This program aims to understand the intensification and expansion of
cultural flows through globalizing cities and their regions, with a
particular emphasis on the current transformation of ideologies, urban
spaces, civil society, religion and the arts.
Our research is driven by the need to understand the impact of
globalization on cities in a comprehensive sense, but with an emphasis
on the cultural-political outcomes. It is concerned with the
fundamental question of how processes of urbanized globalization—in
particular, the intensification and expansion of cultural flows through
globalizing cities—are transforming the meanings and experiences of
culture for the peoples of this region. These global urban processes
highlight the challenges of human security, community resilience and
cultural and environmental sustainability.
One of the key themes of
this program will be the culture of civil society. The vibrancy of this
sphere is based upon two essential conditions: the free circulation of
ideas and opinions (the diversity of ideologies) and the existence of
‘civic’ spaces (parks, open markets, community halls, etc.) within
which cultural practices and identities can arise through inclusion and
tolerance. With the intensification of globalization, however, both
ideological variety and civic space have been severely reduced, limited
or colonized. The rise of a dominant ideology (that is, globalism)
extolling the virtues of the unhampered market and limitless
consumption went hand in hand with the rapid commodification of civic
space in the world’s major cities. Yet at the same time, globalism
promises democracy and greater freedoms.
Rethinking this basic
contradiction between the promise of globalism and the problems of
ideological homogenization and the related phenomenon of dwindling
civic space in urban landscapes lies at the heart of this research
theme. |
