Call for papers
Paris, June 12-13, 2014
Organized by the ASCA Cities Project in collaboration with SENAR and the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies, this interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to explore the many ways in which garbage in its diverse forms and articulations is being produced, managed, experienced, imagined, circulated, concealed, and aestheticized in contemporary urban environments and across different creative and cultural practices. To what extent are contemporary cities becoming wastelands? In what ways are the global economics of excess and waste reshaping urban communities? How do the ever accelerating cycles of production, consumption, and disposal redirect urban flows of capital, commodities, data, and people? What new types and concepts of waste are produced by mechanisms of time-space compression and intensified global connectivity? How do imaginaries of trash or ruination figure in urban policy discourses and their counter-narratives? And what is the position of waste, dirt, and residue in a pervasive visual culture of excess?
Engaging with these sorts of questions, the conference will explore how, and under what conditions, contemporary forms/sites of excess, waste, and abandonment perpetuate but also sometimes counter the imbalances of power often associated with global cities.
More information
Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine
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Urban Sustainable Index (USI) 2013 builds upon the work carried out in USI 2011. USI 2013 has expanded and upgraded the indicators used in USI 2011. The analysis deploys 23 metrics, which cover four categories: economy, society, resources and environment. We ranked 185 cities, of varying sizes and at different stages of development, by their level of sustainability from 2005 to 2011. To ensure data was available, as well as to reflect the full landscape of Chinese cities, our sample includes all levels of cities from municipalities directly under the central government, to county-level cities with populations ranging from 200,000 to 20 million.
