Commodification of the Egyptian New Capital: A Semio-Foucauldian Landscape Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 120633122199132
Author(s):  
Rania Magdi Fawzy
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Landscape Analysis ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
Semiotic Resources

Signs in the urban landscapes are never neutral; they always enact connections to power relations and social hierarchies. By examining the New Administrative Capital of Egypt’s (NAC) advertising billboards, the current study relates itself to the literature of Linguistic Landscape (LL). The study examines the NAC from a semio-discursive perspective. More specifically, it relies on the tools of Semiotic Landscape (SL) to discuss how the landscape of Cairo is represented as a heterogeneous contested space, and how the semiotic resources of its real-estate billboards epitomize Foucauldian principles of heterotopia. The study maintains that the different semiotic resources deployed in the NAC billboards commodify urban space by indexing heterotopic power relations. It is found that spatial commodification of the New Capital is embodied in two heterotopic tropes: “silent” space and “carnival” space. That is, the NAC billboards promote the consumption of the urban space by selling the heterotopic experiences of silence, and carnival-like tempo-spatiality. The study has found that the space of the NAC is semiotically presented in the landscape of Cairo as heterotopic through promoting “different” spatial experiences. To put it differently, the NAC billboards are perceived as antithesis to their landscapes of emplacement, the landscape of Cairo.

Encounters Across Borders. Modernist Ideas and Professional Practices in the 1970s Romania

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-420
Author(s):  
Mara Mărginean
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Third World ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Flows ◽  
Professional Practices ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Urban Policies ◽  
European Culture

Building on several international professional meetings of architects organized in Romania or abroad, this article details how various modernist principles, traditionally subsumed to Western European culture, were gradually reinterpreted as an object of policy and professional knowledge on urban space in the second and third world countries. The article analyses the dialogue between Romanian architects and their foreign colleagues. It highlights how these conversations adjusted the hierarchies and power relations between states and hegemonic centres of knowledge production. In this sense, it contributes to the recent research on the means by which the "trans- nationalization of expertise" "transformed various (semi)peripheral states into new centres of knowledge and thus outlines a new analytical space where domestic actions of the Romanian state in the area of urban policies are to be analysed not as isolated practices of a totalitarian regime, but as expressions of the entanglements between industrialization models, knowledge flows and models of territoriality that were not only globally relevant, but they also often received specific regional, national and local forms.

A renda fundiária urbana: uma categoria de análise ainda válida

GEOgraphia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Adriano Botelho
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Spatial Segregation ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Land Rent ◽  
Investment Funds ◽  
The Real Estate

Resumo: Renda fundiária urbana é uma categoria pouco explorada pela maioria dos estudos mais recentes sobre o urbano. Porém, essa categoria oferece uma possibilidade de abordagem do urbano que permite a análise de fenômenos importantes, como a hierarquização dos usos do solo, o papel do setor imobiliário para a acumulação do capital e para a reprodução das relações de produção capitalistas, além de ser importante para o entendimento do processo de segregação sócio-espacial e fragmentação do espaço no urbano. Assim, levando-se em consideração os estudos passados e as dificuldades que ainda hoje permanecem, a questão da renda fundiária é retomada no presente artigo. Como forma de viabilização da análise da questão da renda fundiária urbana foi realizado um estudo de caso sobre uma modalidade de intervenção no urbano por parte do setor imobiliário em aliança com o mercado financeiro no município de São Paulo: os Fundos de Investimento Imobiliário e a Securitização de Recebíveis Imobiliários.  THE URBAN LAND RENT: A CATEGORY OF ANALYSIS STILL VALID Abstract: Urban land rent is a category little explored by most recent urban studies. However, this category offers a possible approach for urban space that allows the analysis of relevant phenomena, like hierarchy in land use, the role of the real estate industry for capital accumulation and for reproduction of relationships in capitalist production, besides its importance in understanding the socio-spatial segregation and fragmentation process. In this sense, taking into account earlier studies and difficulties that still remain, this article aims to analyse the problem of land rent. To make this analysis possible, we present a case study about a kind of urban intervention by real estate agents in association with the finance market in the city of São Paulo: Real Estate Investment Funds and Real Estate Bonus. Keywords: Urban Land Rent, Fragmentation, Socio-Spatial Segregation, Urban, Real Estate Financing, Reproduction of Capital.

