Postmodern City Films & Global Flows Introduction 2014/09/16.
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Transcript of Postmodern City Films & Global Flows Introduction 2014/09/16.
Postmodern City Films
& Global Flows
Introduction
2014/09/16
Outline
Starting Questions Global Flows and Urban Space of
Flows People in Flows: Flaneur &
Migrant Summary About the Course & Next Week
Global Flows?
Globalization: 3 Theses
1) Global expansion of Capitalism and Capitalist Culture; of American/Western Culture 2) West vs. East 3) Increasing Hybridization and Strangeness
Re-structuring of Global economy, politics, activist groups, etc. Awareness of Global Connectedness
Connected by Global Flows Flows of goods, services and finance Flows of people –the most limited Flows of data and communication
knowledge-intensive flows; labor-intensive flows
Impact:
1/3 of goods flow across national borders;
“left behind if not being connected.”
Ref. Global flows in a digital age: Expanding
Network of Global Flows
De-Territorialized and Re-Territorialized by
Cultural Flows
Modernity at Large (Arjun Appadurai)mediascapesethnoscapeestechnoscapesfinancescapes;ideoscapes.
With conjunctions and disjunctions in and among them, with shapes changing or amorphous
Space of Flows Flows: “purposeful, repetitive,
programmable sequences of exchange and interaction between physically disjoined positions held by social actors in the economic, political and symbolic structures of society” (Castells 1996: 412)
e.g. information, goods, people--whatever travel in information systems, telecommunications, and transportation lines
Space of Flows (2)
Manual Castells: Network Society and Space of Flows
3 levels of flows: 1. The flows of information (electronic
communication) 2. The network of nodes ( 節點 ; e.g. mega-
cities like Taipei) and hubs ( 中繼站 ; e.g. station, airport, port and telecommunication system)
3. Transnational Elite groups (decision makers, entrepreneurs and technicians)
Flows/Space vs. Place
Loss of identity?
Flows on Different Class Levels
Different purposes Different degrees of mobility, risks and
stability
Chance encounters and coincidences A different sense of community
Flâneur Flâneur: a stroller on the street “As such, ‘[i]t is not the pedestrian
flâneur who is emblematic of modernity but rather the train passenger, car driver and jet plane passenger’” (Lash and Urry, 1994: 252).
Paul Gavarni, Le Flâneur, 1842.image source
Urban Migrant
Immigrant of all class levels Rural-Urban Migrant laborers
Summary: Scapes and Flows 1. Space organized by five types of
scapes (media, ethno, techno, ideo, finance)
2. Flows: a general feature in postmodern society (caused by technologies—esp. telecommunication—multinational capitalism and global migration).
3. Five kinds: people and traffic, goods, information, virus and desire.
Summary: Possible Issues
1. Different or old geometry of power? a. People with different degrees of
mobility;
b. the global vs. the local in the uneven flows of goods ();
2. Loss of the local: Compression of time and space (space virtualized or non-place)
3. risk factors
4. Loss of stable relations and identity
Course Site: Let’s Take a Look
Next Week:
The World by 賈樟柯