Urban Culture

This book investigates the lived cultures of the individuals within collectives who are part of creative cities in Southeast Asia. Such individuals and their creative collectives are all too often rendered silent and unnoticed within the official narratives of creative city branding. This monograph examines the articulation of creative collectives in two cities: the creative city of Bandung in Indonesia and the creative, heritage city of George Town in Malaysia. The research enriches the field of urban media and communication studies, trying to understand how the tactics of individuals within the creative collectives – as the articulated voices from a bottom-up approach – disrupt, or counteract, the official narratives and the top-down strategies of Bandung and George Town as UNESCO-inscribed cities. Methodologically, this research combines ethnography and visual methodology, providing a situated and nuanced context for street-level analysis, in particular analysing how spatial and visual contexts are significant aspects of urban creative collectives. The analysis illuminates the creative politics of space and placemaking in local settings, highlighting how the collectives in this study form alternative spaces to live and work, developing an organic and dynamic interplay between the physical, social and digitally mediated spaces of creative cities. A key argument concerns the articulation of alternative voices through the form of ‘subtle resistance’ by creative collectives. Through an analysis of themes related to spatial practice in the city, cultural memory and cultural identity, the ethnographic and visual research offers a lens within which to understand and value everyday creative practices such as inventiveness and resourcefulness. The articulation of various identities, as urban dwellers, artists, craftspeople and creative collectives, offers a powerful alternative understanding of what it means to live and make do in the local streets, creative hubs and residential neighbourhoods of Southeast Asian creative cities.
The book excerpts can be seen and downloaded here: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/creative-voices-of-the-city-articulating-media-space-and-cultural or here https://bit.ly/CreativeVoicesOfTheCity-Habibi2020

Küreselleşme bütün ülkeleri etkisi altına alan, çok boyutlu yapısı nedeniyle varlığı kolaylıkla gözlemlenebilen bir olgudur. Küreselleşmenin kültürel boyutu ise küreselleşmenin, toplumlar üzerindeki belirgin etkilerini ortaya çıkaran tarafıdır. Geçmişten beri ülkeleri ve toplumları birbirlerine yaklaştıran kültür akışları küreselleşme ile birlikte hızlanmış, yoğunlaşmıştır. Bu akışlar ile birlikte ülkelere birçok yabancı kültür unsuru giriş yapmış ve toplum yaşamına sirayet etmiştir. Rock müzik ve onun oluşturduğu rock kültürü de bunlardan biridir.
Rock müzik gibi, Batılı ülkelerin ihracı olan unsurlar dışa daha kapalı olan çevre ülkelerde yayılmaya başladıklarında toplum ile aralarında doku uyuşmazlıkları başta olmak üzere birtakım sorunlar meydana gelebilmektedir. Rock’ın Türkiye’deki yaşamı da bu eksende gelişmiştir. Rock müzik ülkemizde birçok formda icra edilmiş, kültürel homojenleşme ve küyerelleşme bağlamında okunabilecek, rock müziğin esas ögeleri ile yerel motiflerin birleştirilmesi suretiyle oluşturulmuş başarılı müzikal üretimlerin yapılmasını sağlamıştır. Bunun yanı sıra rock kültürü de durmaksızın ilerleyen küreselleşmenin etkisiyle dönüşümler geçirmiştir. Bu bağlamda rock’ın bir kültür endüstrisi hâline geldiği, altkültür ve karşı kültür kimliklerinde bozulmalar görüldüğü, protest tavrında yozlaşmalar görüldüğü gibi konular tartışılagelmiştir.
Bütün bu gelişmelere mekân ölçeğinde ışık tutan ve bu dönüşümleri kendisi de yaşayan Kemancı Rock Bar, kıraathaneden rock bara evrilen yapısı ile küreselleşmenin yarattığı dönüşüm sürecini özetleyebilecek verimli bir örnek olarak görülmüştür. Bu sebeple Kemancı, rock kültürünün küreselleşme ile ilişkisinin analiz edilebilmesi açısından uygun bir saha işlevi görmüştür.
Küresel şehirlerin, küreselleşmenin kültürel boyutunun net biçimde gözlemlendiği alanlar olmasından hareketle İstanbul ve Kemancı tezin odak noktası olarak belirlenmiş, rock kültürünün küreselleşme ile bağlantısının bu pencereden bakılarak incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Tezin özgün bir yapı arz etmesi gerektiği düşünüldüğünden bir saha araştırması kurgulanmış, rock kültürüne hâkim ve Kemancı’nın iki dönemine de tanıklık etmiş kişilerle yarı yapılandırılmış mülakat tekniğine dayalı derinlemesine bireysel niteliksel görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Elde edilen bulgular vasıtası ile tezin sorduğu sorular cevaplanmış ve açtığı tartışma başlıklarının altı doldurulmuş, devamında rock kültürünün küreselleşme ve şehirle olan ilişkilerinin nasıl ele alınması gerektiğine dair tartışmacı bir bakış açısıyla yorumlar yapılmış, öneriler getirilmiştir.

