image du logo
https://triangle.ens-lyon.fr//spip.php?article5281
/ Archives : colloques et journées d’études 2005 - 2016

Metropolis, urban governance and citizenship in China and in Europe

lundi, 14 septembre 2015

Organization

With the support of Labex IMU and Consulat de France en Chine

Argumentary

From 1949 to 1979, the urbanization process stagnated in China before entering a period of considerable acceleration in tandem with industrialization. In Europe these two processes were spread over several centuries but only in two decades in China. This leads to the appearance of specifically Chinese economic and social phenomena which have been the subject of much recent research. The specificity of these processes has raised questions which have not really been asked in Western Europe. We shall distinguish different boundaries in Chinese and European Metropolis. These colonial, ethnic, social and economic boundaries are the expression of multiple dominations, which always adopts different forms and, above all, that become entangled in differentiated modes that are producing inequalities which are situated. Contemporary Chinese Metropolis are characterized by new urban hierarchies, which are less contrasted than in European Metropolis, since they are scattered around the city and concentrated in certain specific areas. So it means transformations of social stratification in Metropolis and megalopolises : augmentation of segregations, strong social polarisation, emergency of a new underclass, urban gentrification, urban re-foundationÖ It also means we have to consider a diversity of national models, of modes or urban governance, of public policies.

Citizens and social groups are caught between assignment to certain localities and flowing through the Metropolis. Depending on the moment, life phase or situation, they may seem to be trapped or able to move. Social and ethnic segregation is to a large extent an institutional product, and especially a product of social housing policies and practices. Contemporary Metropolis may have different forms of segregation and discrimination ñespecially of less-qualified and qualified migrants- but they still allow access to different kinds of space and provide renewed opportunities to individuals and groups, making it possible to enter high legitimacy economic spaces as demonstrated by some migrant workers who construct and experience upward social mobility.

European and Chinese Metropolis are producing plural economies in a multiplicity of high or less legitimacy places. Furthermore mass unemployment, growing uncertainties in work relations and labor, the decline of institution and the recomposition of new institutional forms, all concur to point out that modernity is mostly about the wavering of an actor relentlessly forced to define again and again his place and his identity. On the one hand, social, economic and ethnical inequalities keep growing, along with new forms of exploitation, reject, stigmatization and even destitution of the ìweakestî. On the other hand, cultural domination, recognition denial and disrespect create situations of injustice. Exploited workers, young people facing high uncertainties, migrants -and ethnic minorities in European Metropolis- subject to racial discrimination, do express recognition demands which can break into public space at any time, as social movements, riots, rebellions. In such instances, they force a redistribution of social, moral and public recognition and they redefine the hierarchy of identities.

Furthermore, new risks of health, food, floods, environment and ecological disasters have produced uncertain situations, new public spaces and new inequalities in European and Chinese Metropolis. The global urbanization and Metropolisation phenomena lead return of questions about justice in the city. Between social, spatial and environmental justices, the concept of "just city" appeared in recent years. In these contexts of more or less uncertainty and of high social and physical liability, collective action and social mobilizations emerge and reveal new forms of citizenship in a new local and global public space.

In this respect, new forms of citizenships are productive of new social exchanges, new solidarities, new moral economies, related to social inequalities in Chinese and European Metropolis in turmoil. Citizens compete for material and social goods, emergent moral economies produce new social and economic frontiers, new social and moral orders for the struggle of public recognition and social justice.

Program

Saturday, November 28

9:00 INTRODUCTION

9:30 Session 1 : Metropolis and Multiple Inequalities

12:00-13:45 Lunch

13:45 Session 2 : International Metropolis and Urban Governance

16:15-16:30 Break

16:30 Session 3 : Environmental justice and citizenship

Sunday, November 29

9:30 Session 4 : Metropolis and urban life

12:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00 Session 5 : Metropolis and new urban economies

16:00-16:30 Break

18:00-18:30 CONCLUSION by Professor Zhang Wenhong, Professor Li Peilin and Professor Roulleau-Berger

Monday, November 30

Visiting and Fieldwork