Questioning urban modernity

Abstract

This critical introduction to the special issue examines the place and significance of urban modernity as a concept in contemporary urban studies. It draws on postcolonial theory to demonstrate that the relation between the city and modernity developed within the western tradition of urban thinking has produced a geographically and historically uneven conceptualisation of urban modernity. This conceptualisation not only involves dynamics of othering, in which cities are differentiated hierarchically, but also obscures a vast array of possible understandings of contemporary urban living. The aim of this introduction is to question this way of thinking about urban modernity in light of globalisation and 21st-century transformations of urban space. It argues that it is crucial, now more than ever, to render the concept of urban modernity attentive to the lived experience of contemporary cities worldwide.

The problem of enchantment

“…If enchantment is a quintessential marker of premodernity, then it will describe not only the past but also those locations that are typically deemed less modern. Discussions of disenchantment therefore reflect what Dibazar, Lindner, Meissner, and Naeff have labeled a “spatio‐temporal bias” that divides the world into different spaces and times: “into the first and the third, the modern and developing” (, p. 646). According to this framework, while enchantment may persist in modernity, it does so only in those places and spaces that are typically deemed less modern (i.e., the ‘third world’).…”

Making sense of capital crime cities: Getting underneath the urban facade on crime-detective fiction tours

“…Following this, the popularity of these crime-detective fiction tours can be conceived to tap into a wider cultural relevance of the notion of ‘urban modernity’ in our contemporary experience of the city in an increasingly globalizing and postmodern context (cf. Dibazar et al, 2013). Building upon popular crime-detective fiction’s representation of urban space, the tours are able to provide an experience of the city which is relatively more coherent and corresponding to the particular interests of those involved, resulting in a potentially more meaningful experience of the ‘postmetropolis’ (Sorkin, 2000) than otherwise would arguably be possible.…”

Deprivation and the Rural‐Urban Trap

“…Dibazar et al . ). Conversely, so‐called ‘rural’ programmes revolve around the restructuring of the primary sector, and only to a lesser extent support more general activation schemes (cf.…”