Artists and art communities are essential to the cultural life of cities. In New York City, artists have created networks of artist-run galleries in unlikely spaces that are outside the corporate gallery system. Sociologist Mary Kosut explores how artists generate alternative urban art economies within the contemporary New York art world.

This article explores the practices associated with musical listening within the car. It does this in such a way that embraces Tia DeNora’s approach to the social study of music in conjunction with approaches broadly understood as ‘symbolic interactionism’. It focuses upon the musical elements partnered with social interaction that commonly occur with automobile commuter situations. Though, unlike most symbolic interactionist accounts of music that explore the social life of musical phenomena within performance contexts, the following grapples with the situation of musical experience removed from traditional performance contexts and significantly, as experienced without performing musicians. The following presents an interpretation of how music is deployed as an environmental feature of automobile commuting and how this ‘feature’ is deployed by commuters to transform the physical space of the car into a symbolic social space where those that occupy this context are afforded increased senses of comfort and control. I also, link listening practices in important ways to perceptions of the public and private dimensions of car travel.

After 1997, sustained public debate emerged in Hong Kong over a suite of cultural issues, yet international analyses of the handover predictably continue to emphasize economic forecasts as if disconnected from cultural politics. This examination problematizes what is culture in Hong Kong, beginning with the idea of the trope of the "cultural desert" as a "placism," to train analysis on cultural processes in political economic and local contexts. The place-based treatment takes a postcolonial perspective on contemporary cultural political economy through the West Kowloon Cultural District, the role of the municipal state in cultural policy, the rise of studio and contemporary arts in the city, and the heritage conservation movement, to demonstrate how Hong Kong's cultural turn reflects the tensions of the postcolonial era in the unprecedented time-space of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

This pioneering insight into contemporary Thai folk culture delves beyond the traditional Thai icons to reveal the casual, everyday expressions of Thainess that so delight and puzzle. From floral truck bolts and taxi altars to buffalo cart furniture and drinks in a bag, the same exquisite care, craft and improvisation resounds through home and street, bar and wardrobe. Never colonised, Thai culture retains nuanced ancient meaning in the most mundane things. The days are colour coded, lucky numbers dictate prices, window grilles become guardian angels, tattoos entrance the wearer. Philip Cornwel-Smith scoured each region to show how indigenous wisdom both adapts to the present and customises imports, applying Roman architecture to shop-houses, morphing rock into festive farm music, turning the Japanese motor-rickshaw into the tuk-tuk. Colour-saturated illustrations help you navigate various social traits, whether white-faced hi-so matrons or Red Bulls, willing workers wearing coins i...

This regional portrait provides a first interpretive reading of the transformations of the “urban” in the context of Rome’s territory. By using the term “urban” the intention is to interpret not only the physical-spatial or socio-economic transformations according to the best known studies, but the evolution of the complexity of the relationships between such different aspects. It means to look at the complexity of socio-spatial relations, such as the organization of daily life, the ways of living different territories, transportation modes, the relationship with the place where people live, the organization of time, the use of resources, and so on. Included in this are immaterial relations that refer to different lifestyles, to the cultural and social models, and to residents’ relationship with daily life.

This paper develops a pragmatist definition of street art acknowledging its essential subversiveness, while drawing implications at the level of street art’s political and social function. By developing an insight from Irvine (2012), the paper argues that street artworks turn inside out accepted norms of visibility in public spaces. Street artists challenge those norms by deploying carnivalesque strategies such as irony and misappropriation (Scott 1990). In this sense, street art is art intrinsically challenging dominant hierarchies of visibility through the use of carnivalesque strategies. By opposing advertising’s dominion over the city walls, they reclaim – one street at a time – the possibility of expressing themselves in public for those generally excluded.

