Cities in the Middle East: the politics of representation

My project offers a cutting-edge, critical and interdisciplinary debate about how cities in the Middle East are represented, understood and discursively shaped in our globalising world. In the workshops to be conducted at UCL and Sciences Po we will invite scholars to discuss:

• (i) how in our globalising world where the flow of knowledge, capital and people one characterises “Cities in the Middle East” as a distinct urban category without falling into an essentialist trap?
• (ii) is there any justification for generalising the urban processes of various cities located in a region despite their diverse histories, politics and cultures?
• (iii) what is our role as scholars in de-constructing the modern geopolitical and urban map of the Middle East that has resulted from the post-war European imperialism which actually created the concept?  

The first workshop at UCL will focus on global representations of cities in the Middle East in art, film industry, media and current literature. The second workshop at SciencesPo will focus on how Eurocentric notions of diversity, cosmopolitanism and modernity discursively and tangibly shape cities' politics, space and culture in the Middle East.

Area

Architecture & City Planning

UCL leads

• Professor Haim Yacobi, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit