Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 at 09:00 - 10:30
PAPER SESSION 1
Cities, Mobilities, Place and Space
M532, GEORGE MOORE BUILDING
Securitisation and Cosmopolitanism: A Tale of Two Cities?
Pieri, E.
(University of Manchester)
This paper investigates how the process of securitisation and the mobilisation of aspirations towards cosmopolitanism
interact to reconfigure urban space.
Scholarship focusing on Western cities increasingly contends that they have become militarised and describes their
role in building resilience. The fortification of the built environment, in particular that of affluent neighbourhoods, has
been traced in studies which lament the spread of privatised space and gated residential solutions, and which criticise
the politics of marginality that they reinforce. Nonetheless, a much debated characteristic of the urban remains its
diversity, with the unpredictability and heterogeneity of encounters it allows. While debates over multiculturalism,
intercultural relations, migration, cohesion and diversity are always high on the political agenda, there has been a
resurgence of interest in cosmopolitanism both within academic debates and in policy discourse.
Taking Manchester city centre as a case study, this paper questions the relationship between cosmopolitanism and
securitisation and their role in place making. It investigates the understandings of cosmopolitanism operationalised in
Manchester by various stakeholders – recovered through interviews, focus groups, ethnography and documentary
analysis - and contrasts them with those circulating in contemporary scholarly debates. Exploring whether
securitisation and cosmopolitanism are best thought as conflicting or mutually validating trends, this paper considers
the type of spaces and practices they produce.
Power, Knowledge and Freedom of Information
Sheaff, M.
(Plymouth University)
The paternalism of the post-war Welfare State, with limited citizen and user involvement, has met challenges from
different directions, including democratic and market-oriented alternatives. Although the latter appear to have gained
greater ascendancy, a significant achievement of the former was the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
In his foreword to the preceding White Paper, 'Your Right to Know' (1997), the Prime Minister foresaw, 'a fundamental
and vital change in the relationship between government and governed'. He added: 'The traditional culture of secrecy
will only be broken down by giving people in the United Kingdom the right to know.'
Writing in his autobiography, in 2010, Tony Blair's views had changed: 'Freedom of Information. . . . I look at those
words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naive, foolish,
irresponsible nincompoop. . . . Where was Sir Humphrey when I needed him?'
The theme of transition – from State paternalism to the rhetoric of democratic participation – and subsequent retreat
towards a 'confidentiality' and 'privacy' is explored in this paper. Empirical material for the paper is drawn from a study
in which the Freedom of Information Act was used to explore decision-making within the National Health Service. The
apparent contrast that emerged, between public accounts, and information disclosed through FOI requests, is used to
consider wider issues of knowledge, control, power and accountabilities.
Governing the Identity of Asylum Seekers in Australia
Revi, B.
(University of Chester)
Despite Australia's history as a migrant nation, the arrival by boat of foreigners to seek asylum has attracted public
controversy and harsh policy responses. Boat arrivals have been linked to broader economic and cultural issues,
reflecting the impact of neoliberal reforms undertaken in Australia since the 1980s.
This paper adopts a discourse approach to investigate the impact of neoliberal reforms on Australian identity, and a
governmentality approach to investigate how the neoliberal actors have constructed harsh asylum policy as insurance
against risks to population growth, infrastructure, jobs, and services.
61 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University