Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan

Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan PDF Author: Hannah Schilling
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526162083
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book

Book Description
Digital technologies promise efficiency and comfort, but the smoothness of platform services relies on the hidden social labour of those who keep the gig economy running. This book presents a comparative ethnography of young men making a living through digital technologies: selling mobile airtime in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and app-based delivery riders in Berlin, Germany. These case studies explore the significance of symbolic capital in urban youth's social existence and organisation of livelihood in the digital economy, and the technological mechanisms producing a new form of urban precarity. Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan puts forward an original comparative approach to develop a global urban sociology for the digital era. It provides an innovative analytical toolbox that decentres discussions of precarity from the standard of a normal employment contract. With its focus on symbolic capital, the ethnography shows the consequences of the proliferating gig economy for status struggles among urban youth, and carefully embeds the densification of software and services into the socio-material relations on which these new urban infrastructures are built.

Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan

Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan PDF Author: Hannah Schilling
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526162083
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book

Book Description
Digital technologies promise efficiency and comfort, but the smoothness of platform services relies on the hidden social labour of those who keep the gig economy running. This book presents a comparative ethnography of young men making a living through digital technologies: selling mobile airtime in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and app-based delivery riders in Berlin, Germany. These case studies explore the significance of symbolic capital in urban youth's social existence and organisation of livelihood in the digital economy, and the technological mechanisms producing a new form of urban precarity. Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan puts forward an original comparative approach to develop a global urban sociology for the digital era. It provides an innovative analytical toolbox that decentres discussions of precarity from the standard of a normal employment contract. With its focus on symbolic capital, the ethnography shows the consequences of the proliferating gig economy for status struggles among urban youth, and carefully embeds the densification of software and services into the socio-material relations on which these new urban infrastructures are built.

Time, Temporality and Violence in International Relations

Time, Temporality and Violence in International Relations PDF Author: Anna M. Agathangelou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134670907
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book

Book Description
Time transforms the way we see world politics and insinuates itself into the ways we act. In this groundbreaking volume, Agathangelou and Killian bring together scholars from a range of disciplines to tackle time and temporality in international relations. The authors – critical theorists, artists, and poets – theorize and speak from the vantage point of the anticolonial, postcolonial, and decolonial event. They investigate an array of experiences and structures of violence – oppression, neocolonization, slavery, war, poverty and exploitation – focusing on the tensions produced by histories of slavery and colonization and disrupting dominant modes of how we understand present times. This edited volume takes IR in a new direction, defatalizing the ways in which we think about dominant narratives of violence, ‘peace’ and ‘liberation’, and renewing what it means to decolonize today’s world. It challenges us to confront violence and suffering and articulates another way to think the world, arguing for an understanding of the ‘present’ as a vulnerable space through which radically different temporal experiences appear. And it calls for a disruption of the "everyday politics of expediency" in the guise of neoliberalism and security. This volume reorients the ethical and political assumptions that affectively, imaginatively, and practically captivate us, simultaneously unsettling the familiar, but dubious, promises of a modernity that decimates political life. Re-animating an international political, the authors evoke people’s struggles and movements that are neither about redemption nor erasure, but a suspension of time for radical new beginnings.

Urban Planning Against Poverty

Urban Planning Against Poverty PDF Author: Jean-Claude Bolay
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030284190
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Get Book

Book Description
This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.

Designing Urban Food Policies

Designing Urban Food Policies PDF Author: Caroline Brand
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030139581
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Get Book

Book Description
This Open Access book is for scientists and experts who work on urban food policies. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the urban food system sustainability and how it can be tackled by local governments. Written by a collective of researchers, this book describes the existing conceptual frameworks for an analysis of urban food policies, at the crossroads of the concepts of food system and sustainable city. It provides a basis for identifying research questions related to urban local government initiatives in the North and South. It is the result of work carried out within Agropolis International within the framework of the Sustainable Urban Food Systems program and an action research carried out in support of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole for the construction of its agroecological and food policy.

