Associations, Christ groups, and their place in the Polis

2017 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Kloppenborg
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Resident Aliens ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions

Abstract:Early Christ groups, like Greek and Roman associations, engaged in mimicry of various civic institutions, and for similar reasons: to facilitate the integration of sub-altern groups into civic structures; to create “communities of honour” in which virtue was recognized and rewarded; and to produce small social structures in which the democratic values of autonomy could be performed. While mimicking civic structures, early Christ groups also displayed in varying ways ambivalence toward the city, either declaring themselves to be “resident aliens” or claiming to belong to a different polity.

Antinoopolis: A Hadrianic Foundation in Egypt

1940 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. I. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions

The city state was the most characteristic expression of the Hellenic way of life; and it is appropriate that the most Philhellenic of Roman emperors should have been distinguished as a founder of cities and an encourager of civic institutions. We are ill informed about the constitution and history of most of his foundations, but concerning one, which was in Egypt, a country whose soil preserves so perfectly the antiquities which it covers, we have a considerable amount of evidence. Antinoopolis is thus of interest not only to the historian of Roman and Byzantine Egypt, but also for the light it may throw on Hadrian's aims and ideals as a founder of cities.

Civic Institutions

2009 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Author(s):  
Sara Forsdyke
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Evolution ◽  
Formal Institutions ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Rich ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions

This article looks at the parallel evolution of civic institutions, all of which culminated in the polis, the ‘city-state’, as the backdrop to the rich cultural legacy of the fifth and fourth centuries. Historians have demonstrated that the formal institutions of the Greek city-state are best understood as emerging from, but still very much embedded within, a much broader range of collective practices and discourses. Nevertheless, it is the dynamic interplay between the institutional structures of the state and these broader practices and discourses that has been the focus of much of the most fruitful scholarship on the ancient Greek city-state over the past thirty years. The discussion then turns to some of the most interesting areas of investigation in current scholarship on the interaction between formal institutions and broader cultural activities and norms in the Greek city-state.

scholarly journals Book Review: Dealing in Desires

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patara McKeen
Keyword(s):  
Financial Sector ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
International Interactions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This is a review of Kimberly Kay Hoang’s (2015) Dealing in Desire. Her ethnographic study observes four different bars in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: 1) Kong Sao Bar, 2) Naught Girls, 3) Secrets, and 4) Lavender. Hoang traces different representations of the global financial sector after the 2008 financial crisis and explores the relationship between Asian ascendancy and Western decline. From the local to the international, interactions with clients and hostesses in the bars of Ho Chi Minh City demonstrate a new global trend: the rise in transactions occurring among a global financial sector undefined by traditional social structures (e.g., commercial or national banks). By moving from observer to participant, Hoang develops a deeper understanding of the capital and labour practices that these men and women engage in, highlighting how their everyday experiences demonstrate that nightlife in the city is a way for locals to move up the socio-economic ladder.

scholarly journals Urban Studies in Lithuania: What They Display and Conceal about Vilnius

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-107
Author(s):  
Tadas Šarūnas
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Main Field ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
The Third ◽  
Dense Cluster ◽  
Dominant Discourses ◽  
The City

This article analyses the dominant discourses about cities in Lithuanian urban studies. Approach­ing urban processes in a different way, I suggest to study cities as a dense cluster of dwellings and consider housing as the main field (the Bourdieu’s concept) that structures the material forms of the city. In the first two sections of the article I consider the case of Vilnius and criticize the dominant natural and geopolitical categories and metaphors as limiting our understanding about urban processes. In the third part I argue how a historical genealogy of the symbolic forms of the city might reveal spatial manifestations and practices of power relations. Supplementing the genealogy of the symbolic forms with the analysis of social structures, it is possible to suggest a more relevant approach to study Lithuanian cities. Also, such an approach might facilitate productive cooperation between urban researchers working with different epistemological traditions.

