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Global Urban History Project

Date: 1/6/2020
Subject: Noteworthy in Global Urban History
From: Global Urban History Project



Vol. 16, January 2020.
 
Happy New Year!
 
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Books
A Cuban City, Segregated. Race and Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century
by Bonnie A. Lucero, University of Houston, USA
(University of Alabama Press, 2019)
 

Founded as a white colony in 1819, Cienfuegos, Cuba, quickly became  home to people of African descent, both free and enslaved, and later a small community of Chinese and other immigrants. Despite the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity that defined the city’s population, the  urban landscape was characterized by distinctive racial boundaries,  separating the white city center from the heterogeneous peripheries. A Cuban City, Segregated: Race and Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century explores how the de facto racial segregation was constructed  and perpetuated in a society devoid of explicitly racial laws.[more]


Articles
"Understanding urban from the disciplinary viewpoint of history"
by Nancy Kwak, University of California-San Diego, USA.
Defining the Urban: Perspectives Across the Academic Disciplines (2017), edited by Deljana Iossifova, Alexandros Gasparatos and Christopher Doll.
 

This chapter outlines the trajectory of research in the discipline of history and discusses some of the ways in which "urban" has come to be redefined through some key works. It overviews the interdisciplinary origins and character of urban history. It explores the ways in which rapid urbanization stimulated a second wave of urban history research in the second half of the twentieth century, this time in response to evolving urban landscapes in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The urban is about cities, certainly, but it is importantly a vehicle for probing the relationships between built form and settlement patterns.


"Networks Beyond the Nation: Urban Histories of Northern Thailand and Beyond”
Taylor Easum, Indiana State University, USA.
The Routledge Handbook of Urbanisation in Southeast Asia, edited by Rita Padawangi.
 
The city-states scattered across the lowland river valleys stretching from the Shan states in Myanmar, northern Thailand, northern Laos, northeastern Vietnam, and even southern Yunnan, have historical connections that are difficult to fit into analyses of urban systems in any given nation, or within any study of the growth of Asia’s mega-urban regions. These are cities in the margins—the physical margins between coastal kingdoms and colonial states, and the conceptual margins between national or imperial centers of power. In the context of urban studies and the problems of Asia’s urban future, secondary, intermediate, and smaller cities demand greater attention because they reflect the broader urban experience of Southeast Asia.

Teaching Resources
Communal Living in Russia
A Virtual Museum of Soviet Everyday Life
 
This Web site--an online ethnographic museum--explores and explains a striking social phenomenon: the Soviet "kommunalka," or communal apartment. Instituted after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the kommunalka was a predominant form of housing for generations. By the 1970s, these crowded and uncomfortable apartments began to empty out in a noticeable way. But even now, when their location the most fashionable central districts of large Russian cities make them hot targets for real-estate buyouts, many remain in place, with life ordered in much the same way as it always was. On this site, we show video clips of ongoing communal apartments and their inhabitants, shot in St. Petersburg in 2006. There are also audio interviews, photographs, documents, commentaries, and explanations of many different kinds.
[more]

Related Networks and Events
The Construction of a New City, Ankara. 1923-1933
 

Koç University VEKAM would like to announce a new exhibition The Construction of a New City : Ankara 1923-1933 curated by Müge Cengizkan and Ali Cengizkan, within the scope of 50th anniversary of Vehbi Koç Foundation.

 

The Construction of a New City: Ankara 1923-1933  which is a part of research project aims to contribute to Ankara's modern history. The exhibition invites its visitors to witness to the construction of a city and will open its doors from November 13, 2019 to January 12, 2020 at CerModern North and South Hangar Galleries.

 [more]