scholarly journals On the Meanings and Uses of Urban Space in the Arab City: An Historical Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
Nezar AlSayyad
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Urban Place ◽  
Developed World ◽  
Arab Middle East

This special issue of The Journal of Public Space deals with the idea of re-visioning places of public gathering in the Contemporary Arab City. The three keywords or concept in this formulation are the “Arab city”, and “Public gathering” and “urban place or space”. It is worthwhile to spend some time interrogating each of these concepts by themselves and in a relationship to each other. We may first ask what is the Arab city? Is it a city that is truly different from its counterparts in much of the global south? It is different from the non-Arab Middle East, or for that matter other cities in the developed world that underwent substantial changes over during the last few decades. Equally important is to posit the question regarding the types of public gatherings that occur in the Arab city today which require a specific spatial accommodation. And finally, it is essential to inquire about the nature of urban space in the so-called Arab city and to interrogate how this space is used to accommodate, contain and sometimes even to restrict different forms of public activities.

scholarly journals Transnational gentrification: The crossroads of transnational mobility and urban research

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (15) ◽  
pp. 3009-3024
Author(s):  
Matthew Hayes ◽  
Hila Zaban
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Urban Place ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Transnational Mobility ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Urban Strategy

This introduction to the special issue introduces the contributors’ articles and identifies key themes relating to how increased transnational mobility has affected urbanisation processes in many cities, resulting in the globalisation of rent gaps. A mix of local and transnational real estate interests work to attract higher-income lifestyle migrants and tourists, often from higher-income countries to lower-income urban space in order to increase its exchange value. In the process, however, they act to reduce the use value of urban space to lower-income residents. The introduction notes that the acceleration of lifestyle mobilities moving through urban spaces, and the development of transnational lifestyles of urban place consumption, have produced new forms of gentrification – not merely the spread of an urban strategy to new cities, but the planetarisation of rent gaps. Transnational gentrification is the form of contemporary urbanisation that occurs as a result of closing these rent gaps through attraction of higher income, transnational migrants, often from high-income countries in Northern Europe and North America.

scholarly journals Beyond a standardised urban lexicon: which vocabulary matters?

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-434
Author(s):  
Shreyashi Dasgupta ◽  
Noura Wahby
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Global South ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
The South ◽  
Complex Power ◽  
Global Patterns

Urban vocabulary has been influenced by global patterns of modernity, capitalism and anglophone academia. These lexicons are increasingly standardised and shape dominant conceptual approaches in city debates. However, contemporary urban theories indicate a shift toward understanding the ‘urban’ and ‘cities’ from multiple perspectives. An emerging urban vocabulary is being built to capture the significance of place, complex power dynamics and changing geographical landscapes. This special issue presents diverse perspectives on how urban lexicons can be decentred from anglophone thought, operate as organising urban logics, serve larger political projects, and shape and are reshaped by grounded urban practice. Articles from the Middle East and South Asia discuss the margins of vocabulary and how vocabularies located in the global South enable us to think through dilemmas of knowledge production. We contribute to debates on decolonising power and authority in urban thought by expanding on how to theorise from the South.

From Tahrir to the world: The camp as a political public space

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Ramadan
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
East Europe ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Act

The year 2011 was when the camp defeated the dictator. At Tahrir Square, the camp was a space of freedom, resistance and liberation, beyond the control of the state and outside the normal political order, in which a more progressive politics was forged and made real. In the months that followed, political protesters across the Middle East, Europe and North America emulated the tactics of the Egyptian protest camp. In light of these transnational events, the protest camp deserves attention as a specific political act and vehicle for political change. The occupation of urban space, and subversion of the normal political order within those spaces, is a key strategy for protesters to articulate an alternative political future.