En questionnant la capacité des acteurs publics à gouverner les squats et les bidonvilles qui persistent dans les régions de Paris et de Madrid, l'ouvrage explique les mécanismes du gouvernement différentiel des illégalismes de logement des années 1960 à nos jours. La recherche montre que les squats et les bidonvilles sont gouvernés, mais de façon discontinue et par des politiques aux formes diverses. Elle démontre que l'ingouvernabilité est construite par les acteurs publics pour justifier le couplage d'une « inaction publique »-que l'auteur conçoit comme stratégique (et non défaillante)-et de politiques de l'exception. L'ingouvernabilité constitue ainsi à la fois un répertoire discursif justifiant le retrait de l'action publique et un mode de gouvernance qui entretient les politiques de l'urgence, policières et humanitaires, et autorise les bricolages partiels et ponctuels. Mais lorsque les acteurs publics y trouvent des intérêts pour se positionner comme leaders de la gouvernance métropolitaine multiniveaux, des politiques publiques autonomes peuvent s'institutionnaliser autour d'administrations, d'instruments et de budgets propres. Dans tous les cas, les politiques sélectionnent et contraignent des bénéficiaires qui sont relogés ou dont l'habitat est temporairement légalisé, tout en refoulant des victimes, expulsées de lieurs lieux de vie sans proposition de relogement. Les politiques produisent autant d'illégalité qu'elles n'en résorbent. Derrière ces invariants, notamment issus des effets propres des instruments, l'ouvrage identifie quatre variables clés pour expliquer la diversité des effets de l'instrumentation des politiques : les niveaux d'institutionnalisation, les logiques sectorielles, les échelles d'action et le comportement des cibles qui contribuent à la conception des instruments, en neutralisent les contraintes et en détournent les ressources. L'ouvrage explicite alors les conditions dans lesquelles des protestataires peuvent faire changer l'action publique.

Abstract

Addressing the issue of ungovernability of squats and illegal settlements in the Capital Regions of Paris and Madrid, the book explains the mechanisms of differential government of housing illegalisms since the sixties. The book shows that squats and illegal slums are governed, but in a discontinuous way and by diverse forms of policies. It demonstrates that ungovernability is built by public actors in order to justify alternatively inaction and policies of exception. Ungovernability is a discursive repertory that justifies the disengagement of policies. But it is also a mode of governance that supports emergency policies, implemented by police agencies and NGOs, and that allows policy makers to set up only local and temporary rehousing and social programs. However, as policy makers are rent-seekers, when they find interests to become leaders of the competitive multilevel urban governance, they activate agendas and implement institutionalized and autonomous policies. They create specific administrations, instruments and budgets. Policies select and constraint beneficiaries and evict victims. Thus, policies produce as much illegality as they resolve it. Beside these invariants produced by the sui generis own effects of policy instruments, the book identifies four key variables whose combinations explain the policy outcomes diversity: the level of institutionalization, the sectorial logics, the scale of actions, and the behaviour of targeted groups who participate to the instruments conception. Squatters and slum dwellers resist, they neutralize constraints and divert resources. Finally, the book elaborates a model that identifies the conditions in which challengers and social movements can change public policies.

Cette thèse compare les poétiques à l’œuvre dans deux chansons urbaines, le tango chanté de Buenos Aires et le fado de Lisbonne, au moment de leur émergence sociale dans la seconde moitié du 19e siècle. La thèse interroge la représentation usuelle commune à ces deux traditions chantées et plus généralement aux chansons urbaines nées dans les sociétés industrielles de la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, selon laquelle il s’agirait d’expressions des bas-fonds urbains et des marges sociales, origines qui se traduiraient dans les paroles des premières chansons. Ces dernières sont de ce fait traditionnellement abordées par la critique comme des témoins sociaux, corpus poétique qui reflèterait l’expérience urbaine fin-de-siècle propre aux déclassés, en étant la trace de leur « voix » singulière et transgressive. Nous montrons que cette vulgate historiographique, dont le scénario mène systématiquement des marges au patrimoine national et/ou mondial, et que nous proposons de considérer comme un "grand récit" des origines, est partagée par la critique universitaire contemporaine, les promoteurs du Patrimoine Culturel Immatériel et les acteurs des deux traditions eux-mêmes, et qu'elle est matérialisée dans les paroles de chansons, les récits "ordinaires" et les performances. Nous la confrontons ensuite aux archives du tango et du fado, pour montrer qu’il s’agit d’une construction rétrospective émanant principalement de la littérature et de la presse fin-de-siècle. En contrepoint, nous démontrons à l’aide de sources variées que ces chansons sont des pratiques socialement transversales, apparues dans des contextes diversifiés. Nous replaçons ensuite les sources littéraires et les enquêtes sociales à partir desquelles a été élaborée cette fiction des origines dans le contexte particulier d’émergence d’un "imaginaire des bas-fonds" au milieu du 19e siècle, et d’une "poétique canaille", partagée par la littérature et la chanson, redéfinissant les frontières entre le savant et le populaire. Enfin, à travers une approche ethnopoétique des premiers corpus de chansons tango et fado, nous explorons cette "poétique canaille", en analysant notamment les opérations de montage, les médiatisations et les configurations textuelles qui permettent d’élucider, concrètement, la fabrique de ces deux traditions chantées. ************************** 

