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