After the Cosmopolitan? argues that both racial divisions and intercultural dialogue can only be understood in the context of the urbanism through which they are realized.
All the key debates in cultural theory and urban studies are covered in detail:
the growth of cultural industries and the marketing of cities
social exclusion and violence
the nature of the ghetto
the cross-disciplinary conceptualization of cultural hybridity
the politics of third-way social policy.
In considering the ways in which race is played out in the world's most eminent cities, Michael Keith shows that neither the utopian naiveté of some invocations of cosmopolitan democracy, nor the pessimism of multicultural hell can adequately make sense of the changing nature of contemporary metropolitan life.
Authoritative and informative, this book will be of interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers of anthropology, cultural studies, geography, politics and sociology.
1. Introduction: Globalisation, Urbanism and Cosmopolitanism Fever 2. The Mirage at the Heart of the Myth? Thinking About the White City 3. After the Cosmopolitan? The Limits of the Multicultural City and the Mutability of Racism 4. The Ghetto: Knowing your Place and the Performative Cartographies of Racial Subordination 5. Ethnic Entrepreneurs and Street Rebels: Looking Inside the Inner City 6. The Street: Street Sensibility? 7. The Cultural Quarter: Globalization, Hybridity and Curating Exotica. 8. Tagging the City: Graffiti Practice and Transcultural Communication 9. The Cartographies of Community Safety. Mapping Danger and Rumours of Risk 10. The Plan Knowing Urbanism: Between the Allure of the Cosmopolitan and the Horror of the Postcolony
