Duke University Press Cities and Citizenship (a Public Culture Book)

Cities and Citizenship is a prize-winning collection of essays that considers the importance of cities in the making of modern citizens. For most of the modern era the nation and not the city has been the principal domain of citizenship. This volume demonstrates, however, that cities are especially salient sites for examining the current renegotiations of citizenship, democracy, and national belonging. Just as relations between nations are changing in the current phase of global capitalism, so too are relations between nations and cities. Written by internationally prominent scholars, the essays in Cities and Citizenship propose that “place” remains fundamental to these changes and that cities are crucial places for the development of new alignments of local and global identity. Through case studies from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America, the volume shows how cities make manifest national and transnational realignments of citizenship and how they generate new possibilities for democratic politics that transform people as citizens. Previously published as a special issue of Public Culture that won the 1996 Best Single Issue of a Journal Award from the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers, the collection showcases a photo essay by Cristiano Mascaro, as well as two new essays by James Holston and Thomas Bender. Cities and Citizenship will interest students and scholars of anthropology, geography, sociology, planning, and urban studies, as well as globalization and political science. Contributors. Arjun Appadurai, Etienne Balibar, Thomas Bender, Teresa P. R. Caldeira, Mamadou Diouf, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, James Holston, Marco Jacquemet, Christopher Kamrath, Cristiano Mascaro, Saskia Sassen, Michael Watts, Michel Wieviorka Review "[A] welcome contribution to the literature on citizenship and politics in the context of globalisation. . . . [T]his is a wonderful book. The contributions to the collection provide important insights and examples, and are generally presented in an engaging fashion." --Lynn A. Staeheli, "Urban Studies" "[A]n important contribution to the examination of the shifting spatial basis of political identities and subjects." --Patricia M. Martin, "Urban Geography" "[T]he contributors to "Cities and Citizenship" all share a belief that cities are once again acquiring a new significance in determining the rights of the citizen." --Jonathan Murdoch, "Times Literary Supplement" "This is a highly engaging and extremely well integrated collection of essays that explores the salient role of cities in the making of modern citizens and in contests over citizenship in diverse cultural contexts. . . . [A]n extremely stimulating and valuable book. It takes up a vital topic that has long been dominated by political scientists who favor a legalist approach to citizenship and examines the subject from a refreshing cultural perspective. This volume deserves a serious reading by anyone who is interested in cities, urbanism, citizenship and democracy, space and power, and transnationalism. It also makes excellent reading for graduate and undergraduate courses in political anthropology, urban anthropology, and cultural geography." --Li Zhang, "American Ethnologist" "Thomas Bender writes a wonderful history of intellectuals in public life. . . . A chapter excerpted from the period writings of Lincoln Steffens serves as a reminder of the hard-won political changes of that first Progressive era. . . . Teresa Caldeira's essay . . . raises the real problem that democratic processes sometimes lead to non-progressive results. . . . The processes of globalization receive continual attention throughout the book." --Lynn Robinson, "Citizens' Housing and Planning Committee of New York" From the Author James Holston is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at San Diego. He is the author of The Modernist C