Life in the City: Biopolitical Ecology, the Urban Environment, and Migrant Life in Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2011
Things can further our understanding of the paradoxical structures of globalized space. In examining the interdisciplinary relationship between geography and film, it will examine the ways in which a contemporary, globalized London is constructed of two conflicting, but mutually reinforcing geographical imaginations. Western political parties have often been quick to proclaim the boundless, utopian freedom that the economic process of globalization brings to bear. However, as Dirty Pretty Things demonstrates, this powerful geographical imaginary of utopia is in fact sustained by the exploitation of migrant bodies, who service the lifestyle of the city's burgeoning tourists and professional classes. These two contradictory geographical imaginations are, in turn, examined through Michel Foucault's well known notion of 'heterotopia' and the geographer Doreen Massey's writing on the 'double imaginary' of globalization. In doing so, the article will show how illegal migrants, whose bodies are exploited and commodified, inhabit a 'placeless place' between the two geographical imaginations: between London as a utopian 'pretty' place on the one hand, and a 'dirty' hidden place of surveillance and exclusion on the other.
Introduction: Why Untamed Urbanisms?
2015
Cities can be understood as the product of multiple taming practices and strategies, ranging from the techno-infrastructural domestication of nature to secure key resources, to the sociopolitical disciplining of the relational and organizational structures and behaviours that shape everyday life in cities. But cities are also profoundly untameable because they are a complex and often unintelligible web of institutional and everyday practices that produce them in fundamentally political ways, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The notion of 'untamed urbanisms' is a subtle theme that pervades many recent contributions to urban theory. It resonates with Harvey's (2012) reading of the untameability of capitalist urbanization; Brenner, Marcuse and Mayer's (2011) call to recentre critical urban theory on the production of cities for people, not for profit; Brenner's most recent Lefebvrian reading of the uneven implosions and explosions of planetary urbanization (2013); Edensor and Jayne's invitation to challenge the universal application of theories of Western cities to a world of cities (2012); Robinson's call to examine the heterogeneity of practices that make cities and urban life (2006); McFarlane's exploration of urban learning as a political and practical, yet neglected, domain and how different environments facilitate or inhibit learning (2011); and Tonkiss, who argues that the social life of cities is shaped by 'actors [who] engage creatively in the logistics and politics of urban life in ways that go beyond the masterplan, the design commission and the competition entry, and which confuse any easy distinction between the expert and the ordinary, the technical and the amateur, the formal and the informal' (2013: 10). Building upon the aforementioned work and other recent trends in the urban studies literature (
2015
Christopher Schliephake's 2015 book Urban Ecologies: City Space, Material Agency, and Environmental Politics in Contemporary Culture carries out a broad-ranging analysis of books, television series, and films that contribute to what Schliephake calls a "cultural urban ecology" (xli). The book aims to fill two gaps: a lack of attention to urban environments within ecocriticism, and a neglect of culture among studies of urban ecology. Schliephake's work will prove especially useful for readers interested in urban environments, television and film, material ecocriticism, and cultural ecology. The book's introduction provides an overview of key terms, offers literature reviews for related discussions in various disciplines, and gives a concise preview of the texts and arguments discussed in the following chapters. It begins by developing a notion of urban ecology based on ideas of Lewis Mumford, who sees the city as a "conscious work of art" (xi), and Gregory Bateson, who describes ecology as "a metaphor for the interconnection of all matter" and redefines "mind" as "a principle that is 'immanent' to all structures and objects, be they natural or cultural" (xii). Schliephake endorses this view that urban spaces harbor "minds" and are made up of "manifold and complex material interrelationships" (xii) with their respective natural environments. Against this background, he emphasizes the role of culture within the urban system: "I argue that an urban ecology which only takes into account the socio-spatial or material processes that frame urban life is incomplete, since manifestations of the cultural imagination have to be seen as integral parts of what we refer to as the 'environment.' I want to show that it is through the imagination that meaning is attached to urban space" (xii). He suggests that cultural