Cosmopolitan Cities? Politics, Language and Spaces of Consumption
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
In this panel discussion, four Birkbeck academics will explore the political and linguistic ramifications of the cosmopolitan urban experience, focusing on spaces of consumption, food culture and ethnic identity.
Exploring different perspectives on the politics of urban experience, panellists focus on food, language and spaces of consumption in London, Shanghai and Barcelona.
*Alex Colas* will provide some opening perspectives on the politics of urban food systems across the food chain. *Jackie Lou* will discuss the resurgence of Shanghainese, an endangered variety of the Chinese Wu language family, in the urban linguistic landscape of Shanghai – Mainland China’s commercial and cosmopolitan hub. *Jason Edwards* will focus on various localities in London (e.g. Southall, New Malden, and Green Lanes), which have come to be identified as spaces of food consumption associated with migrant communities, and yet are losing their distinctiveness as the boundaries between ethnic (or ethnicised) foods break down. *Mari Paz Balibrea Enriquez.* will talk about the uses of culture in Barcelona from the 1970s, from being the terrain where democracy materializes, to constituting the central economic asset of the Barcelona brand through the production of a particular way of life to sell to tourists.
Contact name: Sue Wiseman
Speakers- Dr Ann Lewis
- Dr Jackie Lou
- Dr Jason Edwards
- Dr Mari-Paz Balibrea Enriquez
- Prof Alex Colas
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