Landscapes of Global Urbanism: Power, Marginality, and Creativity

グローバル・アーバニズムの展望
――権力・周縁性・創造性のランドスケープ――

When: December 17－20, 2008

Where: International House of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
国際文化会館（東京都港区六本木）

スケジュール　Schedules:
12月17日（水）　Wednesday, Dec 17: Registration and evening plenary session
12月18日（木）　Thursday, Dec 18: Morning plenary session and afternoon sessions
12月19日（金）　Friday, Dec 19: Morning and afternoon sessions, closing session
12月20日（土）　Saturday, Dec 20: Urban tours in the morning

Organized by: Takashi Machimura(Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University)

主催　Hosted by: ISA-RC21 Tokyo Conference Organizing Committee and International Sociological Association Research Committee on Urban & Regional Development (ISA-RC21)

後援　Supported by: 地域社会学会Japan Association of Regional and Community Studies, 日本都市社会学会Japan Association for Urban Sociology, and 日本学術振興会（国際研究集会助成）Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)


ねらい　Rationale:
After decades under the influence of globalization, neo-liberalism, and the rapid expansion of informational technology, where do we stand today? This conference will focus on the consequences, both critical and creative, of such dominant and ascendant social trends on urban and regional life and space. First, we will consider hidden frames of global urban landscapes in their social, spatial, political and imaginary forms. What is manifested and what is unseen under vibrant and conflicting urban scene? Diverse questions such as hegemony, inequality, violence, governance, tolerance, and creativity can be asked of any place and space. Second, we want to ask about possible futures of current global urbanism. Now, in globalizing cities over the world, are we experiencing different paths toward more convergent forms of the city, or are we facing with parallel changes into more divergent urban worlds? This question concerns identity, goals, theory, and methodology of urban and regional studies. The meeting will push towards new theoretical agenda for the future studies. Located at dynamic Asian contexts, Tokyo, which has experienced a profound change in the past two decades, will offer a rich body of sights and stories to inform and inspire our conversations.

http://www.msu.edu/user/fujitak/2008Conferences.htm
http://www.msu.edu/user/fujitak/Tokyo%20sessions.pdf

The 12th International Conference of EAJS will be held at Salento university in Lecce/Italy in 2008, September 20-23. Prior to the conference, the Fifth EAJS PhD Workshop will be held at the same location.

All details of the registration procedure, conference fees, venue and accommodation can be found on the conference website at www.eajsconference.unile.it in English and in Japanese. Here you'll also find a short introduction to the Salento region and facts about Salento university.

The eight sections into which the conference is divided and the names of all convenors are listed at http://www.eajsconference.unile.it//index.php?lang=en

I"n the centre and on the margin: situating the local community between Low and High-rise, The case of Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi, Tokyo"

Interdisciplinary Workshop, Tokyo, Japan

updated program 9th September 2007
http://rojiresearchyanesen.twoday.net/

07.-08.09.2007 cSUR Centre for Sustainable Urban Regeneration, University of Tokyo
The eco-urbanity symposium is conceived as a brainstorming workshop.

The Symposium brings together a group of experts, leading academics and practitioners from Australia, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom, who are active in various disciplines that deal with production of space. Our task is to cross common disciplinary and cultural boundaries, to think together, in order to develop a better understanding of what constitutes sustainable practice today, the practice capable to embrace both environmental responsibility and cultural responsiveness, the practice that would be locally accountable and, thus, globally relevant.

http://csur.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ecourbanity/index.html

8th Asia Pacific Sociological Association (APSA) conference
to be held in Georgetown (Penang) Malaysia, 19-22 November, 2007.

Rapid globalization, coupled with economic liberalization and financial deregulation, has opened-up the economics of the Asia Pacific region. Increasing wealth generation is heralded as a sign of great personal and notional success, while large numbers of people remain marginalised in poor paying a insecure jobs. Youth are under extreme pressures in terms of successful education and gaining secure employment. The media glorifies the consumer revolution, and we see increasing use of new technologies which are changing forever the very fabric of work, family life, health and culture in the countries of the Asia Pacific. The region is seemingly now more integrated, with unprecedented levels of tourism, migration, and economic and cultural linkages. But, are the nations of the region, and their populations, becoming more divided, united or are they fundamentally unchanged over the past two decades? This conference aims to explore the various dimensions of the rapid social transformation of the Asia Pacific. Papers that empirically or theoretically address the themes of social transformation, in its diverse forms, are particularly welcome.

http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/conferences/2007/conferences-2007-apsa.html
Please also check the APSA website at: http://www.asiapacificsociology.org

The conference is co-sponsored by the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS), University of Wollongong, Australia.

