Managing cultural diversity and (re)defining the national in ‘global south’ cities

Abstract

This themed section brings together papers that were first presented at the conference ‘Cultural pluralism in cities of the “global South”’ held at the European University Institute in Florence on 20 and 21 March 2019. The three contributions explore the formation, representation and management of cultural diversity (broadly defined to include ethnic, racial, linguistic and religious diversity, today and in the past) in cities outside the West and how these processes get entangled with definitions and redefinitions of the nation and national identity (Triandafyllidou 2017). In doing so, they focus on a set of themes – the politics of cultural diversity, the transformation of the urban ‘global South’ and the ongoing project of nation building – which, to date, have been addressed largely in isolation. Some general explanations can be offered for the lack of sustained scholarly attention to the interconnections between our three key themes. On the one hand, because the field of urban studies has often used globalisation as an overarching point of departure or reference, it has tended to sideline the nation (Therborn 2011). On the other hand, because much research on cities in the ‘global South’ has focused on pressing issues, such as the effect of rapid demographic growth on the built environment or local responses to economic and infrastructural challenges, until relatively recently there has been (understandably) limited scrutiny of the significance of the politics of culture and diversity at the urban scale in this part of the world. We believe that exploring the complex linkages between cultural diversity, the city, and the nation can provide important insights into the major challenges facing cities in the ‘global South’, including those with explicit ‘global city’ aspirations. Moreover, by viewing cultural diversity as a crucial dimension for understanding questions at stake in contemporary cities, this themed section seeks to also overcome what Mike Savage and others have recently defined ‘the problematic dualism […] between a culturally sensitive approach to cities that has little to say about urban inequality on the one hand, and a political-economic perspective that eschews direct interests in cultural processes on the other’ (Savage et al. 2018, 139).