works not only ascribe meaning to spaces and reflect on the relationships between natural and cultural systems, but also-following Hubert Zapf's ideas about literature as cultural ecology-create a forum for imagining alternate possibilities (xviii). The middle portion of the introduction situates Schliephake's argument within related discussions from literary studies, social sciences (especially environmental history and political science), and natural sciences. Throughout, Schliephake praises the ways in which the natural and social sciences have recognized "space, materiality, and politics [...] as integral dimensions of urban environments," but suggests that "the cultural imagination has largely been missing from their conceptual framework" (xli). The final portion of the introduction gives an overview of the ensuing chapters that seek to fill this gap. Drawing on ideas from Ursula Heise and others, Chapter One argues that certain works of creative nonfiction create a sense of "eco-cosmopolitanism" that recognizes
Ecozon@. European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2015
Christopher Schliephake's 2015 book Urban Ecologies: City Space, Material Agency, and Environmental Politics in Contemporary Culture carries out a broad-ranging analysis of books, television series, and films that contribute to what Schliephake calls a "cultural urban ecology" (xli). The book aims to fill two gaps: a lack of attention to urban environments within ecocriticism, and a neglect of culture among studies of urban ecology. Schliephake's work will prove especially useful for readers interested in urban environments, television and film, material ecocriticism, and cultural ecology. The book's introduction provides an overview of key terms, offers literature reviews for related discussions in various disciplines, and gives a concise preview of the texts and arguments discussed in the following chapters. It begins by developing a notion of urban ecology based on ideas of Lewis Mumford, who sees the city as a "conscious work of art" (xi), and Gregory Bateson, who describes ecology as "a metaphor for the interconnection of all matter" and redefines "mind" as "a principle that is 'immanent' to all structures and objects, be they natural or cultural" (xii). Schliephake endorses this view that urban spaces harbor "minds" and are made up of "manifold and complex material interrelationships" (xii) with their respective natural environments. Against this background, he emphasizes the role of culture within the urban system: "I argue that an urban ecology which only takes into account the socio-spatial or material processes that frame urban life is incomplete, since manifestations of the cultural imagination have to be seen as integral parts of what we refer to as the 'environment.' I want to show that it is through the imagination that meaning is attached to urban space" (xii). He suggests that cultural works not only ascribe meaning to spaces and reflect on the relationships between natural and cultural systems, but also-following Hubert Zapf's ideas about literature as cultural ecology-create a forum for imagining alternate possibilities (xviii). The middle portion of the introduction situates Schliephake's argument within related discussions from literary studies, social sciences (especially environmental history and political science), and natural sciences. Throughout, Schliephake praises the ways in which the natural and social sciences have recognized "space, materiality, and politics [...] as integral dimensions of urban environments," but suggests that "the cultural imagination has largely been missing from their conceptual framework" (xli). The final portion of the introduction gives an overview of the ensuing chapters that seek to fill this gap. Drawing on ideas from Ursula Heise and others, Chapter One argues that certain works of creative nonfiction create a sense of "eco-cosmopolitanism" that recognizes
Imagining the Dirty Green City
Australian Geographer, 2020
The green city is being elevated to the status of a self-evident good in the theory and practice of urban sustainability. A large literature documents the linked environmental, economic and well-being benefits associated with vegetating urban systems to maximise the ecosystem function. Contemporary urban greening seeks to challenge attempts to expel nature from the city in a quest for order and control. However, by imagining nature as a new mode of urban purification, much effort in the name of the green city inverts and reproduces dualistic understandings of natural and built space. In response, we disrupt the normative dialectics of purity and dirt that sustain this dualism to expose the untidy but fertile ground of the green city. We draw together Ash Amin's four registers of the Good Cityrelatedness, rights, repair and reenchantmentwith the artworks of the Australian visual ecologist Aviva Reed. Our work seeks to enrich the practice of more-thanhuman urbanism through 'dirt thinking' by imagining the transformative possibilities in, of and for the dirty green city.
