Urban Imaginaries and Political Change: Modernity, cosmopolitanism and spatial reconfigurations – Dr. Gruia Bădescu

This project interrogates the impact of historical ruptures and political transformation on cities. It investigates cities in three situations: the end of empire, the aftermath of war, and transition from dictatorship. It examines how urban imaginaries- the way in which urban actors understand the city’s specificity- are reshaped by political change. Moreover, it traces how this reshaping has an impact of spatial reconfigurations of cities as well as of social practices in the transformed space. The research project discusses the historical experiences of cities connected with two particular urban imaginaries, related to understandings of cosmopolitanism and modernity.  First, the project team will examine post-imperial cities in Europe where dominant imaginaries are those of cosmopolitan places of diversity, but which experienced different forms of conflict, population change, and exclusion (Sarajevo, Rijeka, Thessaloniki, Chernivtsi, in their post-Ottoman and post-Habsburg transformations). Second, the project discusses how a particular form of urban modernity, the imaginary of Paris, deemed by David Harvey (2004) as “capital of modernity”, has been embraced by three cities in different geographical contexts, which became known as a “Paris of the Middle East” (Beirut), “Paris of the Balkans” (Bucharest), and “Paris of Latin America” (Buenos Aires). It traces how this imaginary morphed during war, dictatorship, and neoliberal transitions. The project analyses the articulations of these two specific imaginaries within this array of urban situations, while examining the relationships between the triad cityscape- urban imaginary- political change.