The Informal Economy Revisited

The Informal Economy Revisited PDF Author: Martha Chen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429575386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book

Book Description
This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

One Day I Will Write About This Place

One Day I Will Write About This Place PDF Author: Binyavanga Wainaina
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555970346
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
*A New York Times Notable Book* *A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice* *A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year* Binyavanga Wainaina tumbled through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. This world came to him as a chaos of loud and colorful sounds: the hair dryers at his mother's beauty parlor, black mamba bicycle bells, mechanics in Nairobi, the music of Michael Jackson—all punctuated by the infectious laughter of his brother and sister, Jimmy and Ciru. He could fall in with their patterns, but it would take him a while to carve out his own. In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother's religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood. Throughout, reading is his refuge and his solace. And when, in 2002, a writing prize comes through, the door is opened for him to pursue the career that perhaps had been beckoning all along. A series of fascinating international reporting assignments follow. Finally he circles back to a Kenya in the throes of postelection violence and finds he is not the only one questioning the old certainties. Resolutely avoiding stereotype and cliché, Wainaina paints every scene in One Day I Will Write About This Place with a highly distinctive and hugely memorable brush.

Clothing Poverty

Clothing Poverty PDF Author: Andrew Brooks
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783600691
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Get Book

Book Description
‘An interesting and important account.’ Daily Telegraph Have you ever stopped and wondered where your jeans came from? Who made them and where? Ever wondered where they end up after you donate them for recycling? Following a pair of jeans, Clothing Poverty takes the reader on a vivid around-the-world tour to reveal how clothes are manufactured and retailed, bringing to light how fast fashion and clothing recycling are interconnected. Andrew Brooks shows how recycled clothes are traded across continents, uncovers how retailers and international charities are embroiled in commodity chains which perpetuate poverty, and exposes the hidden trade networks which transect the globe. Stitching together rich narratives, from Mozambican markets, Nigerian smugglers and Chinese factories to London’s vintage clothing scene, TOMS shoes and Vivienne Westwood’s ethical fashion lines, Brooks uncovers the many hidden sides of fashion.

Humanistic futures of learning

Humanistic futures of learning PDF Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231003690
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book

Book Description


Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa

Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa PDF Author: Nicolas Friederici
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026236283X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book

Book Description
The hope and hype about African digital entrepreneurship, contrasted with the reality on the ground in local ecosystems. In recent years, Africa has seen a digital entrepreneurship boom, with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into tech cities, entrepreneurship trainings, coworking spaces, innovation prizes, and investment funds. Politicians and technologists have offered Silicon Valley-influenced narratives of boundless opportunity and exponential growth, in which internet-enabled entrepreneurship allows Africa to "leapfrog" developmental stages to take a leading role in the digital revolution. This book contrasts these aspirations with empirical research about what is actually happening on the ground. The authors find that although the digital revolution has empowered local entrepreneurs, it does not untether local economies from the continent's structural legacies.

Financing Africa's Cities

Financing Africa's Cities PDF Author: Thierry Paulais
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821389483
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book

Book Description
This volume addresses the issues of financing urban growth of the African continent -- which has the highest urban growth rate on the planet -- in the next decades. Considerable investment will be needed to sustain this level of growth and to clear up accumulated backlogs. At the same time, decentralization has resulted in increased responsibilities for local government; but in most cases, institutional reforms were carried out without the transfer of a sufficient level of resources, and local capacities in governance and project management are weak. Which mechanisms will finance these extensive needs, and how will African local governments meet these needs? Specifics on how to finance African cities have not been studied. The actual scale of this market has not been fully grasped. A systemic approach to this market is difficult because of its diversity (country size; institutional context; characteristics of urban network; availability of capital market, currency, etc.) and a lack of data. Donors’ assistance methods in the sector are disparate, marked by disputes between different schools of thought; special-purpose vehicles created by donors operate according to a variety of methods and with wide-ranging and sparsely disseminated results. What is the best way to transform these systems, often antiquated in many respects, into modern financing systems that facilitate access to domestic markets, mobilize local savings and reinforce local government autonomy? There is no single answer to this question in regard to such a variety of institutional and economic contexts. The main objective of the study is to clarify the debates and to enlighten the choices of African decision-makers at local and national level.