Workshop November 2007

Branding cities, marketed identities and the politics of culture in cosmopolitan urban societies
To be held on the 8th and 9th of November at Middlesex University

Click here   for information on project Workshop 2: Comparative perspectives on Cosmopolitanism and Theories of Belonging: Asia, Australia and the EU

Click here for information on Cross Cultural Regimes of the Senses. Year 2 Class and Place: Cosmopolitan perspectives on a ‘grounded’ sensorium (June 18,19 - 2007)

This international linkage between The University of Technology, Sydney and Middlesex University explores theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the branded city as a socio-politcal phenomenon in Australia, Asia and Europe. It focuses on two crucial and interdepedent theoretical dimensions of urban study: cities as marked identities, carefully developed but often over simplifying, or conflicting with, rooted political expectations and local systems; and cities as sites of grounded cosmopolitanism, where dominant local narratives do not yet fully address the difficult politics of strangers, neighbours and feeling at home in a new place. Through this twin focus, the researchers have designed a pan-regional project. Its signficance lies in its timely and productive contribution to cross-disciplinary theoretical debates on branding and regional cosmopolitanism, which are at present being so vehemently debated.

As Donald and Gammack (2007) argue:

The place brand, or 'city' brand...is a concerted attempt to pull attractive and distinctive features of a city into a manageable, imagined alignment. It is a constructed personality of place, which is designed to allow people to build and maintain an ongoing relationship to a particular urban location. The branded city is presented as either touristic or touristed (Cartier, 2005), as a desirable location for investment, and as a metonym for the nation. 

An ARC Linkage International Grant and Middlesex University are funding this project.