scholarly journals Street Names through Sociological Lenses. Part II: Constructionism and Utilitarianism

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihai Stelian Rusu
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Place Branding ◽  
Real Estate Market ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
The Real Estate ◽  
The Real Estate Market ◽  
The City

AbstractAs toponymic means of inscribing urban space, street names have been addressed mainly by human geographers, who have articulated the field of critical place-name studies. In this paper, I continue the endeavor started in the previous issue published in Social Change Review of reading street names through sociological lenses. Whereas in the first part of this two-part contribution the analysis was made from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, this second and final part employs social constructionism and the utilitarian theoretical tradition in making sociological sense of street nomenclatures. First, conceiving of street names as forming discursively constructed linguistic landscapes, the paper shows how urban namescapes – the “city-text” – are written, erased, and rewritten to reflect the shifting political powers. Second, the paper examines the neoliberal processes of place branding and toponymic commodification by which street names are turned into sought-after urban commodities with transactional value on the real estate market. The paper concludes by inviting sociologists to join the conversation on street names, which should become an important topic of sociological reflection.

scholarly journals A ação espacial do turismo: análise dos atrativos e equipamentos turísticos na Serra do Cipó (MG)

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Solano de Souza Braga ◽  
Bernardo Machado Gontijo ◽  
Leandro Martins Vieira
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Reproductive Activity ◽  
Serra Do Cipó ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Space Organization ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Common ◽  
Urbanized Areas

O presente artigo pretende trazer reflexões e alternativas para o entendimento da ação espacial do turismo. Apesar do senso comum encarar o turismo como uma atividade reprodutora do espaço urbano (por meio da introdução de práticas como a prestação de serviços, especulação imobiliária, aculturação etc.), o que será proposto é um exercício contrário: pensar que o espaço urbano atua como produtor / reprodutor da atividade turística em espaços rurais e naturais. Considera-se, neste caso, a infraestrutura em áreas urbanizadas e semiurbanizadas como fator primordial para o desenvolvimento da atividade turística. Tourism space of action: an analysis of the attractions and tourist facilities in the Serra do Cipó (MG, Brazil) Abstract This article aims to bring ideas and alternatives for understanding the tourism space of action. Despite the common sense view tourism as a reproductive activity of urban space (through the introduction of practices such as services, real estate speculation, acculturation etc.), what is proposed here is an opposite exercise: thinking that the urban space acts as producer / reproducer of the touristic activity in rural and natural spaces. The infrastructure in urbanized and semi urbanized areas is considered in this case as a key factor for the development of the touristic activity. Keywords: Tourism, Space Organization, Rural and Urban.

Sign-genres, authentication, and emplacement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannis Androutsopoulos ◽  
Akra Chowchong
Keyword(s):  
Language Choice ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Discourse Function ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
The City ◽  
Secondary Signs

Abstract This paper asks how language and other semiotic resources are deployed in the semiotic landscape of Thai restaurants in the city of Hamburg, Germany. Based on detailed multimodal analysis of signage in twelve restaurants, this study draws on both established and underexplored topics in Linguistic Landscape scholarship, including the analysis of sign-genres, the distinction between communicative and symbolic functions of signs, the role of language choice in authenticating place, and the emplacement of signs in the semiotic landscape. A scheme for the classification of restaurant signs by discourse function and emplacement is proposed. The findings suggest that the analytical distinctions between inside and outside space as well as primary and secondary signs are useful for the study of restaurants and other commercial semiotic spaces.

