Cities of Whiteness

ISBN-13: 9781405129121 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 232 str.

Wendy Shaw

Opis

This groundbreaking book brings the study of whiteness and postcolonial perspectives to bear on debates about urban change.

• A thought-provoking contribution to debates about urban change, race and cosmopolitan urbanism
• Brings the study of whiteness to the discipline of geography, questioning the notion of white ethnicity
• Engages with Indigenous peoples' experiences of whiteness - past and present, and with theoretical postcolonial perspectives
• Uses Sydney as an example of a 'city of whiteness', considering trends such as Sydney's 'SoHo Syndrome' and the 'Harlemisation' of the Aboriginal community

Recenzje

Cities of Whiteness is an important contribution to our understanding of how race works in the postmodern city. It shows in clear and convincing detail how whiteness is bound up with property, heritage and fear.
Alastair Bonnett, Newcastle University

Wendy S. Shaw writes with passion, with political commitment, carefully and engagingly, and with the kind of gallows humour that can be expected in grim situations. Her subtle and always empirically–grounded analysis astutely picks at the invisible structures of racialization that underpin white privilege and power. Sydney and New York, after Cities of Whiteness, are not such virtuous cities of multiculturalism. Instead, we see these cities afresh, complete with their promiscuous and particular processes of white superiority.
Steve Pile, The Open University

Spis treści

List of Figures.

List of Boxes.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1. Encountering Cities of Whiteness.

Journeying to Inner Sydney.

Cities as Cultural Constructions – Gentrification and Urbanism.

The Birth of Whiteness Scholarship.

Cities of Neo–colonial Whiteness.

2. (Post)colonial Sydney.

From Dangerous to Endangered City.

Securing Whiteness in the Paradoxical City.

Conclusions.

3. ′The Good Old Days′.

Heritage Dreaming.

Performing Sydney Heritage.

Activating Heritage.

Architectures of Escape 1: Into the Past.

Conclusions.

4. Cosmopolitan Metropolitanism (Or The Indifferent City).

Introduction.

Manhattan Dreaming (in Sydney Australia).

Architectures of Escape 2: Sydney′s SoHo Syndrome.

Conclusions.

5. Cities of Whiteness.

Geographies of Urban Whiteness.

Studying Cities.

The End of (Cities of) Whiteness?

Bibliography.

Index.

O autorze

Wendy S. Shaw is a Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of New South Wales. Her research interests include the meanings of heritage in Australia and other Pacific places, the impacts of high–rise developments, and the status of Indigenous peoples in Australia and around the world.

Blurb

In Cities of Whiteness, Wendy S. Shaw challenges existing ideas about urban change, race and cosmopolitan urbanism. By questioning the notion of white ethnicity and engaging with Indigenous peoples experiences of whiteness, past and present, Shaw provides new ways of seeing cities and of conceptualizing the processes of power that are at work within them. In doing so, she pushes the boundaries of critical race studies in Geography and studies of the city more broadly.

Cities of Whiteness follows three main theoretical trajectories: it highlights the weaknesses of current theories of whiteness; it demonstrates how urban transformation is imbued with processes of whiteness; and it gives an account of formations of power. Shaw grounds her analysis using Sydney as an example of a city of whiteness , considering trends such as Sydney s ′SoHo Syndrome′, the ′Harlemization′ of the Aboriginal community, and the ′Manhattanizing′ of Sydney as it has evolved vertically.