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- Convenor:
-
Dario Nardini
(University of Siena)
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- Stream:
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- Sessions:
- Friday 18 September, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the varieties of place making in different sedentary or nomadic groups of people, and the ways these processes complexly intertwine with economic interests, political claims, cultural representations, sense of belonging and different ways of living.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 18 September, 2020, -Dario Nardini (University of Siena)
Paper short abstract:
On the Gold Coast, the Ocean represents for surfers a setting for a neo-Romantic escapism from urban life: it provides them the waves, and surfers pay this "debt" with their commitment. However, this relationship relies on the surfers' ability to compete with other surfers for priority on the peaks
Paper long abstract:
In the rapidly growing context of the Gold Coast (Australia), surfing plays a central role in the social and cultural milieu. This has stimulated intense sensibilities among local surfers towards the Ocean, and developed a peculiar version of what Booth called "Australian Beach Cultures". In the Ocean, Gold Coast surfers account to feel finally detached from the chaotic life of the city - that still remains visible from the local line-ups - while recovering an intimate, authentic relationship with nature and their own selves. In this postmodern interpretation of Romantic escapism, the Ocean becomes the only impartial and authentic social agent surfers can relate with, in a context dominated by the logics and illusions of marketing. The Ocean provides surfers the waves (the sources for their fun), establishing an obligation for a return. In this logic, surfers' commitment represents the reciprocal effort that is expected to compensate the Ocean's "gifts". However, in the hyper-crowded waves of the Gold Coast, surfing is not a democratic activity. To establish this reciprocal relationship with the Ocean, surfers need to show they deserve it, dominating - or at least handling - the hard competition with other surfers to get priority on the peaks. "For me, he's just another fucking surfer that crowds the line-up!", tells me a friend when I mention I just saw a big champion on the waves. Surfers on the Gold Coast establishes therefore a dual social relation, based on reciprocity toward the Ocean and antagonism toward other humans.
Smoki Musaraj (Ohio University)
Paper short abstract:
The appeal of the Mediterranean City has inspired discourses of design and politics in contemporary cities in the Mediterranean region. In this presentation, I explore discourses and urban plans that deploy imaginaries of the Mediterranean city as an emblem of the past and as a vision of the future.
Paper long abstract:
Literature on the Mediterranean as a unit of analysis repeatedly discusses the Mediterranean city as a key component of this geography. In earlier historical and anthropological accounts, the Mediterranean city shared certain characteristics such a cosmopolitan culture and an identity that was distinct from the surrounding region and closer to the sea. These characterizations of the Mediterranean cities, glorified in Fernand Braudel's work, for instance, were later criticized for being too romanticizing and imbued with postcolonial nostalgia. The romanticized cosmopolitan Mediterranean city also vanished with the rise of nationalism. And yet, the appeal of the Mediterranean City continues to inspire discourses of design and politics in contemporary cities in the Mediterranean region. In this presentation, I take up two recent cases of such appeal to the Mediterranean city: one is the case of Barcelona, Spain, where in recent public discourse, officials hail the city as a "Mediterranean" (as opposed to Spanish) city; the second is the appeal of the Mediterranean city in new urban planning proposals of Tirana, Albania. I explore official and unofficial discourses and urban plans that deploy similar imaginaries of the Mediterranean city as an emblem of the past and the vision of a future urban utopia. What counts as "Mediterranean" in these official and unofficial imaginaries of the Mediterranean city? What are the points of references, histories, geographies that inform these shared imaginaries of the Mediterranean city? What new geographies of the Mediterranean region can we draw from these claims to these idealized Mediterranean cities?