Introduction: Narrating the City and Spaces of Contestation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.20191111Keywords:
City Narrative, City Branding, City Identity, Urban Regeneration, Urban HistoryAbstract
While nation states have a disputed status in a globalised world, cities are often regarded as sovereign and global actors. Along with de-nationalising processes of increased privatisation, supranational governing and networks of transnational corporations, city administrations have developed new capabilities of orientation and governing in a global context (Sassen 2006). Inequality, poverty and segregation are some of the pressing issues that city administrations are grappling with – issues of local challenge with global relevance and repercussions, and vice versa. We wonder, if city administrations also address cultural issues that traditionally were of national concern, as fostering and narrating a sense of identity and belonging? If so, we think this shift needs to be further inquired, as we know that narrating and uses of history are not innocent practices. Rather, these are activities which consciously and unconsciously can push developments and futures in specific directions (Sandercock 2003). Further, narrating and history-writing have a spatial dimension and a performative force which may manifest in the physical environment, making changes, or sustaining status quo (De Certeau 1988, Hayden 1997 and Massey 2005). A critical engagement in the making and use of history in urban space is needed to disclose power relations and constructions of categories, such as gender identities (Scott 2011), and to problematize bias perspectives on cultural heritage and an “authorised heritage discourse” (Smith 2006). Processes of narrating the city in urban development and regeneration are often processes where not only urban history, but also urban futures, are negotiated in a very concrete and physical sense.
References
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Ragnhild Claesson, Pål Brunnström
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright for all manuscripts rests with the author(s). The editors reserve the right to edit manuscripts. Contributors are responsible for acquiring all permissions from the copyright owners for the use of quotations, illustrations, tables, etc. Each author must, before final publication fill, in a publishing agreement provided by LiU E-Press.
Since 2021 Culture Unbound uses a Creative Commons: Attribution license for new articles, which allows users to distribute the work and to reform or build upon it without the author's permission. Full reference to the author must be given. For older articles please see each article landing page.