2_IMAGERIES OF CITIES: THE ROLE OF CULTURAL POLICIES AND ACTIVISM IN SELF-REPRESENTATIONS OF CITIES AND CITIZENS

Culture, as a key ingredient of urban formations and a primary economic driver for cities, has played a central role in the past decades, often institutionalising ideas and models from grassroots movements.

Branding, image-building and international recognition, though, seem to convey similar imageries across the globe. This track intends to focus on the ways in which, in contemporary crisis-ridden cities,  institutional struggles is combined with citizens activisms in this field, and on the chances that a top down internationalist approach could coexist with a bottom up one.

Contributions may address one of the following questions:
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• Are city imaginaries becoming more and more similar all over the world, with an hegemonic position of visions such as those of the creative and the smart city?

• Are mainstream cultural policies absorbing values (such as those connected to the sharing economy) and practices (such as urban gardening) from grassroots movements, in order to produce cities which are more and more adherent to a new spirit of capitalism which incorporates ideas of sustainability and justice?

• Is the revitalisation and regeneration of decaying neighbourhoods, city centres and waterfronts producing similar outcomes and harming the ultimate sense of "authenticity" of cities?

• Is place branding changing the way we think, desire and experience cities, producing a number of outcomes thus going beyond the mere representation of cities?

• Is culture the key ingredient for imagining meaningful solutions to the multiple forms of crisis experienced by contemporary cities?

• Can cultural policies support urban citizenships and alternative ways of experiencing the "right to the city"?​