This doctoral thesis examines the poetics of two urban songs, Buenos Aires tango and Lisbon fado, as they socially emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. It interrogates the prevailing representation, common to these two sung traditions and to several modern urban songs, according to which they originated in the underworld and outer fringes, and their lyrics bear witness to the urban experience of social outcasts. This historiographic vulgate, a script that leads systematically from the margins to national and/or global heritage, is reconsidered here as a "grand narrative" of origins, embodied in ordinary, scholarly and institutional tales and in fado and tango performances. The substantial lack of traces of these "marginal" practices in the Portuguese and Argentinian archives of the period is observed. It is then examined that these songs actually belong to socially transversal practices which appeared in various contexts in both cities. The "origin narrative" was configured retrospectively, based on fin-de-siecle social and criminal inquiries, literature and press, and should be linked to the "underworld imagination" developing on a world-scale at that time, and to the "rabble poetics" that spread at the same period in popular poetry, literature and song, redefining the frontiers between 'high' and 'low' culture. Finally, through an ethnopoetic approach of the first tango and fado repertoires, these "rabble poetics" are explored, analyzing processes of 'montage', mediatisations and textual configurations underlying, on a concrete level, the fabrication of these two song traditions.

This paper proposes a multidisciplinary analysis method for freestyle rap performance. In its first part is presented the inquiry of the poetic, linguistic, musical and performance dimensions of freestyle rap. In its second part, so this approach could be enriched, it is presented a case study: the poetic dimension analysis of one freestyle performance by Acru, an Argentinian rapper, as well as an analysis of some aspects of Parry & Lord’s Oral-formulaic Theory. This will shed light on some of the poetic resources used by the freestyler in the discourse’s certain production context.

Este artículo plantea un método de análisis multidisciplinario para el rap improvisado. En su primera parte se sugiere el estudio de cuatro dimensiones del freestyle rap: la dimensión poética, la lingüística, la musical y la del performance. Para enriquecer esta propuesta, en la segunda parte se presenta un estudio de caso: el análisis de la dimensión poética de un freestyle del rapero argentino Acru, así como un análisis de algunos aspectos desde la teoría oral-formulaica propuesta por Parry y Lord. Esto arrojará luz sobre algunas de las herramientas poéticas de las que hace uso el freestyler en el contexto inmediato de ejecución de su arte verbal.

Song-writing competitions are only apart of 'chuangzuo' cultural form, in which youths seek after identity construction, and also a settlement for their enthusiasm in their engagement in 'chuangzuo'. It is undeniable that they are keen on the pursuit of music cultivation with the approach in their engagement. On the other hand, they manifest a language of 'transnational culture', which is believed to grow in many parts of the world.

Il lavoro è il frutto di una ricerca, personale per alcuni punti di vista e condivisa per altri, sulla rilevanza che la figura di Giacomo Leopardi detiene nei confronti della città natale di Recanati.
Grazie ad un'immaginaria passeggiata per le vie del centro, si cerca di mettere in luce, attraverso strumenti semiotici, dove e in quale modo sia possibile ravvisare la presenza del poeta e della sua storia nella contemporaneità del luogo in cui egli stesso è vissuto.

Practices of temporary reuse have come to the fore in recent years as material and symbolic forms of re-appropriating 'wasted' vacant urban spaces. In cities in the global north, 'pop-up shops'-temporary occupations of vacant commercial units-have incorporated social and artistic activities to create positive interruptions in the perceived decline of high streets and shopping areas. This chapter discusses the emergence of social and artistic pop-up shops as creative experiential fillers at times of recession and beyond. Drawing on the critical and situated analysis of a selection of community-oriented pop-up shops in London, it interrogates the 'pop-up aesthetics' shared by a diverse range of practices and their intended as well as unexpected readings by members of the public, raising questions about the relationship between emerging temporary cultural practices and processes of urban change.

Eso que hemos llamado ciudades no existe, y eso que hemos llamado campo tampoco; ese es el supuesto base de este ensayo. Un intento por desmantelar, o al menos reflexionar sobre conceptos que han sido claves para el pensamiento moderno, pero que hoy no logran dar cuenta de la enorme complejidad y variabilidad de los territorios. Nuestra propuesta es pensar lo urbano y lo rural como constructos compuestos por piezas que aparecen, ya no en un continuo ordenado jerárquicamente, sino en un mapa que se despliega en múltiples direcciones. Atendiendo ello, hemos avanzado en una definición tentativa de otro posible modo de vida, ni urbano ni rural, que sería preponderante en territorios no-metropolitanos. En este artículo identificamos sus dimensiones centrales, y en las combinaciones y gravitaciones que las definen.

This paper focuses on the urban graffiti painted with a political message by different
movements of the Italian political radicalism in the cities of Rome, Florence, Massa,
Carrara, Verona and Udine. For the purpose of this article, during the period from June
2011 to June 2012, a total of 165 graffiti have been photographed, of which 83 painted by
neo-fascist groups, 72 by extreme left groups and 10 by anarchist groups. These three
macro communities, made of different subgroups, emerged as the most active in expressing
their antagonism towards the parliamentary parties with their graffiti that combine semantic
(words) and semiotic (images) elements. An analysis of the collected graffiti’s language
form, meaning and context allows for the identification of the variety of styles of
communication adopted by the different political antagonisms and the different contents of
their communication through graffiti as well as the key elements of their political identities.
Key words: political radicalism, graffiti, linguistics

Archaeology plays a unique role in the rediscovery and restoration of lost moments of cultural memory. It also bears a responsibility beyond the narrow confines of academia, and can and should play a role in the public perception of the past. Understanding the material basis of a shared past is now more important than ever, as humankind is engaged in perhaps the most challenging endeavor in its history – learning how to manage the constant expansion, articulation, and integration of our global material culture. However, academic archaeology is an inherently self-referential field, and often fails to engage the public on these larger issues. This article examines an attempt to bridge that communication gap through the development of an innovative, radically cross-disciplinary curriculum.

In the past decade, urban regeneration policy makers and practitioners have faced a number of difficult challenges, such as sustainability, budgetary constraints, demands for community involvement and rapid urbanization in the Global South. Urban regeneration remains a high profile and important field of government-led intervention, and policy and practice continue to adapt to the fresh challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century, as well as confronting long-standing intractable urban problems and dilemmas. This Companion provides cutting-edge critical review and synthesis of recent conceptual, policy and practical developments within the field. With contributions from 72 international experts within the field, it explores the meaning of ‘urban regeneration’ in differing national contexts, asking questions and providing informed discussion and analyses to illuminate how an apparently disparate field of research, policy and practice can be rendered coherent, drawing out common themes and significant differences. The Companion is divided into six parts, exploring: globalization and neo-liberal perspectives on urban regeneration; emerging econceptualizations of regeneration; public infrastructure and public space;
housing and cosmopolitan communities; community centred regeneration; and culture-led regeneration. The concluding chapter considers the future of urban regeneration and proposes a nine-point research agenda. This Companion assembles a diversity of approaches and insights in one comprehensive volume to provide a state-of-the-art review of the field. It is a valuable resource for both advanced undergraduate
and postgraduate students in Urban Planning, Built Environment, Urban Studies and Urban Regeneration, as well as academics, practitioners and politicians.

This article argues critically that the consequences of a binary system of gender norms is experienced as a kind of gender tyranny both for those who transgress gender in their daily lives, but also for those whose lives are lived within such constraints. Feminist geographers and urban theorists have argued that space is gendered and that gendering has profound consequences for women. This article extends this analysis and shows how rigid categorizations of gender fail to include the intersexed and transgendered populations, a small and highly marginalized segment of the wider population. This article uses autoethnographic methods to illustrate the ways that those who transgress gender norms experience a tyranny of gender that shapes nearly every aspect of their public and private lives. The nature of these consequences is explored using citations from the transgender and queer literature as well as the lived experience of this tyranny by the author in a continuum of public to private spaces, including: parking lots, public restrooms, shopping malls, the workplace and the home.

The article analyzes the media logic of urban acts of communication in early modern German cities. As is demonstrated by Cologne and Hamburg in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the growing use of print (particularly pamphlets) moved local conflict away from face-to-face confrontation into progressively more multifaceted modes of communication, increasingly expressed in both manuscript and print. In highlighting the mediality of early modern urban culture, the changing relationship between the urban community, public opinion, and forms of communication is addressed. The resulting effect from the interplay and complementation of oral, written, and printed means of communication is described as echoes that formed an urban resonating box—a constant polyphonic state including both the literate and illiterate.

