cfp: Dissent and Cultural Resistance in Asian Cities

Melissa Butcher & Selvaraj Velayutham (editors) CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS 
Since Asia’s economic boom in the 1990s, major cities in the region have 
undergone unprecedented transformation. From Beijing to Hanoi, Kuala 
Lumpur to Jakarta and Singapore to Chennai, Asian cities are bustling 
with movement and activity, vying for global city status. The growth of 
these cities, their role and interconnectedness with the rest of the 
world and distinctive characteristics, have been well documented from an 
historical and empirical standpoint by many theorists in the field. 
These works inform us of processes of urban change arising as a 
consequence of converging global capital, technology and labour flows, 
and their impact on the built environment. However, the ways in which 
people living in Asian cities respond to this changing milieu in their 
daily lives has received little scholarly attention. What counter 
narratives can be told about these emerging world cities? That is, what 
kinds of strategies or practices have people developed to demonstrate 
their dissent or to resist the transformative dynamics of the city. 
This book seeks to critically engage with the urban experiences of 
dissent and emergent resistance against the disjunctive global and local 
flows that converge and intersect in Asia’s fastest growing cities. 
Rather than constructing occupants of the city as victims of 
globalisation or urbanisation, the book will present ways in which 
people are using everyday strategies that are embedded in cultural 
practice, to challenge dominant socio-economic and political forces 
impacting on these urban spaces. Taking the city as a site of 
contestation and a stage where social conflicts are played out, essays 
will highlight the connections between power and resistance; how the 
spatiality and the built environment of the city generates conflict; how 
protagonists use the cityscape to stage their everyday and public 
dissent; and the nature and impact of resistance.  Contributing essays 
are invited that explore the conditions, strategies, and outcomes of 
such dissent and forms of cultural resistance, grounded in an event or 
project in a particular Asian city. Essays will deal with, but are not 
limited to, the following themes:

    * Counter narratives and re-imagining the city;
    * Urban planning, neighbourhoods and the creation of community;
    * Urban development, ghetto-isation and gentrification;
    * Power and politics in the urban arena;
    * Grassroots activism and social movements;
    * Gender, class and the politics of identity;
    * Transgressive spaces and places.

Research papers employing qualitative methods (ethnography, in-depth 
interviews, focus groups, narrative analysis) are preferred. Please send 
a proposed title and a 500-word abstract by 31 January 2007 to:  Melissa 
Butcher: melissa.butcher@xxxxxxxxx Selvaraj Velayutham: 
selvaraj.velayutham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  Accepted contributions (7,000 words) 
will need to be completed by August 2007. We are in discussion with a 
number of potential publishers in the field. Please contact the editors 
for more information.