Conference Paper, Title
"In the centre and on the margin: tracing public space and urban life in between Low and High-rise in contemporary Tokyo, Japan"

The Asian Studies Conference Japan (ASCJ)
ASCJ emphasizes interdisciplinary scholarly exchange on Asia in English-language format to broaden communication among researchers of diverse disciplines and backgrounds who are based in Japan. The conference also welcomes scholars from other countries. ASCJ conducts a yearly conference. Everyone world-wide interested in Asian studies is invited to participate. The inaugural meeting of ASCJ was held in October 1997. ASCJ is an affiliate of the Association for Asian Studies, AAS

http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~ascj/2007/ascj-program-2007.pdf
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~ascj/2007/ASCJ-abstracts-2007.pdf

East Asian Urban Transition - Manifold Scales of Contemporary Spatial and Cultural Transformation
Organizer/ Chair: Heide Jaeger, Manchester Metropolitan University
In recent years, different scholars addressed the changing urban space of the Asian city. While these cities are neither comparable nor identical, they share common problems, e.g. the displacement of local culture by modern life style. How does one read the contemporary Asian city on the edge between local past and global growth? The panel seeks to take a bottom-up perspective identifying common pathways which follow an approach beyond the discussion about nostalgia and modernity. The papers seek to affirm an urban identity that is threatened by marginalization of urban space, aiming to strengthen local life which is deeply seated in the citys interplay of past and present.
Four papers are presented, reflecting at different scales on case studies in Shanghai, Tokyo and Daegu, South-Korea. Demmler outlines problems of large scale planning approaches in the case of Shanghai Province, drawing at the inability to adequately address spatial qualities from an everyday life perspective. Iossifova describes the process of socio-economic and spatial transition with focus on the -joint line- between two opposing neighbourhoods. Analogous, Jaeger uses the case of Tsukudajima, Tokyo to reflect on the challenge faced by the local community to situate itself between low and high rise. Finally, based on small case studies Menzel/ Weiner explore how in the daily life style and environment of Daegu, Korean traditions and cultural roots are kept or cut. Taking multidisciplinary perspectives, the papers complete each other in questioning how global processes reshape the urban space in the Asian city.

1) Rolf Demmler, Independent scholar
Urbanization of the Lower Yangtze Delta – Human Scale Planning Approaches for a Regional Identity
Until 2020, the Lower Yangtze Region will see an intense spatial transformation. In order to strategically deal with an estimated rise in population of 3-4 million people in Shanghai Province, a massive development of autonomous urban satellite cities is envisaged. By absorbing this influx in Shanghais metropolitan hinterland rather than the city itself, further urban sprawl and further increase in Shanghai's already high density are thought to be prevented. The region will sustain agricultural production and a substantial rural community while making space for intense urbanization and industrial development. Shanghai inevitably remains the economical international and local centre.
The paper argues that the new hinterlands quality and its cities autonomy will greatly depend on the ability to define regional identity in opposition to the mega city, which necessitates a rigorous account of the hinterland's current and potential future assets. In a detailed outline of the official regional plan, the paper looks at inherent key problems of large scale planning approaches, especially the inability to adequately address spatial qualities from an everyday life perspective.
In order to fill this gap the paper suggests a bottom-up strategy to assist a sustainable regional identity by integrating an intimate scale into the big picture. Firstly, it explores how a phenomenological reading of spatial characteristics and a topological, more flexible notion of spatial and functional context can provide a detailed representation of the regions potential assets from a human scale perspective. Secondly, it identifies methodological approaches to integrate these findings into regional scale planning practice.

2) Deljana Iossifova, Tokyo Institute of Technology
The New Middle Class and the Old Poor: Spatial Manifestation in Shanghai
Economic progress in China within the past twenty years has introduced a hitherto unknown urbanization push – which has unfortunately proven to engage high environmental costs and numerous other unwanted consequences. The increasing gap between the well-off and the poor is just one of them. While housing reforms mostly aim to support a (questionable) middle class, those at the lower end of the social ladder are often left behind to deal by themselves with the issues at hand. This paper focuses on the spatial manifestation of this emerging gap, by examining two contrasting realities within the rising Chinese city. Two neighbouring Shanghainese communities of very different conditions – one grown and poor, the other just recently developed and relatively well-off – will be compared. Their respective spatial layout and the predominant everyday life patterns of their inhabitants (or users) will be evaluated in order to determine differences and similarities, if any. Thought will be given to the linear space between them, raising the question of whether it appears more as a permeable joint line or rather an impervious border.