Gelişen bilgi ekonomilerinin küresel bağlantıları haline gelen üniversiteler, kuruldukları kentlerle girift bir sosyokültürel ilişki içerisindedir. Üniversiteler kuruldukları kentlerin demografik, ekonomik, mekânsal, sosyal ve
kültürel yapısına olan etkileri nedeniyle sosyolojik bir olgu olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Bu bağlamda kent kültürünün
ve kentlilik bilincinin gelişmesinde üniversite-kent iş birliği ve bütünleşmesi de her zamankinden önemli hale
gelmiştir. Ülkemizde de her kentte en az bir üniversitenin açılmasıyla birlikte üniversite kent ilişkisini inceleyen
çalışmalar ivme kazanmıştır. Buradan hareketle bu çalışma, bir üniversite kenti olma yolunda ilerleyen
Antalya’nın 5 üniversitesinden en eskisi olan ve bu yıl itibariyle öğrenci sayısı yaklaşık 74.000’e ulaşan Akdeniz
Üniversitesi’nin Antalya kent toplumundaki ve Antalya kentinin Akdeniz Üniversitesi’ndeki algılanma biçimini,
üniversitenin Antalya kentindeki toplumsal katkı payını ortaya koymayı, üniversite ve kent bütünleşmesi için
gereken temel verileri sağlamayı amaçlamıştır. Araştırma, Akdeniz Üniversitesi’nden 100 öğrenci, 50 akademik
ve idari personel ve de 150 Antalya kent sakini üzerinde anket tekniği kullanılarak gerçekleştirilmiş, veriler SPSS
programı yardımıyla analiz edilmiş, bulgular alıntılarla da desteklenerek yorumlanmıştır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kent, Kent Kültürü, Toplumsal Etkileşim, Akdeniz Üniversitesi, Antalya

The paper examines the spectacle of contemporary forms of advertising and product placements techniques in the context of urban environments (including the phenomenon of the so called ‘brand city’). This is an ‘over-exposed city’, to use Virilio’s terminology, a city penetrated by media and advertising, a topical manifestation of what Guy Debord called the ‘Society of the Spectacle’.

To those who wish to keep their "cultural operating systems", like the Korean or Russian or Thai or French, "pure", closed, proprietary, without outside influence, I say you are in great danger. Maybe your closed cultural system was elegant and refined. Maybe it has a glorious past history. But it ultimately comes from an earlier human civilization of small, savage tribal groups. Now we humans are many, crowded on a small planet, and communicating with everyone instantly. We need a different design, and that has to be an Open System.

Drawing upon a unique and untapped reservoir of newspapers, magazines, novels, government documents, photographs and illustrations, this book traces the origin, pinnacle, and ultimate demise of a commercial dance industry in Shanghai between the end of the First World War and the early years of the People's Republic of China.

Delving deep into the world of cabarets, nightclubs, and elite ballrooms that arose in the city in the 1920s and peaked in the 1930s, the book assesses how and why Chinese society incorporated and transformed this westernized world of leisure and entertainment to suit its own tastes and interests. Focusing on the jazz-age nightlife of the city in its "golden age," the book examines issues of colonialism and modernity, urban space, sociability and sexuality, and modern Chinese national identity formation in a tumultuous era of war and revolution.

To enter metaphor city is not to leave some putatively real city behind. It is not to swap the hard actuality of paving stones and glass for the imaginary meanderings of poets and dreamers. The city, as we most intimately know it, is made up of asphalt and anxiety, bricks and beliefs, concrete and confusion – an endless list of facts and fantasy and everything else in between. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz presents us with a formula for this actuality that is so staggeringly simple that it still has the power to shock: “rocks on the one hand and dreams on the other – they are things of this world.”

The photo book «Lisboa africana» (1993) reflects (1) the dilemma of the African Lisbon seen as a cluster of diasporas with different origins (Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, ...) and (2) the tourists' demand for a Lisbon other than 'white'. This means an incoherent mixture of  two dimensions: giving voice to the political / social task of preserving identity (in the suburbs) and, on the other hand, exposing naive clichés about black bodies in public places or, even worse, reproducing bits of the colonial ethnographic discourse. This incongruity is harmonized by the overall design of a photo book which fits perfectly into Western lifestyle aesthetics.