Asian Cities, Globalisation and Cultural Diversity Challenges of the 21st Century

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Asian Cities, Globalisation and Cultural
Diversity Challenges of the 21st Century

• Cities, their populations and city governments as
  agents of change

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Globalisation and the Asian city

• Economic and social impact of globalisation
  concentrated in Asian cities
• International and regional migration of labour
  as well as businesses bringing ever increasing
  diversity to cities in Asia

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Managing tensions and conflicts of interests

• Diversity brought by globalisation
• Diversity of urban population already in place

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Urban social or political-economic space?

• Urban space the current and future centre of
  tensions and conflicts?
• Practically 40 of Asias population now live in
  cities
• Argument that class-based urban politics now
  replaced by pre-modernist, millenarian,
  faith-based affiliations (Kaplinsky 2008).

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New millennium urban conflicts or politics of
the dispossessed

• Multi-religious urban population
• Faltering multiculturalism that has been
  largely ethno-centric

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Governance and policy

• Multi-religiosity, multi-lingualism,
  multi-racialism have been the approach in many
  Asian societies
• So have been preferential policies,
  assimilationist and other approaches that tend to
  flatten differences
• Nation-building held hostage by sectarian politics

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Religious revivalism in Asia

• Islamic revivalism, new Hindu religious
  movements, increased Christian fellowship
  activities and new churches
• Issues emerging such as, the wearing of tudung to
  schools and the role of Islamic religious schools
  have been in the spotlight from Paris to
  Singapore
• Community centred around religion vs other
  interests such as, civic causes much voluntary
  activities are organised by religious groups

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Negotiated urban space

• From local urban to global urban
• Question of citizenship vs trans-nationhood among
  varying classes of trans-nationals from highly
  mobile and skilled to unskilled and low-skilled
  migrants

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Language most frequently spoken at home
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Is language at the centre of the effort to manage
cultural diversity?
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Significant other languages

• Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Thai, Myanmese, East
  European languages
• Should all migrants speak English in Singapore?
• Singaporean population struggling to speak good
  English and not Singlish to be globally
  competitive
• Elite are trying to be effectively tri-lingual
  with English, mother tongue and a third Asian or
  European language like German or French

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Can Asian cities manage diversity?

• World came to Beijing for the Olympics and
  Beijing had to learn about the world and the
  accommodation of diversity
• Singaporeans debating if a dormitory for 1000
  foreign workers from South Asia and China should
  be provided in a middle-class suburban
  neighbourhood where already 5000 expatriate,
  largely white and professional community already
  live and feel perfectly welcome