The Polis

2009 ◽  
pp. 186-196
Author(s):  
James Redfield
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
City States ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
The City

This article reflects on changes in social structures from the eighth century BCE. It describes the rise of the polis and the different characteristics of the city-states that have formed at various times and places. The rise of the polis is an aspect of a more general history or it is an aggregate of many histories. The two poleis most famous in ancient as in modern times were also the two most atypical. Overall, the polis was not about equality but about stratification. The most egalitarian polis was Sparta: it achieved this by rigid controls and exclusions, and by making an exception for the twin kings. The greatest liberty, for citizens and non-citizens alike, was at Athens, but it achieved this only by keeping real political initiative in the hands of a very narrow circle, and by making an exception of the citizen women.

Watched by the Games: Surveillance and security at the Olympics

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sugden
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
The Olympic Games

Every four years the Summer Olympic Games fires the imagination of the largest and most diverse sport spectatorship and entices them in their hundreds of thousands to some of the First World’s most iconic and crowded cities. In addition, the ideological symbolism associated with the Olympic Games is rooted in Western, liberal democratic values and traditions. For those who do not share these ideals the Olympics represent something to stand against and, in extremity, disrupt and violate. In short, in a post-9/11 world, the Olympics provide a mouth-watering target for terrorists. Using themes of surveillance drawn form from Bentham and Foucault, this article analyses the nature of the terrorist threat and scale of the security operation designed to ensure the safety of the London 2012 Olympic Games. It concludes by considering the consequences of these measures on the city of London, particularly in terms of the civil liberties of its citizenry.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Urban Question in the Age of the New Urban Crisis: The (Re)Production of the Regime of Flexible Accumulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Sternberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Urban Crisis ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Flexible Accumulation ◽  
Real Estate Prices ◽  
The City

Scholars have recently remarked upon the emergence of what Richard Florida has termed The New Urban Crisis, a global phenomenon whereby cities are being lumped into winners and losers, with inequality rising in the winner cities where real estate prices are pushing out those who most need access to the opportunities hoarded within. In this article, I argue that the new urban crisis is not a crisis of the city per se but is itself a symptom of greater crises occurring at the level of global capitalism. By revisiting Castells’ The Urban Question, I read the new urban crisis as a product of how the urban social structure fits into the reproduction of capitalism on a global scale, arguing that, under the regime of flexible accumulation, the urban social structure is asked to reproduce two distinct circuits of capital accumulation set loose by the transition to post-industrialism: accumulation via production and accumulation via finance. These distinct circuits of accumulation utilize the elements of urban social structures differentially, often at cross purposes. This produces continued crises in the reproduction of capitalism, as well as continually shifting relations between elements of the urban social structure, producing a plurality of urban forms.

Lebanon

1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (S1) ◽  
pp. 83-84
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

Deteriorating relations between the different factions and widespread fighting displaced many families in 1990 and increased the social and economic disruption in the country. For some periods, Beirut came under daily shelling and civilians left the city and its suburbs en masse for safer areas, in particular southern Lebanon. The heavy loss of life and resources weakened the already fragile economic and social structures.

scholarly journals Performing the city-region: Imagineering, devolution and the search for legitimacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1583-1601
Author(s):  
Charlotte Hoole ◽  
Stephen Hincks
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Local Resistance ◽  
City Region ◽  
National Interests ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions ◽  
Depth Interviews

This paper provides new conceptual and empirical insights into the role city-regions play as part of a geopolitical strategy deployed by the nation state to enact its own interests, in conversation with local considerations. Emphasis falls on the performative roles of economic models and spatial-economic imaginaries in consolidating and legitimising region-building efforts and the strategies and tactics employed by advocates to gain credibility and traction for their chosen imaginaries. We focus on the Sheffield City Region and Doncaster within it (South Yorkshire, England) drawing on 56 in-depth interviews with local policymakers, civic institutions and private sector stakeholders conducted between 2015 and 2018. In doing so, we identify three overlapping phases in the building of the Sheffield City Region: a period of initial case-making to build momentum behind the Sheffield City Region imaginary; a second of concerted challenge from alternative imaginaries; and a third where the Sheffield City Region was co-constituted alongside the dominant alternative One Yorkshire imaginary. Our work suggests that the city-region imaginary has gained traction and sustained momentum as national interests have closed down local resistance to the Sheffield City Region. This has momentarily locked local authorities into a preferred model of city-regional devolution but, in playing its hand, central government has exposed city-region building as a precarious fix where alternative imaginaries simply constitute a ‘deferred problem’ for central government going forward.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document