Urban Political Management in Post-Modern Critical Theories

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

kharazmi

Abstract

Introduction
Urban political management is an interdisciplinary field of political sciences, sociology, management and geography. At the view of critical theories, Euclidean approach practices replaced civil actors in their political context, selectively. Outcome of this process is the inability in representation of complex and heterogeneous spaces in a network-relational space of the city and sophisticated problems of it. Euclidean perspective is categorized, disjunctive and separated and it seeks decreasing, and reductionism. But, post-structuralism theory in which combined with the approach of ecology wants to include the city in the set of all combinations and entities until to maintain from the whole human– natural realities, simultaneously. The methodology study of is analytical-descriptive and its hypothesis is that is seems the political construction space of cities is Indispensable for to meet with complexities of urban contemporary heterogeneous environment by using of the different politics approach. The low-income population migrates to a city, inhabits and lives there. The urban designer has to be familiar with this major community, for if not, the city will be designed and developed as an alien city for the majority of the community that live there. The low-income community comes from the rural area and has their own worldview, a Cosmo-centric ontology (the worldview that humans have been ruled by an external superpower), entering the city with recent development in the modern paradigm and modern ontology. This different ontological foundation plays as the root of a wider and wider gap as time goes by and the population grows larger and larger.
Methodology
The methodology of this study is descriptive-analytical and the required information has been collected through library research. The information was gathered from sources such as books, magazines, online articles, newspapers, etc.
Results and discussion
Postmodernism is presented as an anti-Modern movement seeking to escape from everything that had so far represented modernity: negativity, contradiction and contrasts. However, there are times when it is difficult to overcome this established solution. Postmodern architecture is understood as the culmination of a social and technological transformation. In this way, the individual moves to a new city, understood by means of expression of the society that had until then inhabited the empty and meaningless buildings of the Modern Movement and the International Style. Over time, the International Style was outpaced with the help of architects who sought freedom from the rigid dictates of this school. Buildings somehow abandoned the slavish adherence limits to modernist geometry, replacing it with new designs (for instance, a return to external decoration). Instead of symbolically encountering the surrounding landscape constructed with rectangular buildings, in the Postmodernity, we observe buildings with protruding corners, a number of different levels and substantially more ornamentation on the outside. The planning of the city, according to the Modern Movement encouraged the spatial segregation of social functions, the death of suburban sidewalks and the city’s grid system. Instead of that, the new Postmodern urbanists aspired to integrate previously separate elements. They conceived a more relevant urban life for the visitor, guiding neighborhoods to gain easy access to all transport service. The promoters of this style were “anti-modernists” in their belief – society should return to a more community and environment-friendly model. For instance, some traditional designed elements of houses, such as porches and sidewalks, were remarkably favored in order to allow people to socialize, closing ties with the community.
Post-modernism succeed thanks to a willingness to change, with the aim of creating a new expression. This manifestation was not only artistic but also cultural, which, in return, will bring a new and contradictory changing aesthetic experience that seeks to represent contemporary society. The creation of the Postmodern city primarily depends on the association between symbols and signs, and which follow the demand of society itself. Postmodern cities are not intended to accommodate the individual, but instead, aim to distract the society. The succession of different Postmodern, dream-like, unreal spaces distract society, making them believe that individuals are living in a utopia created in their image and likeness. It will be necessary, in turn, associate all these representative symbols of Postmodern ideology –architectural materialization itself– in order to meet the basic objective of these constructions, that is, to create a city that conforms an image of Postmodern culture.
During Postmodernism the desire to create larger cities grows, impersonal and empty of architectural content, but which, in turn, can be fully identifiable by individuals through symbols and images. In order to value Postmodern cities and put them in open relation to the society that rules them, it is necessary to understand the symbols, signs and icons that appear in the viewer’s eyes. Thus, the architects of these cities work from these symbols to construct a new architectural representation for the city. It is, therefore, an urban framework, set by the signs given by the company itself and the new socio-cultural claims. Hence, Post-modernism refers to the problem of container, empty and meaningless buildings, as a problem of the Modern Movement and the International Style, rather than Postmodernism itself. The latter gives character to these flat and soulless buildings, providing them with a new character without resorting to actual architectural elements, but filling them instead with representative signs of our society.
Conclusion
There is, therefore, a desire to create a city almost as a “Postmodern carnality”, as it does not seek to solve the problems of the individual who inhabits it. Its aim is not to be functional. Its willing is to create the illusion of a city, a scenario that represents a proper city. Sociologists and architects called it “city fiction”, falsifying the individual to the most extraordinary level. Time and space are presented as basic issues when developing an urban space. Thus, we might speak of urban space as temporary – corresponding to the memory and previous experiences of the individual. For the same reason, spatial models are built by memory elements.
Key Words: Political Management, Critical Theories, Post-Structuralism, City

Keywords

Main Subjects


  1. افضلی، رسول و امیری، رسول، 1390، «بنیادهای شناخت‏شناسی و روش‏شناسی نظریه‏های پست‌مدرن در جغرافیای سیاسی و ژئوپلیتیک»، فصل‌نامة پژوهش‏های جغرافیای انسانی، ش 77، صص ۳۹-۶۰.
  2. افضلی، رسول و کیانی، وحید، 1389، «تبیین جایگاه روش‏های اثباتی و فرااثباتی در مطالعات جغرافیای سیاسی و ژئوپلیتیک»، فصل‌نامة پژوهش‏های جغرافیای انسانی، ش 72، صص ۱۰۳-۱۲۰.
  3. تاجیک، محمدرضا، 1392، پساسیاست: نظریه و روش، تهران: نشر نی.
  4. توحیدفام، محمد و دلیلی، شهاب، 1395، جهانی‌شدن، شهرها و جهان محلی شدن دیپلماسی (مطالعة موردی: دیپلماسی شهری)، فصل‌نامة سیاست، مجلة دانشکده حقوق و علوم سیاسی، دورة 46، ش 2، صص ۳۰۳-321.
  5. دادز، کلاوس، 1393، رویکردی نوین به ژئوپلیتیک انتقادی، ترجمة رسول افضلی، عمران راستی، افشین متقی، و رسول بابایی، تهران: انتشارات جهاد دانشگاهی.
  6. عباس‏زاده، محسن، 1395، «پسامدرنیته و بازتعریف دموکراسی کثرت‏گرا؛ از پولیارشی به دموکراسی رادیکال»، فصل‌نامة سیاست، مجلة دانشکده حقوق و علوم سیاسی، دورة 46، ش 2، صص ۳۲۳-342.
  7. کریمی، ایوب، 1390، «بررسی انتقادی- روش‏شناختی نظریة نقد ایدئولوژی اسلاوی ژیژک»، فصل‌نامة پژوهشنامة علوم سیاسی، س ۷، ش ۱، صص ۱۳۷-159.
  8. کاویانی راد، مراد و قره‏بیگی، مصیب، 1397، جغرافیای انتخابات: مفاهیم، بنیادها و رویکردها، تهران: مرکز مطالعات راهبردی.
  9. کاویانی راد، مراد و قره‏بیگی، مصیب، 1395، تبیین نسبت اکولوژی و دموکراسی در نظریة پساساختارگرایی، فصل‌نامة برنامه‏ریزی و آمایش فضا، س 20، ش 2، صص 273-295.
  10. گودرزی، عباس، 1391، پساساختار گرایی: رهیافتی نو در نظریه و نقد ادبی معاصر، فصل‌نامة عرفانیات در ادب فارسی، دورة 3، ش 12، صص ۲۹-46.
  11. متقی، افشین و قره‏بیگی، مصیب 1393، واکاوی ساخت سیاسی فضای کلان‌شهر تهران بر پایة نظریة پساساختارگرایی، اولین همایش علوم جغرافیایی ایران، تهران، موسسه جغرافیا، http://www.civilica.com/Paper-ICGS01-ICGS01_211.html
  12. متقی، افشین و قره‏بیگی، مصیب، 1394، سینما و ژئوپلیتیک؛ درنگی بر بارنمایی زیست سیاست در حلقه‏های فیلم، تهران: انتشارات جهاد دانشگاهی.
  13. مرادی، اسکندر و افضلی، رسول، 1392، اندیشه‏های جدید در ژئوپلیتیک: گفتمان و پساساختارگرایی، تهران: زیتون سبز.
  14. مرداک، جاناتان، 1392، جغرافیای پساساختارگرا: رهیافتی به فضای رابطه‏ای، ترجمة زهرا پیشگاهی فرد و مصیب قره‏بیگی، تهران: زیتون سبز.
  15. مهدوی وفا، حبیب‏الله؛ رضویان، محمدتقی و مؤمنی، مصطفی، 1388، نقش اقتصاد سیاسی در ساختار فضایی تهران و پیرامون، فصل‌نامة محیط‏شناسی، دورة 35، ش 50، صص 1-۱۴.

16. Abbass Zade, M., 2015, Post-Modernism and Redefinition of Pluralistic Democracy: from Oligarchy to Radical Democracy, Politics Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 2, PP. 323-342.

17. Afzali, R. and Amiri, R., 2010, Epistemology and Methodology of Postmodernism Theories in Political Geography and Geopolitics, Human Geography Research, Vol. 77, No. 3, PP. 39-60.

18. Afzali, R. and Kiyani, V., 2009, Explanation of the Positivistic and Post-Positivistic Methods in Political Geography and Geopolitics, Human Geography Research, Vol. 72, No.1, PP. 103-120.

19. Angermüller, J., 2007, Nach dem Strukturalismus. Theoriediskurs und intellektuelles Feld in Frankreich, Berlin: Bielefeld.

20. Angermüller, J., 2014, Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis. Subjectivity in Enunciative Pragmatics. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

21. Dodds, K., 2013, New Approach to Critical Geopolitics, Translated by Rasoul Afzali, Emran Rasti, Afshin Mottaghi and Rsoul Babaei, Tehran: Jahad-e Daneshgahi.