Representing Commodified Space

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-128
Author(s):  
Anish Vanaik
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
State Power ◽  
Property Market ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Representations Of Space

Chapter 4 examines ways of representing space as a commodity that played key roles in colonial Delhi: maps, lease deeds, advertisements, and auctions. These representations were related to the buying and selling of real estate in distinct ways. At the same time, they also referred to and relied on each other to give effect to their pronouncements. Two elements ran through these disparate representations: connections between space and time, and the imbrication of state and property market. This chapter argues that the ability to utilize these representations of space to develop narratives about urban space was a critical constituent of state power.

scholarly journals Strategizing the for-profit city: The state, developers, and urban production in Mega Manila

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Mouton ◽  
Gavin Shatkin
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Public Private Partnerships ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Wide Range

This article explores the evolving role of real estate developers in the wider metropolitan region of Manila, the Philippines. We argue that, given the relational nature of these actors, they are a relevant object of analysis for the formulation of “mid-level” theories that take into account both global, macroeconomic trends and local, history-dependent contingencies.  As we consider developers’ activities and interactions with a wide range of public and private actors, we retrace their gradual empowerment since the beginning of the postcolonial period. As a handful of powerful land-owning families created real estate development companies, urban production quickly became dominated by a strong oligarchy capable of steering urban development outside the realm of public decision-making. Philippine developers subsequently strengthened their capacity by stepping into infrastructure provision, seemingly expanding their autonomy further.  More recently, however, we argue that while the role of private sector actors in shaping urban and regional trajectories has scaled up, their activities have been tethered more strongly to a state-sponsored vision of change. Both by reorienting public–private partnerships (PPP) toward its regional plans, and by initiating new forms of public–private partnerships that give it more control, the state is attempting to harness the activity of developers. We characterize this shift as a move from the “privatization of planning” to the “planning of privatization” of urban space.

Signs of resistance in the Asturian linguistic landscape

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-329
Author(s):  
Paul Sebastian
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Analysis ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Northern Spain ◽  
Public Forum ◽  
Endangered Language

Abstract A linguistic landscape analysis, grounded in the ideas of contestation and resistance (Blackwood, Lanza, & Woldemariam, 2016; Rubdy & Ben Said, 2015) and carried out using Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) concept of place semiotics, was conducted in four cities located in the Asturias region of Northern Spain. The primary goals of the study were to investigate and interpret the (in)visibility of Asturian, an endangered language spoken primarily in and around the capital city of Oviedo. Distinct patterns on public signage involving font alterations, layering, and material selections indicate that the linguistic landscape was being used as an asynchronous public forum between Asturian advocates and unseen actors. Drawing on similar studies of deliberately modified linguistic landscapes (Gorter, Aiestaran, & Cenoz, 2012; Tupas, 2015), this paper introduces the concept of the asynchronously layered linguistic landscape in which evidence of contestation and resistance can be found in strategic juxtapositions of sign materiality.

The Eruv as Contested Jewish Space in North America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myer Siemiatycki
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Orthodox Jews ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Human Eye ◽  
American Cities

The eruv is perhaps the most creative, confounding, and contested spatial construct in Judaism. Territorially, it demarcates the urban space within which prohibitions otherwise attached to Sabbath observance for Orthodox Jews become permitted. While virtually imperceptible to the human eye, eruvin (pl.) sanctify what would otherwise be sacrilegious. An eruv thus creates permissive religious space for Jews on Sabbath. Hundreds of cities worldwide, including urban areas across North America, are home to an eruv. Notwithstanding their prevalence and undetectable physical imprint on urban landscapes, the establishment of eruvin has unleashed intense hostility and resistance in some locales. Opposition has typically been mounted by a surprisingly mixed array of critics including non-Jews, non-Orthodox Jews, and dissenting Orthodox Jews. The eruv highlights, in compelling fashion, the spatial challenges of navigating faith, ritual, secularism, and pluralism in contemporary American cities. Seemingly ethereal religious beliefs can occasion radically different perceptions of public space.

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