Gregor Fitzi – författare

Urban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis addresses the fact that in the beginning of the twenty-first century the majority of the world’s population is urbanised, a social fact that has turned cities more than ever into focal sites of social change. Multiple economic and political strategies, employed by a variety of individual and collective actors, on a number of scales, constitute cities as contested spaces that hold opportunities as well as restrictions for their inhabitants. While cities and urban spaces have long been of central concern for the social sciences, today, classical sociological questions about the city acquire new meaning: Can cities be spaces of emancipation, or does life in the modern city entail a corrosion of citizenship rights? Is the city the focus of societal transformation processes, or do urban environments lose importance in shaping social reality and economic relationships? Furthermore, new questions urgently need to be asked: What is the impact of different historical phenomena such as neo-liberal restructuring, financial and economic crises, or migration flows, as well as their respective counter-movements, on the structure of contemporary cities and on the citizenship rights of city inhabitants? The three volumes address such crucial questions thereby opening up new spaces of debate on both the city and new developments of urbanism.

The contributions to Theories and Concepts offer new theoretical reflections on the city in a philosophical and historical perspective as well as fresh empirical analyses of social life in urban contexts. Chapters not only critically revisit classical and modern philosophical considerations about the nature of cities but no less discuss normative philosophical reflections of urban life and the role of religion in historical processes of the emergence of cities. Composed around the question whether there can be such a thing as a ‘successful city’, this volume addresses issues of urban political subjectivities by considering the city’s role in historical processes of emancipation, the fight for citizenship rights, and today’s challenges and opportunities with regard to promoting social justice, integration, and diversity. Consequentially, theory-driven empirical analyses offer new insight into ways of solving problems in urban contexts and a genuine approach to analyse the Social Quality in cities.

The contributions to Urban neo- liberalisation bring together critical analyses of the dynamics and processes neo- liberalism has facilitated in urban contexts. Recent developments, such as intensified economic investment and exposure to aggressive strategies of banks, hedge- funds and investors, and long- term processes of market- and state- led urban restructuration, have produced uneven urban geographies and new forms of exclusion and marginality. These strategies have no less transformed the governance of cities by subordinating urban social life to rationalities and practices of competition within and between cities, and they also heavily impact on city inhabitants’ experience of everyday life. Against the backdrop of recent austerity politics and a marketisation of cities, this volume discusses processes of urban neo- liberalisation with regard to democracy and citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, opportunities, and life- chances. It addresses pressing issues of commodification of housing and home, activation of civil society, vulnerability, and the right to the city.

At times of triumphant neo-liberalism cities increasingly become objects of financial speculation. Formally, social and political rights might not be abolished, yet factually they have become inaccessible for large parts of the population. The contributions gathered in this volume shed light on the clash between the perspectives of restructuring and reordering urban environments in the interest of investors and the manifold and innovative agencies of resistance that claim and stand up for the rights of urban citizenship. Renewed waves of urban transformation employ state coercion to foster the expulsion of poor and marginalised inhabitants from those urban spaces that attract interest from speculators. The intervention of state agencies triggers the work of hegemonic culture for reframing the housing issue and implementing moral and political legitimation, as well as legislation that restricts urban citizenship rights. The case studies of the volume comparatively show the different and sometimes contradictory patterns of these conflicts in Berlin, Sydney, Belfast, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, and İstanbul as well as in metropoles of Latin America and China. Innovative resistance agencies emerge that paint possible paths for the re-establishment of the right to the city as the core of urban citizenship.

Urban Change and Citizenship in Times of Crisis addresses the fact that in the beginning of the twenty-first century the majority of the world’s population is urbanised, a social fact that has turned cities more than ever into focal sites of social change. Multiple economic and political strategies, employed by a variety of individual and collective actors, on a number of scales, constitute cities as contested spaces that hold opportunities as well as restrictions for their inhabitants. While cities and urban spaces have long been of central concern for the social sciences, today, classical sociological questions about the city acquire new meaning: Can cities be spaces of emancipation, or does life in the modern city entail a corrosion of citizenship rights? Is the city the focus of societal transformation processes, or do urban environments lose importance in shaping social reality and economic relationships? Furthermore, new questions urgently need to be asked: What is the impact of different historical phenomena such as neo-liberal restructuring, financial and economic crises, or migration flows, as well as their respective counter-movements, on the structure of contemporary cities and on the citizenship rights of city inhabitants? The three volumes address such crucial questions thereby opening up new spaces of debate on both the city and new developments of urbanism.

The contributions to Theories and Concepts offer new theoretical reflections on the city in a philosophical and historical perspective as well as fresh empirical analyses of social life in urban contexts. Chapters not only critically revisit classical and modern philosophical considerations about the nature of cities but no less discuss normative philosophical reflections of urban life and the role of religion in historical processes of the emergence of cities. Composed around the question whether there can be such a thing as a ‘successful city’, this volume addresses issues of urban political subjectivities by considering the city’s role in historical processes of emancipation, the fight for citizenship rights, and today’s challenges and opportunities with regard to promoting social justice, integration, and diversity. Consequentially, theory-driven empirical analyses offer new insight into ways of solving problems in urban contexts and a genuine approach to analyse the Social Quality in cities.