22. Ellis, E. C. and Ramankutty, N., 2008, Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world, Front Ecol Environ,  Vol. 6, No. 8, PP. 439-447.

23. Erikson, E., 2013, Formalist and Relationalist Theory in Social Network Analysis, Sociological Theory, Vol. 31, No. 3, PP. 220-242.

24. Gharagozlou, A., 2004, Urban Planning for Tehran By Using Environmental Modeling and GIS/RS, 1st FIG International Symposium on Engineering Surveys for Construction Works and Structural Engineering Nottingham, United Kingdom, 28 June – 1 July 2004, PP. 1-11.

25. Goldberg, A., 2011, Mapping Shared Understandings Using Relational Class Analysis: The Case of the Cultural Omnivore Reexamined, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 116, PP. 1397-1436.

26. Goudarzi, A., 2011, Post-Structuralism: New Approach in Theory and Critics of Contemporary Literature, Erfaniyat Dar Adab Farsi, Vol. 12, No. 3, PP. 29-46.

27. Healey, P., 2010, Making Better Places: People, Planning and Politics in the 21st Century, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

28. Hillmann, H., 2008, Mediation in Multiple Networks: Elite Mobilization before the English Civil War, American Sociological Review, Vol. 73, PP. 426-454.

29. Karimi, A., 2010, Critical-Methodological Explanation of Ideology in Slavoj Žižek, Political Sciences Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1, PP. 137-159.

30. Kavianirad, M. and GharehBeygi, M., 2015, Explanation of the Correlation between Democracy and Ecology in the Post-Structuralism Theory, Spatial Planning, Vol. 20, No. 2, PP. 273-295.

31. Kavianirad, M. and GharehBeygi, M., 2018, Geography of Election: Concepts, Foundations and Approaches, Tehran: Center for Strategic Studies.

32. Latham, A., 2002, Retheorizing the scale of globalisation: topologies, actor-networks, and cosmopolitanism, in Herod A & Wright M W eds, Geographies of Power: Placing Scale (Blackwell, Oxford).

33. Madanipour, A., 2006, Urban planning and development in Tehran, Urbanization and the Iranian Revolution, Vol. 23, No. 6, PP. 433-438.

34. Mahdavi Vafa, Habibolah, Razaviyan, Mohammad Taghi, Moumeni, Mostafa 2008. The Role of Political Economy of Tehran’s Spatial Construct and it’s Surroundings, Mohit-Shenasi, Vol. 50, No.35: 1-14.

35. Moebius, S., 2008, Poststrukturalistische Sozialwissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

36. Moradi, E. and Afzali, R., 2012, New Thoughts in Geopolitics: Discourse and Post-Structuralism, Tehran: Zytoun Sabz Publisher.

37. Mottaghi, A. and GharehBeygi, M., 2013, Analyzing of Political Construction of Tehran based on Post-Structuralism, The First Conference of Iranian Geographical Science, Tehran, Geography Institute: http://www.civilica.com/Paper-ICGS01-ICGS01_211.html

38. Mottaghi, A. and GharehBeygi, M., 2014, Cinema and Geopolitics: Scrutiny on the Representation of Bio-Politics in the Reels, Tehran: Jahad Daneshgahi Publisher.

39. Murdoch, J., 2012, Post-Structuralism Geography, Translated by Zahra Pishgahifard and Mosayeb GharehBeygi, Tehran: Zeytoun Sabz Publisher.

40. Næss, P., 2012, Critical realism and the meta-theoretical foundations of urban planning, Paper presented at the CUMULUS conference, Oslo, May 14, 2013 (18 pages). (Alternatively, for participants able to read Norwegian: Næss, P. (2012) Kritisk realisme og byplanforskning, FORMakademisk, Vol. 5, No. 2.

41. Pløger, J., 2008, Foucault’s dispositif and the city, Planning Theory, Vol. 7, No. 1, PP. 51-70.

42. Raulet, G., 2009. Structuralism and Post-Structuralism: An Interview with Michel Foucault. Telos. Vol. 3, No. 5, PP. 195–211

43. Smith, R. G., 2005,Networking the City, Geography: An International Journal, Vol. 90, No. 2, PP. 172-176.

44. Tajik, M. R., 2012, Post-Politics: Theory and Method, Tehran: Ney Publisher.

45. Thrift, N., 2003, Space: the fundamental stuff of human geography, in Holloway S L, Rice S P & Valentine G eds. Key Concepts in Geography (Sage, London), PP. 95-107.

46. Tohidfam, M. and Dalili, Sh., 2015, Globalization, Cities and Loco-Globalization in Diplomacy (Case Study: Urban Diplomacy), Politics Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 2, PP. 303-321.

47. Torres, N. R., 2014, Urban Governmentality and Public Participation, Planning and Power, Vol. 3, No. 13, PP. 1-10.

48. Whatmore, S., 2002, Hybrid Geographies: Natures, Cultures, Spaces, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.