Building a Dialogue Around Race to Change Political Institutions, the City of Seattle Starts the Race and Social Justice Initiative

Abstract:This article considers a burgeoning literature on Johannesburg from the perspective of the sorts of questions it asks about the city. There is a substantial and lively literature on questions of poverty and equality, class and race. These studies are strongly informed by the idea that the mechanisms that produce such inequalities are key to understanding the nature of Johannesburg as a city: in terms of how its economy works and how political institutions function, but also in terms of what sort of city Johannesburg is and can be. I consider sociological and economic studies of the inner city that try to account for demographic shifts in the inner city and for processes of social and physical degeneration. I review urban anthropologies of inner-city society, considering in particular new forms of social and economic organization among inner-city residents. Related to these, I discuss debates among scholars about the prospects for governing the city, paying special attention to the consequences for such readings on partnerships. I also discuss an emerging literature, critical of that above, which seeks to shift analysis of the city toward studies of culture and identity. These literatures do not simply approach the city through different disciplinary lenses (sociology or economy or anthropology or cultural studies) . They come to their studies from different normative perspectives. For some, the key political question of the day is one about social and political equality in its various forms. For others, it is about the degree to which Johannesburg (or Africa) is different from or the same as other places in the world. This paper has tried to bring to the fore the political (and not simply policy) consequences of these different views. It concludes not by seeking to reconcile these perspectives, but by suggesting a way of retaining a commitment to equality and justice while not reducing them simply to questions of economy. At stake, I argue, are questions of democratic culture and of sociability.

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Book Review: Transgressive Citizenship and the Struggle for Social Justice: The Right to the City in São Paulo

Urban Studies ◽

10.1177/0042098018801505 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 56 (5) ◽

pp. 1065-1068

Author(s):

Bianca Tavolari

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Sao Paulo ◽

Right To The City ◽

São Paulo ◽

The Right ◽

The City

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Quezon's City: Corruption and contradiction in Manila's prewar suburbia, 1935–1941

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0022463416000497 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 48 (1) ◽

pp. 91-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael D. Pante

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Urban Politics ◽

Spatial Representation ◽

The Philippines ◽

Quezon City ◽

The Future ◽

Weak Points ◽

The City

Quezon City was founded in 1939 as a planned city and envisioned as the future capital of the Philippines, which was anticipating its independence in a few years. Led by President Manuel Quezon, Philippine politicians conferred upon the city narratives of nationhood and social justice to make it the best spatial representation of a nation-in-waiting. However, underneath these state-centric ideologies was the authoritarianism of the Quezon regime, which used urban politics to centralise power. But far from being a symbol of the President's undisputed dominance, Quezon City's inherent contradictions became weak points in the city's official narrative.

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The Politics of Planning

The Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195374995.013.0036 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 738-758

Author(s):

J. Phillip Thompson

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Urban Planning ◽

Built Environment ◽

Common Good ◽

Political Reform ◽

The Political ◽

Political Aspect ◽

The Common Good ◽

The Common ◽

The City

This article examines the political aspect of urban planning. It discusses Robert Beauregard's opinion that planning should not reject modernism entirely or unconditionally embrace postmodernism, and that planners should instead maintain a focus on the city and the built environment as a way of retaining relevancy and coherence, and should maintain modernism's commitment to political reform and to planning's meditative role within the state, labor, and capital. The article suggests that planners should also advocate utopian social justice visions for cities which are not so far-fetched as to be unrealizable so that planning can then attach itself to widespread values such as democracy, the common good, or equality.

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Key Identity Features of Urban Youth: The Case of Krasnodar Krai

RUDN Journal of Political Science ◽

10.22363/2313-1438-2021-23-1-159-171 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 159-171

Author(s):

Irina Vladimirovna Samarkina ◽

Igor Stanislavovich Bashmakov

Keyword(s):

Young People ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Urban Youth ◽

Political Life ◽

Political Activity ◽

Local Identity ◽

Krasnodar Krai ◽

City Life ◽

Youth Identity ◽

The City

This article is devoted to the study of urban youth local identity in a large and medium city. This identity is manifested in everyday interaction with the urban community, its socio-political institutions and visitors and affect the level of public and political participation, the presence of constructive civic practices. The aim is to identify and describe the main components and place of local youth identity in the system of social identities in large and medium-sized cities of Krasnodar krai (Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Sochi and Armavir). The empirical basis of the study was made up of focus group transcripts conducted with various groups of young people (schoolchildren, students, and working youth). To verify the conceptual model a modified version of the Kuhn-McPartland method was used. On the basis of the conducted empirical research, the place of local identity in the system of urban youth social and territorial identities was revealed. The dependence between the size of a city and a cohort of young people and a local identity was shown. Such components of young people local identity as awareness of the city and its socio-political life, attitude towards representatives of other communities, a sense of their involvement in city life, the desire to stay and live in the city, the will to work for the benefit of the city, to participate in its socio-political life. The study made it possible to identify the valence of youth identity (negative, neutral, positive). The trajectories of young people spatial mobility that affect the degree of actualization and valence of local identity were also described. The dependence between the strength of youth local identity and participation in public and political activity for the benefit of the city and the region, participation in the activities of public and political organizations has been revealed.

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The Mothers of Tiananmen: Curating Social Justice

Journal of Curatorial Studies ◽

10.1386/jcs_00044_7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 230-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jenna C. Ashton

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Social Action ◽

Women Artists ◽

International Collaboration ◽

Tiananmen Square ◽

Chinese Populations ◽

Creative Resistance ◽

Participatory Arts ◽

The City

Focusing on the activist exhibition The Mothers of Tiananmen (2019), this article examines my methodology of curating for social action and justice using international collaboration and participatory arts-as-research. The exhibition responded to the ongoing campaign for justice for the victims and survivors of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, as well as sought to support women’s creative resistance and voice. The Mothers of Tiananmen was co-created with artist Mei Yuk Wong, the 64 Museum (Hong Kong), and artists participating in the Centre for International Women Artists (Manchester). The context for the exhibition is the city of Manchester, which has one of the highest Chinese populations in England, along with a diverse international demographic with over 200 languages spoken. Through this case study, curating is presented as a creative and critical tool by which to respond to the range of justice and activist concerns of international and diasporic communities.

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