Apologies for Cross-Posting We are looking for two more papers to round out a second session. If interested or if you have questions, please be in touch asap.
Cities and Synecdoche 'Synecdoche', as defined by Webster's New World Dictionary, is "a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing, or any of the reverse of these." In Geography, we find this especially in representations and discussions of scale where, for example, 'the city' is (mis-)represented using phenomena and patterns better understood and analyzed at local or regional scales ... or vice versa. Place-marketing and other entrepreneurial endeavors - branding, for example - have made ample use of synecdoche in the interest of economic development and investment. 'Best Places' claims and categorizations are, almost by necessity, derived from scale-specific data that are hardly universal to the 'place' at hand. This is especially true for cities, for whom 'best' (or 'worst') place-branding (either self-generated or by others) has taken on increasing competitive significance. To this end, it seems, synecdoche is increasingly vital to projects of accumulation and - by extension - uneven development and thus potentially rife with inter- or intra-scale contradictions and the potential for conflict and injustice. For this paper session, I invite papers that explore the complexities of synecdoche at the Urban Scale, and that attempt to reveal its implications (be they positive or negative) for those 'other' scales (e.g., communities, environments, households, people, and places) abstracted within it and from which it is emergent. I encourage participation from a breadth of ideological and theoretical orientations, sub-disciplinary interests, and international perspectives. Please send abstracts and (if appropriate) PIN# to Alec Brownlow (cbrow...@depaul.edu) asap. Thank you. ******** Alec Brownlow, Ph.D. Department of Geography DePaul University 990 W. Fullerton Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 phone: 773.325.7876 fax: 773.325.4590