The contributions to Urban neo- liberalisation bring together critical analyses of the dynamics and processes neo- liberalism has facilitated in urban contexts. Recent developments, such as intensified economic investment and exposure to aggressive strategies of banks, hedge- funds and investors, and long- term processes of market- and state- led urban restructuration, have produced uneven urban geographies and new forms of exclusion and marginality. These strategies have no less transformed the governance of cities by subordinating urban social life to rationalities and practices of competition within and between cities, and they also heavily impact on city inhabitants’ experience of everyday life. Against the backdrop of recent austerity politics and a marketisation of cities, this volume discusses processes of urban neo- liberalisation with regard to democracy and citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, opportunities, and life- chances. It addresses pressing issues of commodification of housing and home, activation of civil society, vulnerability, and the right to the city.

At times of triumphant neo-liberalism cities increasingly become objects of financial speculation. Formally, social and political rights might not be abolished, yet factually they have become inaccessible for large parts of the population. The contributions gathered in this volume shed light on the clash between the perspectives of restructuring and reordering urban environments in the interest of investors and the manifold and innovative agencies of resistance that claim and stand up for the rights of urban citizenship. Renewed waves of urban transformation employ state coercion to foster the expulsion of poor and marginalised inhabitants from those urban spaces that attract interest from speculators. The intervention of state agencies triggers the work of hegemonic culture for reframing the housing issue and implementing moral and political legitimation, as well as legislation that restricts urban citizenship rights. The case studies of the volume comparatively show the different and sometimes contradictory patterns of these conflicts in Berlin, Sydney, Belfast, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, and İstanbul as well as in metropoles of Latin America and China. Innovative resistance agencies emerge that paint possible paths for the re-establishment of the right to the city as the core of urban citizenship.

The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies documents the richness, variety, and creativity of contemporary international research on Georg Simmel’s work. Starting with the established role of Simmel as a classical author of sociology, and including the growing interest in his work in the domain of philosophy, this volume explores the research on Simmel in several further disciplines including art, social aesthetics, literature, theatre, essayism, and critical theory, as well as in the debates on cosmopolitanism, economic pathologies of life, freedom, modernity, religion, and nationalism. Bringing together contributions from leading specialists in research on Simmel, the book is thematically arranged in order to highlight the relevance of his oeuvre for different fields of recent research, with a further section tracing the most important paths that Simmel’s reception has taken in the world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities, and to sociologists, philosophers, and social theorists in particular, with interest in Simmel’s thought.

The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies documents the richness, variety, and creativity of contemporary international research on Georg Simmel’s work. Starting with the established role of Simmel as a classical author of sociology, and including the growing interest in his work in the domain of philosophy, this volume explores the research on Simmel in several further disciplines including art, social aesthetics, literature, theatre, essayism, and critical theory, as well as in the debates on cosmopolitanism, economic pathologies of life, freedom, modernity, religion, and nationalism. Bringing together contributions from leading specialists in research on Simmel, the book is thematically arranged in order to highlight the relevance of his oeuvre for different fields of recent research, with a further section tracing the most important paths that Simmel’s reception has taken in the world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities, and to sociologists, philosophers, and social theorists in particular, with interest in Simmel’s thought.

The contributions to this volume Migration, Gender and Religion bring together empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated case studies of populist responses to what are perceived to be the threats to national survival and sovereignty from ‘uncontrolled’ immigration. The demographic context – declining fertility rates and ageing populations – promotes the belief that high Muslim fertility rates are material evidence of an Islamic threat to the West, to national cohesion and particularly to the safety and dignity of the women of the host community.

Consequently, gender plays an important part in populist ideology, but populist attitudes to gender are often contradictory. Populist movements are often marked by misogyny and by policies that are typically anti-feminist in rejecting gender equality. The traditional family with a dominant father and submissive mother is promoted as the basis of national values and the remedy against social decline. The obsession with women in the public domain points to a crisis of masculinity associated with unemployment, the impact of austerity packages on social status, and the growth of pink collar employment.

Inevitably, religion is drawn into these political debates about the future of Western societies, because religion in general has seen the family and mothers as essential for the reproduction of religion. Christendom has been identified by populists as providing the ultimate defence of the borders of European civilisation against Islam, despite the fact that church leaders have often defended and welcomed outsiders in terms of Christian charity. Once more Christian Europe is the Abendland standing in defiance of a threatening and subversive Morgenland. This volume will be an invaluable reference for students and scholars in the field of political theory, political sociology and European Studies.