Tim Bunnell - Böcker

Based on fieldwork in Malaysia, this book provides a critical examination of the country's main urban region. The study first provides a theoretical reworking of geographies of modernity and details the emergence of a globally-oriented, 'high-tech' stage of national development. The Multimedia Super Corridor is framed in terms of a political vision of a 'fully developed' Malaysia before the author traces an imagined trajectory through surrounding landscapes in the late 1990s. As the first book length academic analysis of the development of Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area and the construction of the Multimedia Super Corridor, this work offers a situated, contextual account which will appeal to all those with research interests in Asian Urban Studies and Asian Sociology.

Based on fieldwork in Malaysia, this book provides a critical examination of the country's main urban region. The study first provides a theoretical reworking of geographies of modernity and details the emergence of a globally-oriented, 'high-tech' stage of national development. The Multimedia Super Corridor is framed in terms of a political vision of a 'fully developed' Malaysia before the author traces an imagined trajectory through surrounding landscapes in the late 1990s. As the first book length academic analysis of the development of Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area and the construction of the Multimedia Super Corridor, this work offers a situated, contextual account which will appeal to all those with research interests in Asian Urban Studies and Asian Sociology.

This book critically engages with the idea of decentralization as empowering cities and their residents to act innovatively and creatively. The contributions thus highlight how the term ‘empowerment’ in the context of decentralization regimes masks a competing array of intentions and agendas. Who and what are ‘empowered’, given a ‘voice’ and allowed to ‘participate’ via the processes and structures of decentralization (and to what ends) are too frequently assumed in normative conversations about ‘bringing government closer to the people’ and ‘community driven development’. Creating an illusion of a shared language and common set of priorities therefore obscures more complex realities, particularly when there is a disconnect between the official goals of decentralization and civil society aspirations that reinforces politics of exclusion at the grassroots. Equally, official processes of decentralization can, and often are, accompanied by less visible processes of ‘recentralization’ through the reassertion of central state control over putatively autonomous jurisdictions. Through studies in six Asian countries (India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Japan) the essays in this book examine cases whereby a range of urban actors and institutions have been ‘empowered’ via decentralization, and how this realignment of local power relations impacts upon the dynamics of urban governance, albeit not always in socially progressive ways.This book was published as a special issue of Space and Polity.

Tim Bunnell's book featured in the movie Pulang - the author has recently spoken in several interviews and programmes about how his fascination with the tales of Malay seamen in the UK led to writing this volume:https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/groove/2018/07/387898/showbiz-sailing-sea-heartwarming-tales http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2018/07/05/coming-home-last Coming home at last https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiFWYHLz5ok From World City to the World in One City examines changing geographies of Liverpool through and across the lives of Malay seamen who arrived in the city during its final years as a major imperial port. Draws upon life histories and memories of people who met at the Malay Club in Liverpool until its closure in 2007, to examine changing urban sites and landscapes as well as the city’s historically shifting constitutive connectionsIn considering the historical presence of Malay seamen in Liverpool, draws attention to a group which has previously received only passing mention in historical and geographical studies of both that city, and of multi-ethnic Britain more widelyDemonstrates that Liverpool-based Malay men sustained social connections with Southeast Asia long before scholars began to use terms such as ‘globalization’ or ‘transnationalism’Based on a diverse range of empirical data, including interviews with members of the Malay Club in Liverpool and interviews in Southeast Asia, as well as archival and secondary sourcesAccessibly-written for non-academic audiences interested in the history and urban social geography of Liverpool

Tim Bunnell's book featured in the movie Pulang - the author has recently spoken in several interviews and programmes about how his fascination with the tales of Malay seamen in the UK led to writing this volume:https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/groove/2018/07/387898/showbiz-sailing-sea-heartwarming-tales http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2018/07/05/coming-home-last Coming home at last https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiFWYHLz5ok From World City to the World in One City examines changing geographies of Liverpool through and across the lives of Malay seamen who arrived in the city during its final years as a major imperial port. Draws upon life histories and memories of people who met at the Malay Club in Liverpool until its closure in 2007, to examine changing urban sites and landscapes as well as the city’s historically shifting constitutive connectionsIn considering the historical presence of Malay seamen in Liverpool, draws attention to a group which has previously received only passing mention in historical and geographical studies of both that city, and of multi-ethnic Britain more widelyDemonstrates that Liverpool-based Malay men sustained social connections with Southeast Asia long before scholars began to use terms such as ‘globalization’ or ‘transnationalism’Based on a diverse range of empirical data, including interviews with members of the Malay Club in Liverpool and interviews in Southeast Asia, as well as archival and secondary sourcesAccessibly-written for non-academic audiences interested in the history and urban social geography of Liverpool

This book critically engages with the idea of decentralization as empowering cities and their residents to act innovatively and creatively. The contributions thus highlight how the term ‘empowerment’ in the context of decentralization regimes masks a competing array of intentions and agendas. Who and what are ‘empowered’, given a ‘voice’ and allowed to ‘participate’ via the processes and structures of decentralization (and to what ends) are too frequently assumed in normative conversations about ‘bringing government closer to the people’ and ‘community driven development’. Creating an illusion of a shared language and common set of priorities therefore obscures more complex realities, particularly when there is a disconnect between the official goals of decentralization and civil society aspirations that reinforces politics of exclusion at the grassroots. Equally, official processes of decentralization can, and often are, accompanied by less visible processes of ‘recentralization’ through the reassertion of central state control over putatively autonomous jurisdictions. Through studies in six Asian countries (India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Japan) the essays in this book examine cases whereby a range of urban actors and institutions have been ‘empowered’ via decentralization, and how this realignment of local power relations impacts upon the dynamics of urban governance, albeit not always in socially progressive ways.This book was published as a special issue of Space and Polity.

Asia, the location of the world’s fastest-growing economies, is also home to some of the fastest rates of urbanization humanity has ever seen, a process whose speed renders long-term outcomes highly unpredictable. This volume contrasts with much published work on the rural/urban divide, which has tended to focus on single case studies. It provides empirical perspectives from four Asian countries: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, and includes a wealth of insights that both critique and expand popular notions of the rural-urban divide. The volume is relevant not just to Asian contexts but to social scientific research on population dynamics more generally. Rather than deploying a single study to chart national trends, three chapters on each country make possible much more complex perspectives. As a result, this volume does more than extend our understanding of the interplay between cities and hinterlands within Asia. It enhances our notions of rural/urban cleavages, connections and conflicts more generally, with data and analysis ready for application to other contexts. Of interest to diverse scholars across the social sciences and Asian studies, this work includes accounts ranging from rural youth real estate entrepreneurs in Hyderabad, India, to social development in Aceh province in Indonesia, devastated by the 2004 tsunami, to the relationship between urban space and commonly held notions of the supernatural in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai.