ASSIGNMENT PRESENTATION - 09GYP005 30 OCTOBER 2009

In Loughborough University, every student before submitting their assignment they have to do their presentation on the preliminary finding of their research. They only give 5 minutes presentation with simple slides presentation. Here are my slides presentation.

DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS GATHERING 21 OCTOBER 2009

3rd WEEK IN LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY - CLASS 09GYB210

After 4 weeks in Department of Geography, Loughborough University, I attended 4 classes under module Globalization, Citizens, and the State for class of 09GYB210 - Globalization by Dr John Harrison. The summary of 4 lectures stated below:

NEW STATES SPACES AND URBAN GOVERNANCE

While some scholars have focused on the creation of new modes of global governance, others have brought attention to transformations of governance within nation-states. This lecture examine the ‘re-scaling’ of political power in cities and city-regions in the Global North.

• How have urban policies changed in response to the imperatives of global capitalism?
• How have urban politics contributed to new forms of territoriality?
• In what ways does the re-scaling of states intersect with neo-liberal ideologies?

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CITIZENSHIP – THE WELFARE STATE

Transformations of governance have been accompanied by changing relationships between states and their citizens. Some argue that state devolution and the dominance of neo-liberal ideologies threatens the ability for marginalized groups to participate fully in society. Indeed, Western states seem more inclined to roll back social services and to curtail social rights, as seen with ‘workfare-ism’

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CITIZENSHIP – THE WORKFARE STATE

To explore the changing relationship between the state and its citizens under globalization

• Why do we now talk about a workfare state?
• What is workfare?
• Where is it?
• What has happened to the welfare state?
• We still have an NHS don’t we?
• What affect does this have on the relationship between the state and its citizens

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CITIZENSHIP – POST-NATIONALISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM

If for some, changing modes of governance signal the erosion of social rights, for others, it offers new possibilities for enhanced political and human rights. Some scholars, for instance, speak of the emergence of ‘post-national citizenship’, a concept that relates in particular to the expansion of the rights and privileges enjoyed by immigrants in the global North. Others have commented on the proliferation of dual citizenship arrangements and the ability for people to participate in politics across national borders. To what extent are notions of ‘human rights’ integrated into national systems? To what extent have notions of citizenship been de-linked from membership in a ‘nation’? To what extent are individuals able to access rights and to effect political change outside the framework of national citizenship? Can we fathom the emergence of ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’?

CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Following on from the previous lecture on post-national citizenship, we explore the ways in which ordinary people mobilize themselves politically in a globalized context. The period of state restructuring in the global North has witnessed a decline of labour unions and class-based social movements. But is has also seen the rise of new forms of social action and political consciousness. We begin with a discussion of the ‘new social movements’, a label given to the environmentalist, feminist and peace movements that gained momentum in the 1980s. We will then turn to other social movements that have emerged in recent decades, including the anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movements. We will examine how these various movements have mobilized both particular cultural identities and universal conceptions of human rights, and how that have harnessed information technologies to operate locally and globally. Finally, we will evaluate whether these movements represent a fracturing of broad-based political communities or an opportunity to build global alliances and networks to deal with global problems.

CLASS 09GYP005 : GLOBALIZATION : DEBATES AND ISSUES

Last Tuesday and Friday, I attended second lecture but this time with Dr Ed Brown. The lecture module called GLOBALIZATION : DEBATES AND ISSUES. The subject is ntroducing students to debates surrounding the concept of globalization and to show how this concept has been invoked in a variety of geographical scholarship on the nature of space, place and territory.Outline the contributions of geographers to the understanding of globalization in the context of wider debates about processes of globalization across the social sciences. The module will be divided into a number of blocks, each block will considera particular theme, or set of themes, concerning key debates and issues in globalization. Specific themes may include:

(a) An introduction to key issues in globalzation;

(b) The importance of identity and difference in the construction and representation of geographical knowledges in relation to globalization;

(c) The place of politics and the political in the analysis of globalization;

(d) Geography and globalization;

(e) Imperialism, globalization and North-South relations.

Students will be able to show knowledge and understanding of:

(i) the contested definitions of globalization as process and epoch;

(ii) how the relational geographies of nation, region and locality are transforming under the auspices of globalization;

(iii) the changing importance of key concepts of space, place, and territory in a global era;

(iv) how connectivity and cuts, flows and fixities, speed and scale, borders and breaks, nodes and networks are producing new spatial orders at a global level;

(v) the challenges involved in undertaking geographical research and data collection to study contemporary globalization;

(vi) the distinctive contribution that geography can make to policy debates under conditions of contemporary globalization.

CHAPTER REVIEW ON THE ECONOMY OF CITIES BY JANE JACOBS

On second meeting with Prof Dr Peter Taylor dated 5 October 2009, 10am , he said " Well, Azmi before we go further, I want you to read a book by Jane Jacobs - The Economy of Cities (1969). I want you to read only Chapter 2 - How New Work Begins. You can find this book in the library.Then we will meet again next week" Oh my god I hate to do book / chapter review.

Then I went to Pilkington Library, Loughborough University to look for that book. I look at this small book. I think have this book that I bought in Singapore February 2007. I read only chapter 1- Cities First - Rural Development later... then I ignored this book for 2 years. Now I have to read again. This book was published 2 years after I was born. Its takes 4 days for me to understand Janes Jacobs's idea. And it is not easy. I read twice chapter 2 then I understand her vision and wisdom on city by Janes Jacobs.

I discussed with one of PhD student at Department Geography, Loughborough University. She said "Jane Jacobs's books are Prof Dr Peter Taylor and Dr Kathy Pain main references. Even though Janes Jacobs's books are classic books, many authors on global city such as Peter Hall etc always refer her books. If you work with them you should read Jane Jacobs's books." Kindly read my review below.

The Economy of Cities is about the importance of cities as the source of innovative economic change, a point that she believes economists have not understood, going back at least to Adam Smith, whom she chides for having misdirected subsequent thinking by glibly adopting the view that successful urban commerce must be founded on a successful agricultural economy. There are five major processes at work in a growing city economy:

(1) Anascent city finds a market in older cities for its initial export work and builds up a collection of numerous local businesses to supply producers’ goods and services to the initial export work;

(2) Some local suppliers of producers’ goods and services start exporting their own work. New local businesses begin to supply various goods and services for this new export work, and some of them eventually begin to export their own work. In the process, the city imports a growing volume and diversity of goods and services;

(3) Many of these imports are replaced by locally produced goods and services through “import replacement”, which is not the same process as the “import substitution” policies adopted by the leaders of various developing economies in the 1960s and 1970s. For one thing, import replacement must take place in logical stages, beginning with the parts or inputs most in demand, and must be self sustaining. For example, Japanese imports of bicycles from the West gave an incentive to local entrepreneurs and mechanics to open repair workshops, to begin manufacturing the most sought after bicycle parts, and eventually to assemble and later export bicycles entirely made of local components. For economic and practical reasons, successful import replacing can only be a city process. Import replacement creates a powerful multiplier effect and, as result, cities built their diverse economic foundations in “boom” phases. After an import-replacement boom, a local economy contains rooms for goods and services that were formerly neither imported nor locally produced, including unprecedented goods and services;

(4) The city’s greatly enlarged and diversified local economy becomes a potential source of numerous and diversified exports. The city’s exporting organizations arise by a) adding the export work to other people’s local work; b) adding the export work to different local work of their own; c) exporting their own local work. The city earns more imports by generating new exports, but many of the new exports merely compensate for declining lost work through obsolescence of older exports, transplants of some organizations into the rural world and replacement of exports by goods now produced in former customer cities; and,

(5) The city continues to generate new exports and earn imports, replaces imports with local production, and so on.

2nd WEEK IN LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

GLOBALIZATION AND WORLD CITIES (GaWC) RESEARCH NETWORK MEETING

I was invited by Prof Dr Peter Taylor to join the GaWC (they say as 'Gook') meeting. The meeting will be 7 October 2009 at 1pm. I was so excited that I am a apart of the 'think tank'. There are 10 core peoples in the meeting such as Prof Dr Peter Taylor, Dr Ed Brown, Dr John Harrison, Dr Micheal Hoyler, Dr Heike Jöns and a few others key persons in GaWC. The meeting chaired by Prof Dr Peter Taylor. A few issues have been discussed including their recent seminar in Abu Dhabi...New Ways of Thinking about Abu Dhabi as an Emerging Global City. However other matters I cannot reveal here....secret....I thought I wanted to take a few photos of the members and meeting arrangement but I think its not appropriate at the moment...may be later.

One thing I learned from this meeting..10 items they have discussed but they can managed to finish the meeting within 1 hour...from 1 until 2pm. All members prepared and readied with issues need to be highlighted and what resolution need to be done. Every each of the member give their inputs and ideas...excluding me. I hope I will join next GaWC meeting.

CLASS 09GYB210 - GLOBALIZATION

Last Monday and Tuesday, I attended Dr John Harrison's lecture on Globalization. He has listed below some questions to help guide me reading of Neil Brenner’s book ‘New State Spaces’ (NSS), but also other material relevant to this block of lectures. I will see that most of it is not asking me to understand every line/paragraph/page of the book, more where the ideas come from and key terms/concepts to explain what is going on:

1. What 2 word concept does Bob Jessop use to explain the rescaling of state power?

2. In which 3 directions has state power been rescaled? example 2 are obvious but what is the 3rd?

3. What 3 terms does Bob Jessop attach to the 3 directions that state power has been rescaled?

4. Have Bob Jessop and Neil Brenner's paths crossed? (look at their biographies - webpage’s online!) Have they collaborated, and if so, who else has been involved and what have they done?

5. Who do Bob Jessop and Neil Brenner draw their main inspiration from? You are looking for one person in Neil's case and two in Bob's; example could this explain their slightly different take on the same topic?

6. Where did Neil Brenner visit to get inspiration for NSS? (see intro/preface to NSS) nb most of it is based on studying one part of the world. Why do you think this area of the world was a good place to study? What was going on during the late 1980s through the 1990s when Neil was there?

7. Which major geographical debate of the last decade has Neil Brenner been involved in? Does this link into any of the concepts/debates covered in this block of lectures?

8. Why do they both talk about 'governance' and not 'government'? What is the difference - how does it fit into what you know from lectures? Think pre-1970 and post-1970.