Moral urbanism Flashcards
Osbourne and Rose (1999)
Cities give us guidance in governing our everyday behaviours and forms. They provide us with certain cues on how to interact within the city itself.
For example, neoliberalism is a guiding principle for how the city is constructed and governed- conveying certain expectations of how the city should be managed.
These rules of conduct are learnt through experience. Sometimes they may be obvious, but more often they are unsaid and based on common knowledge.
Cresswell (1996)
“Our consciousness of place all but disappears when it appears to be working well […] behaviours that are judged as inappropriate in a particular location are literary as actions out of place”.
This demonstrates how the already existing normative geographies of a space determine how it is experienced. Only transgressive acts reveal what was previously considered natural and common sense.
Duneier (1999)
The author shows how homeless people sleeping on streets disrupts the ‘natural’ conduct of the city. Homelessness requires a private act to be performed in public. This challenges the notion of what is/is not appropriate in public space.
These normative geographies then get mapped onto forms of governance. For example, zero tolerance policies.
Smith (1998)
Argues that morality is a geographical result in the sense that it arises in distinct and changing geographical circumstances. This refers to the particular conditions in which moral codes are formed. Morality is therefore shaped by the urban context in which it exists.
The spatial scope of care is how far individuals should care about the lives of other people…
1) Universal impartiality (content not distance)
2) Localised partiality (closeness)
The tension between these two approaches created an important link between philosophy and geography.
Massey (2004)
Argues that space is constituted through a series of relations, both in and beyond place. Networks, flows and connections all constitute place- actions within place therefore have impacts beyond their bounds.
Example: London
This city does not simply exist independently- it is constituted to its relations with the world around it. These are the outward connections of the internal multiplicity itself. We have a responsibility to these connections.
Such responsibilities can be seen in events like Live Aid or public apologies which extends responsibility and care spatially and temporally.
Soja (2010)
The geographies we create will always have spatial injustices and inequalities embedded within them.
These matter most when they are rooted in social divisions of race, class or gender. Cities are the spaces in which these inequalities are most prominently expressed.
Spatial injustice has been tied to the city as a space of the expression of injustice and the opportunity for activism.
Malpass (2007)
The development of Bristol as a fair trade city links consumption with values of fairness and civil pride (this is a moral urbanism). This transforms ordinary citizens into becoming aware of fair-trade issues, whether they like it or not.
The FTT initiative puts emphasis on a collective, rather than individual, celebration of fair-trade. Moreover, the importance of place is emphasised on both sides. These are often neglected in other enactments of fair-trade.
This is essentially a reworking of place from the inside out; reflecting on the wider connections of the city and showing a sense of responsibility. A solidarity is created through trade. This campaign uses the history of Bristol (slave trade) to highlight the connections between this city and other parts of the world.
Although this seems like a positive thing to do, we must also look what Bristol has to gain from this labelling of the city. In the age of stringent urban comparison, claims to moral virtue offers a competitive advantage. Sometimes this can lead to urban branding that is devoid of social justice.
Mason and Whitehead (2012)
The transition culture movement is a response to peak-oil production and associated problems with climate change. This movement aims to create sustainable and locally resilient places which are self-sufficient.
The movement has been particularly popular throughout Britain and Ireland since the 2000s. This paper focuses on Aberystwyth in Wales. This is a criticism- the movement is Anglo-centric and far from being an international movement. This is further restricted by the rejection of cities into the movement (due to their very infrastructure being built on exploitation).
This is done by focussing on grassroots provision and a re-thinking of connections of dependency. The care of proximate others is as important as caring for distant others. This care is shown through the disconnection of practices that cause harm.
However, the movement has been criticised from some as not being enough. The only real transition can be made when the ‘rules of the game’ are changed- capitalism. Without the decoupling of economic growth with carbon emissions, we cannot truly tackle the issue.
Oomen and Baumgartel (2014)
Cities like Barcelona have become Human Rights Cities- seeking to integrate human rights into the governance and form of the city.
Generally these cities act as orientation points for political contests. Barcelona now has a mandate to protect human rights at the local level to ensure non-discrimination (especially in regards to migrant groups).
These cities offer a critique to the ability of the nation-state to protect such rights. They also reflect the growing authority of cities within governance.
Darling (2013)
Sheffield was the UK’s first City of Sanctuary in 2005. This movement aims to welcome asylum seekers and refugees through promoting a culture of hospitality. This is moral urbanism- the discursive and affective construction of the city as being imbued within moral characteristics.
In 1999, Sheffield became a key dispersal site of migrants in the UK. This positions the city between the politics of dispersal and the city’s projected image as a welcoming place.
This is located in Derrida’s (2002) account of hospitality. This works to maintain an image of the ‘good city’ and ‘good citizen’. BUT this is challenged with the ‘legitimate’ migrant; UN certified vs illegal?
This allows Sheffield to claim a position beyond the normal response to refugees- the city is re-imagined as a space in which mobility politics can emerge.
However, this construction of the city assumed that Sheffield’s history is uncomplicated. This is not true. After WW2, despite Britain being represented as a tolerant country, Britain’s borders were pretty much closed to Jewish people. The COS label therefore obscures this history and is highly selective of the history it does tell.
Lyon (2014)
Fair Trade Towns USA was set up in 2005, based on the model of the UK. The first town was in Media, Pennsylvania.
The FTT approach aims to empower communities to organise local grassroots movements to raise awareness of fair-trade. This provides a permanent platform upon which continued outreach and education can be used to widen the fair-trade movement.
This approach uses market-exchange as a way of re-imagining space according to a more ethical logic. It must not be forgotten that Fair trade is both a movement and a market.
FTT represents a symbolic and material form of activism.