3) Heide Jaeger, Manchester Metropolitan University
Between the Lines: Situating the Local Community between Low and High Rise – The Case of Tsukudajima, Tokyo
Tokyos positioning as global city has caused many discussions but seldom it was directly focused on to the processes which affect the life at the bottom edge. Saskia Sassens terms of centrality/ accumulation are predominant in areas of Tokyos new developments as Roppongi or Shiodome. But only a stone throw away we find local neighborhoods, opposed to the sprouting of skyscrapers. In Japan, small scale developments have historically produced a high degree of urban heterogeneity being maintained by the invisible, cultural coding of each ward. But since the 1980s, the government favoured larger developments, causing economically driven urban layers on top of the existing urban fabric. Taking the case of Tsukudajima, the paper draws firstly on the perspective of a local community, asking how here recent redevelopment has changed the local lifestyle.
But in between the High Rise we still find remaining alleys, crammed with small scale housing and tiny eateries. Many Tokyoites say that this kind of neighbourhood keeps the spirit of old Tokyo alive and offer reasons to walk around Tokyo searching for such lost spaces. However, the paper will secondly reflect on the question how the local residents can maintain their living inside the growing sea of skyscrapers? Is this a lost war, or to which degree can marginalized structures coexist or be integrated? Following Waleys -Moving the Margin of Tokyo- (2002) the paper will therefore finally outline to which extend the local space is still a part of daily life or only existing in the urban memory.

4) Hendrik Weiner, Leibnitz University Hannover
Todays Korean lifestyles: Cultural Roots and Western Influences – Examples in Design and Architecture
Todays Korean lifestyle is determined by strong stereotypical western images according to modern (family) life, pleasure, success and wealth. This affirmatively evaluated image guides the appearance of Korean society in the present and also to the future, getting obvious in political goals, advertising strategies, urban planning and solutions of the different design disciplines. Daily dreams of people follow these aims as well. The possession of new and expensive goods, global brands and a particular adaptation of western lifestyle symbolize the forward-looking and modern Korean citizen. Examining these symbols and expressions of todays lifestyle in Korea, there can be discovered an interesting mixture of western standards and eastern needs, interpretations and kinds of use.
What does this mix tell about the western influences on Asians daily lives and their cultural self-conception? How do western influences affect social approaches in East Asia? How do Korean traditions and cultural roots get kept or cut? Small case studies and examples in design and architecture of this cultural mixture will be presented. Focus is public and private environments in the city of Daegu, South Korea and representatively used products of every day life. We will review and converge to the question about how and if an authentic Korean approach in design and architecture could or might need to be created.
The paper is co-produced by Carmen Menzel, Keimyung University, Daegu and Hendrik Weiner, Leibnitz University Hannover.


Discussant: Prof. Geeta Mehta, Temple University, Tokyo

May 2007, Application Abstract, 4th PhD Workshop EAJS (European Association for Japanese Studies), Oxford University, UK topic: Japanese Studies

June 2007 Paper Presentation, 11th ASCJ (Asian Studies Conference Japan) 2007, Tokyo, Japan topic: Asian and Japanese Studies
Panel: ’East Asian Urban Transition – manifold scales of contemporary spatial and cultural transformation’

July 2007 Application Abstract, 8th Annual Association of Pacific Rim Universities, Doctoral Student Conference, Tokyo, Japan, topic: Research in the Pacific Realm

August 2007 Application Abstract, 9th Asian Urbanization Conference, Korea,
topic: Asian Urbanization

deadline 25th November 2006
decision around 15th December 2006
final submission Abstract 31st January 2007

conference 23/24th June 2007
Tokyo

We applied with four papers and if we have luck we can prepare some interesting papers about Shanghai, Tokyo and Daegu, South Korea

So hopefully hear and see you again, for some collaboration!

AHRA Annual Research Student Symposium
Thu, Apr 6, 2006 to
Fri, Apr 7, 2006
Location(s): University of Edinburgh

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS: Proposals due in by Friday 6 January 2006
The Architectural Humanities Research Association invites proposals from graduate students for contributions to its 3rd Annual Student Research Symposium, which will be held from 6th - 7th April 2006, at the School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh.

Proposals concerning research in any area of the architectural humanities will be eligible for consideration (architectural history, theory, culture, design, urbanism, etc.)

In addition, this year we will particularly welcome contributions that deal with aspects of architectural pedagogy (including the teaching of - and the inter-relationships between - design, history and theory; approaches to research training and supervision; historical and contemporary pedagogic environments and practices; the relationship between the academy and the profession; architecture within the disciplinary configuration of the university; alternative pedagogies; etc). Our intention is that these will be organised as a separate strand within the main symposium.

Papers will be 20 minutes long.

The symposium will also include a number of round-table sessions, allowing research students to give short, 10 minute, presentations related to interpretative, methodological or other issues arising from work with which they are currently engaged. It is anticipated that each of these sessions will consist of 3-4 presentations followed by an extensive discussion.

Proposals for papers should be 500 words maximum: those for presentations in round-table sessions 250 words maximum. Proposals should be sent by email by Friday 6 January 2006 to AHRA06@ed.ac.uk (please label the subject field: AHRA06). Indicate clearly in the main text of the email whether the submission concerns a paper or a round-table presentation. Responses to prospective contributors will be sent by 31 January 2006.

Submissions will be reviewed by the organising committee and selected for inclusion in the symposium on that basis. The organising committee is comprised of Dr Ella Chmielewska (Cultural Studies, University of Edinburgh), Dr Mark Dorrian (AHRA and University of Edinburgh), Richard Patterson (AHRA and University of Brighton), Professor Jeremy Till (AHRA and University of Sheffield), Dr Igea Troiani (Oxford Brookes University), and a panel of graduate students from the University of Edinburgh.

Selected material from the conference will be published in a special issue of Edinburgh Architectural Research. We anticipate making all material presented at the conference available as a digital archive.

There will be no charge to attend the symposium. Accommodation in Edinburgh can be booked via www.murray-accommodation.co.uk Email: mqa@murray-accommodation.co.uk


AHRA promotes, supports, develops and disseminates research in all areas of architectural humanities. Further information can be found at:www.ahra-architecture.org.uk Contact: jonathan.hale@nottingham.ac.uk

"Rethinking Space and Place in Asia" Dissertation Workshop, April 9-12, 2006 San Francisco (Association for Asian Studies)

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Dissertation Workshop looks to convene graduate students working on doctoral dissertations that deal with the nature and implcations of transformations and reconceptualizations of space and place in Asia. We are seeking students concerned with historical and/or contemporary periods, and dealing with social, political and economic materials, and/or the arts and popular culture. Our hope is that comparisons across periods, regions, and types of material will both illuminate the strengths and uniqueness of particular projects and approaches, and also help construct broader understandings of these processes and their implications.

The workshop will be limited to 12 students, ideally from a broad array of disciplines and working on a wide variety of materials in a variety of time periods, and in various regions of Asia. It also will include a small multidisciplinary and multi-area faculty with similar concerns. The workshop is designed to enable students just beginning to work on these issues, or else well into them, to encourage greater cross-regional exchange and will also explore possibilities for continuing contact among interested students and faculty.

The workshop will be held in the days immediately following the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in San Francisco. It will beging the evening of Sunday, April 9, and run through the afternoon of Wednesay, April 12, 2006.

The AAS is able to provide limited financial support for participants including three night's accommodations, meals and "need-based" travel funds up to a maximum of $300. Students needing additional funds to attend the workshop are encouraged to approach their home institutions for support. (It is hoped that participants also will attend the AAS annual meeting immediately prior to the workshop.)

Applicants need not have advanced to candidacy but must have at least drafted a dissertation research proposal. Applications are also welcome from doctoral students in the early phases of writing their dissertations. Applications consist of two items only:

1) Two copies of a current Curriculum Vitae, and
2) Two copies of the dissertation proposal, or if the research and writing is well under way, a statement of the specific issues being addressed, the intellectual appriach, and the materials being studied. Neither the proposal nor statement should exceed 10 double-spaced pages in length. Application materials (hard copy only, no email) must reach the Dissertation Workshop Program, AAS, 1021 East Huron St, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104, NO LATER THAN December 1, 2005

Workshop participants will be selected on the basis of the submitted projects, the potential for useful exchanges among them, and a concern to include a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, intellectual traditions and regions of Asia. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been selected for the workshop by mid-December.

For further information about the workshop, or eligibility, please contact Michael Paschal (mpaschal@aasianst.org) or David Szanton (szanton@uclink.berkeley.edu).
Sponsor Association for Asian Studies
Date January 9, 2006
Location San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
United States
For more information on this event contact:
Michael Paschal
(734) 665-2490
mpaschal@aasianst.org