scholarly journals The optics of dispossession: urban precarity as political art

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Uli Linke ◽  
Andy Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Political Art ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The North ◽  
Black Ghetto ◽  
Shanty Town ◽  
American Black

How are conditions of urban dispossession sustained and perpetuated by the way peoples on the margins of the world economy are imagined and brought to public visibility? With a focus on the works of European artists, this article explores the image-making projects whereby ghettos, shanty communities and favelas are represented as iconic lifeworlds of the poor. Competing representations of urban poverty are manufactured for public attention by aesthetic, symbolic and affective means, ranging from a romance of despair or humanitarian compassion to a nostalgic longing for premodern signs of a deprived but simpler life. In contrast to the racialised human form, which is central to iconographies of the North American Black ghetto, the shanty-town inhabitants and city builders of the Global South are typically rendered visually absent: a tropology of people’s disempowerment and dispossession. Although often encoded by a critique of intensifying inequalities, the globalised traffic in urban poverty-art relies on an image-making process that is grounded in a detachment from social life. The representations of urban dispossession tend to produce a repertoire of free-floating emblems and signs that can be variously deployed, assembled, appropriated and discarded. Such visual templates are globally consumed as works of art that can alter urban imaginaries, encourage tourism and local economic development as much as neoliberal subjectification. After analysing a range of such artistic endeavours, this article concludes by focusing attention on how an image-maker’s commitment to humanising optics of urban dispossession can transform non-representational art to become a practice of truth.

scholarly journals Social Condition of England during the Wars of the Roses

1902 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 159-200
Author(s):  
Vincent B. Redstone
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
English History ◽  
Class A ◽  
The North ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Social Habits ◽  
North And South ◽  
Better Than

The social life of the inhabitants of England during the years of strife which brought about the destruction of the feudal nobility, gave to the middle class a new position in the State, and freed the serf from the shackles of bondage, has been for some time past a subject of peculiar interest to the student of English history. If we desire to gain an accurate knowledge of the social habits and customs prevalent during this period of political disturbance, we cannot do better than direct our attention towards that part of the country which was the least affected by the contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, the eastern district of England, which since the days of King John had enjoyed a remarkable immunity from civil war. Here the powerful lords of the North and South found little support; the vast estates of the old feudal barons were broken up into numerous independent manors. Moreover the arts of peace, in the shape of the mysteries of trade, manufactures, and commerce, widely flourished among the inhabitants of these regions.

New-Media-Based Attention Implosion and Television Publicness in the Era of Internet-TV Convergence

2011 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
New Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Audience Fragmentation ◽  
Internet Tv ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses how television captures and organizes the attention of the mass public in the age of media convergence. It is argued that media proliferation and technological convergence have led to a fragmented audience. Paradoxically, audience fragmentation also provides the condition for the powerful return of collective attention in the case of new-media-based attention implosion. This chapter uses the case of the extraordinary (online) popularity of television drama character Brother Laughing in Hong Kong to illustrate the phenomenon of new-media-based attention implosion and the dynamics behind it. The analysis shows that attention implosion is generated by audience members’ time-space shifting practices and key individuals’ organizational efforts, both facilitated by the new media. It led to the formation of an interpretive public surrounding the fictional character. Implications of the phenomenon on our understanding of the relationship between television, social life, and collective public attention are discussed.

Top-up

2019 ◽  
pp. 261-313
Author(s):  
Jean Drèze
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Caste System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Bullet Train ◽  
Disastrous Experience

This chapter covers a range of issues that do not fit in earlier chapters. These include urban poverty, universal basic income, the Gujarat model, electoral politics, India's bullet train, the economics of corruption, the aberrations of the caste system, and India's disastrous experience with demonetisation in late 2016. The book concludes with an extended essay on “Development and Public‐spiritedness”. This essay takes issue with the notion, common in economics, that people generally act out of self‐interest. This assumption has no theoretical or empirical basis. Public‐spiritedness, in the sense of a reasoned habit of consideration for the public interest, is a common feature of social life. Expanding the scope of public‐spiritedness is an important aspect of social development.