“Hassiba Ben Bouali, If You Could See Our Algeria”

Hawwa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-236
Author(s):  
Susan Slyomovics
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
The Status ◽  
Public Demonstrations ◽  
Status Of Women

Reprinted from the 1995 Middle East Report special issue on Algeria, this essay asks how to interpret Algerian feminists of the early 1990s holding public demonstrations in the name of Hassiba Ben Bouali, a moudjahida killed by the French during the Battle of Algiers in 1956–1957? Women’s movement into public space exposes the interplay among Algerian society’s spatial arrangements, the status of women, and the ideological underpinnings of the Algerian state since independence. What are the complex ways women must negotiate either acceptance into masculine space or valorize their own internalized perceptions as intruders disturbing the equilibrium of a regulated, single-sex, urban milieu?

Introduction to the Special Issue: Labor in the Global South—A Search for Solutions

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 293-301
Author(s):  
Abigail Cooke ◽  
Taekyoon Lim ◽  
Peter Norlander ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Chris Tilly
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue

Sacred Space Becomes Public Space

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deonnie Moodie
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
First Century ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Public Interest Litigation ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Temple

At the turn of the twenty-first century, middle-class men and women formed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and filed public interest litigation suits (PILs) in order to expand temple space, knock down buildings that block views of Kālīghāṭ’s façade, and remove undesirable materials and populations from its environs. Employing the language of cleanliness and order, they worked (and continue to work) to make Kālīghāṭ a “must-see” tourist attraction. Scholarship has shown that India’s new middle classes—those produced through India’s economic liberalization policies in the 1990s—desire highly visible forms demonstrating their modernity as well as their uniqueness on the international stage of urban space. The example of Kālīghāṭ indicates how India’s new middle classes build on the work of the old middle classes to deploy the temple as emblematic of both their modernity and their Indian-ness. In so doing, they read the idioms of public space onto sacred space.

scholarly journals “The street is ours”. A comparative analysis of street trading, Covid-19 and new street geographies in Harare, Zimbabwe and Kisumu, Kenya

Food Security ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kiaka ◽  
Shiela Chikulo ◽  
Sacha Slootheer ◽  
Paul Hebinck
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Urban Food Security ◽  
Street Trading ◽  
Food Economy ◽  
City State ◽  
Abstract Spaces ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

AbstractThis collaborative and comparative paper deals with the impact of Covid-19 on the use and governance of public space and street trade in particular in two major African cities. The importance of street trading for urban food security and urban-based livelihoods is beyond dispute. Trading on the streets does, however, not occur in neutral or abstract spaces, but rather in lived-in and contested spaces, governed by what is referred to as ‘street geographies’, evoking outbreaks of violence and repression. Vendors are subjected to the politics of municipalities and the state to modernize the socio-spatial ordering of the city and the urban food economy through restructuring, regulating, and restricting street vending. Street vendors are harassed, streets are swept clean, and hygiene standards imposed. We argue here that the everyday struggle for the street has intensified since and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mobility and the use of urban space either being restricted by the city-state or being defended and opened up by street traders, is common to the situation in Harare and Kisumu. Covid-19, we pose, redefines, and creates ‘new’ street geographies. These geographies pivot on agency and creativity employed by street trade actors while navigating the lockdown measures imposed by state actors. Traders navigate the space or room for manoeuvre they create for themselves, but this space unfolds only temporarily, opens for a few only and closes for most of the street traders who become more uncertain and vulnerable than ever before, irrespective of whether they are licensed, paying rents for vending stalls to the city, or ‘illegally’ vending on the street.

Governance and Business-Society Relations in Areas of Limited Statehood: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 000765032098508
Author(s):  
Sameer Azizi ◽  
Tanja Börzel ◽  
Hans Krause Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
International Ngos ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Critical Reflections

In this introductory article we explore the relationship between statehood and governance, examining in more detail how non-state actors like MNCs, international NGOs, and indigenous authorities, often under conditions of extreme economic scarcity, ethnic diversity, social inequality and violence, take part in the making of rules and the provision of collective goods. Conceptually, we focus on the literature on Areas of Limited Statehood and discuss its usefulness in exploring how business-society relations are governed in the global South, and beyond. Building on insights from this literature, among others, the four articles included in this special issue provide rich illustrations and critical reflections on the multiple, complex and often ambiguous roles of state and non-state actors operating in contemporary Syria, Nigeria, India and Palestine, with implications for conventional understandings of CSR, stakeholders, and related conceptualizations.

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