academic underperformance of certain minority groups may stem from the unfavorable resolution of a key developmental crisis in constituent members’ early scholastic experience. I go on to suggest that individual educators can play an important role in eliminating the achievement gap by changing the way they teach in their own classrooms. In part, they may do so by adopting a "transcultural" pedagogy or teaching style, according to which both teachers and their minority students develop (at minimum) transcultural proficiencies and (at maximum) transcultural identities, as a promising way to achieve two important ends. First, the fostering of an academically-industrious self-concept in members of historically underachieving minority groups and hence, second, the closing of the achievement gap "from the bottom up"—one classroom at a time.

Tucked away from one of Shanghai’s busiest streets was the Tranquil Light Neighborhood (fictitious name), an 80-year-old housing compound consisting of 198 three-story row houses that looked similar to each other. Despite its unique architecture of 1930s British crescent-styled edifices as well as its tall symbolic steel gate, busy Shanghai’s pedestrians often walked pass the entrance of this neighborhood without even realizing that it was there. The street on which the neighborhood was located is the spine of the city’s most commercially vibrant district. To the few who happened to notice the Tranquil Light Neighborhood, they would, however, be puzzle by the fact that there could be a place that looked so different from cookie-cutter (mostly glass) high-rise buildings surrounding it. The Tranquil Light Neighborhood would appear to them as out of place. Added to this antiquated perception of the Tranquil Light was the presence of the neighborhood’s senior residents, who were mostly retirees in their 60s-70s. The obvious question for many – including myself when I first visited the neighborhood – was how could it ever exist, given the skyrocketing price of such a prime business area vis-à-vis the speed of the “tear everything down and rebuild from the ground up” (chaiqian) pattern of urban redevelopment that has, for decades been dominating the land development program in Shanghai.

Les camps représentent la place idéale aujourd’hui des Sans-État. Qu’ils soient explicitement sécuritaires (Calais) ou édifiés d’abord à des fins humanitaires (Grande-Synthe), ils sont créés comme des espaces à l’écart, des lieux hors de tous les lieux, qui doivent eux-mêmes se détruire ou se transformer. C’est cela qui rapproche ce qui se passe en Europe ces dernières années de ce qui se passe dans d’autres parties du monde depuis plus longtemps, où l’on est habitué à voir naître et durer des camps.