Environmental quality and an urban politics of exclusion
City and Society, 2021
Camille Frazier's insightful essay examines how long-time middle-class residents of Bengaluru mobilize narratives of rising heat to critique urban change. "Old Bengaloreans" attribute the loss of temperate climate, gardens and green space to the city's transformation into an IT capital. Once a "naturally air-conditioned" city and the center of Colonial experiments into horticulture and greening, today's Bengaluru is plagued by problems commonly associated with urban growth. IT and the real-estate sector brought air pollution, construction and traffic jams and the loss of centuries-old architectural and environmental features; Lime plaster, gardens and low-density housing have been replaced by glass, cement and declining tree cover. In short, in the eyes of "Old Bengaloreans," rising heat signifies not the effects of climate change but the threat of urbanization. While elsewhere, rising temperatures mobilize new forms of labor politics, 1 the complaints of Frazier's interlocutors do not provoke any immediate action. Mediated by airconditioning , taxis, and housing, the effects of rising heat do not threaten the life or health of the Bengaloreans who critique it. Instead, heat is experienced primarily as discomfort. A shared complaint of rising heat creates a sense of belonging that's based on an embodied knowledge of the city's past.
Feeling the city: migrant narratives and urban space
Subjectivity, 2021
Narratives of flight often depict cities and cities are often considered central to the imaginary of refugees. How is the city "felt" in these narratives and how do they portray the ways in which subjectivities are shaped in urban space? What is the role of public spaces and performances in staging narratives of colonial violence and displacement? How do the haunting returns of the traumatic past reverberate in these spaces? Exploring these questions in the context of Western colonialism and the Arab Spring, this special issue offers four studies that discuss the impact of colonialism and displacement on the formation of subjectivities in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender, among other factors. The aim of the issue is twofold: apart from focusing on the role cities play in staging sometimes multiple layers of contested traumatic memories, articles also investigate the significance of affect in intersubjective encounters set in urban locations. Literary works, theatrical performances, installations, and protest marches are analysed in an interdisciplinary framework, which foregrounds the diverse yet overlapping emotions that haunt urban narratives of colonial trauma and migration. Following in the wake of Lisa Blackman, John Cromby, Derek Hook, Dimitris Papadopoulos, and Valerie Walkerdine, we define subjectivity as "the experience of the lived multiplicity of positionings" (Blackman et al. 2008, p. 6). The articles in the issue explore how subject positions are affected by the experience of colonialism and dislocatedness. Contributions focus on historical and social issues such as Paris and the massacre of Algerian protesters on October 17, 1961 (Christine Quinan); New York and the unseen experiences of illegal migrants (Aparajita Nanda); Malmö and its Community Theatre used for performing migrant narratives (Tegiye Birey); Leipzig and protest actions staged at its Main Station (Elisabeth Kirndörfer). The concept of the postcolonial city (McLeod 2004; Varma 2012), haunted by the colonial past and memories of violence, is central to Quinan's argument, while Nanda reads New York as a neocolonial metropolis where a new form of slavery prevails. Birey and Kirndörfer, on the other hand, explore how immigrants and refugees
Mantas N. (2011), Defining Postcolonial London: The case of Stephen Frears’ “Dirty Pretty Things”
This essay is organised around two main axes. The first axis is entitled “Defining London” and aspires to deal with the understanding of contemporary London’s identity though a brief but essential historical overview. The words “colonial” and “postcolonial” are adjectives used here to define two chronological periods. London during the colonial period was very different from postcolonial London. London’s identity of colonial and postcolonial period is detected at the space and the citizens’ attitude of the city. After the presentation of the imperial London in colonial period and the global city of London in the postcolonial era, contemporary London seems to be a hybrid product of both colonial and postcolonial period. The second axis has as title “Stephen Frears’ London in ‘Dirty Pretty Things’” and tries to trace the contemporary filmic London. From the connection between the Film Studies and the Urban Studies that brings together the film and the city to the representation of London in cinema and the case study of Stephen Frears’ film “Dirty Pretty Things”, this axe seeks the -previously defined- contemporary London.