Urban poverty, issues, policies and actions

Social Change ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-73
Author(s):  
T. M. Vinod Kumar ◽  
Gayatri
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Communications Networks ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
Human Cost ◽  
Global Exchange

“Urban poverty and its attendant human cost is perhaps the single greatest challenge of our time. The future of our towns and cities, which is where most humanity will live in the next century, hinges on our tackling it successfully. The centerpiece of urban policy as we enter the 21st Century must therefore be the struggle against poverty, with goals such as the integration of the informal city, the recovery and democratic use of public space, and the reversal of the trend towards the concentration of wealth and opportunities, which so often ends in a spiral of violence…. “The struggle against urban poverty is a world challenge. To succeed, we need to tap the experience of individuals and organizations in the South as well as in the North, promoting an exchange that, more than the answers, will teach us what questions to ask. To this end, people living in poverty must take part in communications networks, which are often monopolized by intermediaries and experts. The role of experts is important, but mechanisms should be developed to facilitate direct, horizontal, global exchange…. “Such horizontal, direct contacts must involve local governments, the pivate sector, non-governmental and community organizations. And if public pollicies are to respond to real needs, these must be built out of experience, and their formulation and implementation must involve the people for whom they are intended…. “To do this, safety nets are not enough. Let us resolve to invest in the struggle against urban poverty, to invest in the poor themselves. Let us help people confronted with poverty in their efforts. New means of communication and successful experiences demonstrate that this can be done in a demoy-lXcratic and affordable manner. The struggle against poverty cannot be relegated to second-class expertise and technology. It is a huge challenge. It deserves the best.” (’Recife Declaration March 1996 Habitat II on ‘Urban Poverty-a World Challenge’).

Art as the Road to Perfection: The Blackfoot Painted Tipi

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-642
Author(s):  
María Nieves Zedeño
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Road ◽  
The North ◽  
Spirit World

The Blackfoot bison hunters of the North American Plains are widely known for their artfully painted lodges commonly known as ‘tipis’. Traditionally, tipi designs were not for everyone; rather, they were received individually from the spirit world or ceremonially transferred from one person to another under strict covenants. Painted tipis advertised the spiritual and social stature of their owners and were intricately woven in the ontological fabric of the group. This article explores the role of the painted tipi in individual and social life among the Blackfoot to highlight how art can be used to construct social places, to accumulate material and ritual wealth and, ultimately, to make society.

Between Science and Religion: An Astrological Interpretation of the Asian Tsunami in India

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-249
Author(s):  
Liang Yongjia
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Indian Ocean Tsunami ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The Indian Ocean

AbstractAstrology plays an important role in Indian social life. Indian astrologers' claim to have accurately predicted the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, or the Asian Tsunami, was an effort to legitimize astrology as a full science. This effort demonstrates a difficulty in knowledge categorization, for in India, astrology is neither classified as a science nor as a religion. This is a result of the idea of an Indian nation-state, which rests upon both science and religion as foundations, but at the expense of expelling astrology from religion for not being scientific. However, as astrology continues to be important in India, the astrological interpretation of the Indian Ocean Tsunami drew substantial public attention. Astrology's significant presence in Indian society shows the role of a mature civil society in India as well.

Layard's drawings of the incised decorations on the Nimrud reliefs compared with the originals

Iraq ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter V. Bartl
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Political Art ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The orthostats from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) at Nimrud are among the most outstanding works of art from the Ancient Near East. Today they are to be found in museums all over the world and are looked at every day by thousands of visitors. Numerous books and articles have been written about their style, their meaning and their reconstruction. Thus one would think that nothing could have escaped the eye of observers. Nevertheless, some details have been largely overlooked by researchers. Among these is the incised decoration on the edges of the garments of some of the figures depicted, showing a wide range of simple geometric and floral designs as well as complex mythical and narrative scenes. It thus forms a valuable part of the repertoire of Neo-Assyrian artistic motifs and can help us understand the essence and meaning of Neo-Assyrian political art. The evidence of these incised decorations is not only of importance for the history of art but is also fundamental to the understanding of the significance of the clothes and of the figures wearing them, forming an integral and essential part of the mythical symbolic character of the figures.

Fabricating black modernity: Fashion and African American womanhood during the first great migration

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-260
Author(s):  
Einav Rabinovitch-Fox
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
The North ◽  
American Society ◽  
Racial Progress

The early twentieth century was a time of great influx in America. Shifting demographics in the 1910s and 1920s, most notably the migration of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the urban centres of the North, opened economic and leisure possibilities that provided new spaces to define black modernity and its role in shaping American identity. Debates over black women’s bodies, clothing, hair, and general appearance stood at the centre of public attention and political discourse over gender and race equality, forming a realm where African Americans could challenge white racist stereotypes regarding black femininity and beauty, as well as a means through which they could claim new freedoms and achieve economic mobility. Middle-class reformers, young black migrants, as well as new role models such as female performers and blues singers, all used dress and appearance to redefine notions of beauty, respectability and freedom on their own terms. For these women, fashions became intertwined with questions of racial progress and inclusion in American society, offering a way to lay claims for equal citizenship that moved beyond individual expressions and preferences. This article highlights the place of fashion as a critical political realm for African Americans, who were often barred from access to formal routes of power in the era of Jim Crow. Shifting the perspective beyond official forms of civil rights activism, it argues that fashion enabled black women to carve new positions of power from which they could actively participate in gender and racial politics, demanding their equal place in American society.

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