Transnational Urbanism Locating Globalization

Transnational Urbanism is a profound work of theoretical synthesis by internationally renowned urban theorist Michael Peter Smith. Moving deftly across disciplines and discursive terrains, Smith forges original and stimulating connections between urban studies and the emerging field of transnational studies. With original and extraordinary insight, he addresses the central question of how and why immigrants, refugees, political activists, and institutions locate and maintain social relations in light of transnational urbanism.

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• Brings a concrete, historically informed discussion of globalization and transnationalism applied to urban studies.
  
• Offers a blueprint for reconstructing urban theory itself .
  
• Forges stimulating connections between the field of urban studies and the emerging field of transnational studies .

1. Introduction: The Social Construction of Transnational Urbanism:.

Why Transnational Social Practices?.

Why "Transnational Urbanism"?.

Why Agency-oriented Urban Theory?.

On Social Constructionism.

The Architectonics Ahead.

Locating Globalization.

Reconstructing Urban Theory.

Part I: Locating Globalization: .

2. The Local as Globalism's "Other": The Confines of the Master Narrative of Time-Space Compression.

Beyond Technological Determinism.

Cultural Reductionism.

Postmodern Subjectivity, Political Fragmentation, and Identity Politics.

Essentializing Class and Marginalizing Gender.

The Political Geography of Difference.

An Alternative View of Urban Politics.

Beyond Binary Dualities.

3. The Global Cities Discourse: A Return to the Master Narrative?.

Reconsidering the Global City Thesis.

The Limits of Global Economism.

Historicizing the Global City.

The "Global Governance" Agenda.

Transnational Urbanism: Beyond Reification.

4. Reimagining Los Angeles from the Ground Up.

Mexican Transmigration to Los Angeles
The Legacy of Empire.

The Social Construction of "Local Economic Development".

Transnational Urbanism and the Ethnic Economy.

Constructing and Reconstructing "Koreatown".

Beyond Victimization.

Part II: Reconstructing Urban Theory:.

5. Re-presenting the "Local": Beyond Communitarian Metaphors.

Localities as Defensive Community Formations.

Rethinking the Boundaries of Locality.

Localities and the Politics of Difference.

The Social Construction of Space as Place.

Rethinking the Politics of Everyday Life.

Transnational Place-Making.

6. Beyond the Postmodern City: Rethinking Ethnography for Transnational Times.

Social Constructionism and Postmodern Social Inquiry.

Questioning the Knower and the Known.

Constructing the Subject.

The Uses and Limits of Postmodern Ethnography.

Hybrid Subjects in Patterned Networks.

The Border Crossings of Transnational Ethnography.

7. Transnationalizing the Grassroots.

The Rise of Transnational Grassroots Politics.

Transnationalizing Urban Research.

Beyond the Global-Local Duality.

Thinking Locally and Acting Globally.

Bifocal Border Crossers.

The Politics of Simultaneity.

The Production of Political Space.

8. From Globalization to Transnational Urbanism.

The Agency of Transnational Networks.

The Rise of Translocalities
Questioning the Post-national Discourse.

Towards a Transnational Urban Studies.

Comparative Transnationalisms.

Summing Up.

Epilogue.

9. Epilogue: The City as Crossroads.

Index.

Michael Peter Smith is Professor of Community Studies and Development at the University of California, Davis, and a Faculty Associate of the Center for California Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published numerous books on cities, global migration, and urbanism including The City and Social Theory (1979), The Capitalist City (1987), City, State, and Market (1988), The Bubbling Cauldron (1995), and Transnationalism from Below (1998).