Please Stay:Pied-a-Terre Subjects in the Megacity
- 1 February 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Citizenship Studies
- Vol. 11 (1) , 83-93
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13621020601099898
Abstract
In contrast to the idea of the big city as a denationalized space of human rights, this article proposes an alternate concept of the megacity as a national space that activates “neoliberal” desires for foreign experts, creative know-how, and capital accumulation. In addition, expatriates add to and reflect the symbolic values of Asian cities arriving on the global stage. But the limited commitments of global professionals, actualized and symbolized by the pied-a-terre, deter and challenge the deep commitments required by classic citizenship. Is the global nomad a cog in international information networks, a figure who expresses the fundamental denationalized character of capitalism itself? Or is the pied-a-terre the hinge between a global meritocracy and the megacity? The talented expatriate, poised between staying and going, participates in a kind of dysfunctional marriage with the host city that suspends norms of permanent belonging.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Mutations in CitizenshipTheory, Culture & Society, 2006
- Neoliberalism as ExceptionPublished by Duke University Press ,2006
- New State SpacesPublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,2004
- People Out of PlacePublished by Taylor & Francis ,2004
- Whose City Is It? Globalization and the Formation of New ClaimsPublished by Duke University Press ,1998
- The Human ConditionPublished by University of Chicago Press ,1998
- Whose City Is It? Globalization and the Formation of New ClaimsPublic Culture, 1996
- Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late CapitalismPublished by Duke University Press ,1992