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 “The world is shrinking“; “the world is growing smaller." 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) mediascapes ethnoscapees technoscapes financescapes; ideoscapes. With conjunctions and disjunctions in and among them, with shapes changing or amorphous His main aim is to focus on the cultural dimension of globalization. He explores how the interconnectedness of migration and modern mass media affects the imagination and defines notions of neighborhood, nation, and nationhood. In his view, it has only been in the past two decades that the media and migration have begun to deterritorialize, which has led to the emergence of long-distance nationalism, "diasporic public sphere," ethnic violence, and the growing disjunction of various economic, cultural, and political aspects of daily life. [His neologism] offers a radical new framework for examining cultural dimensions of globalization over the last two decades. Central to Appadurai's theory is that the new global cultural economy "cannot longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models" (p. 32). These various "scapes" suggest an alternative spatial rendering of the present: one that is not fixed as a typical landscape might be, but amorphous and flowing in various directions and with various sizes. These "scapes" are the building blocks of the contemporary imagined worlds. (source: Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Journal of World History 11.1 (2000) 157-159http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_world_history/summary/v011/11.1oonk.html )

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: The flows of information (electronic communication) 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) Transnational Elite groups (decision makers, entrepreneurs and technicians)

Flows/Space vs. Place Loss of identity? Local History and Identity Global Flows Space of Flows Local History and Identity Space of 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 Space organized by five types of scapes (media, ethno, techno, ideo, finance) Flows: a general feature in postmodern society (caused by technologies—esp. telecommunication—multinational capitalism and global migration). Five kinds: people and traffic, goods, information, virus and desire.

Summary: Possible Issues Different or old geometry of power? People with different degrees of mobility; the global vs. the local in the uneven flows of goods (); Loss of the local: Compression of time and space (space virtualized or non-place) risk factors Loss of stable relations and identity

Course Site: Let’s Take a Look Next Week: The World by 賈樟柯