Michael Keith (Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford) interrogates how we think about urban change and normative theory in cities experiencing high levels of international migration.
Abstract: The modern city has conventionally received and integrated new arrivals, but the scale of international migration in the 21st century challenges the ethical and social settlement of the metropolis. As cities increasingly mediate global networks and flows of information, capital and culture, the relationship between the national, the urban and the local is reconfigured. How do cities regulate the rights to the city of flows when old boundaries between citizens and denizens lose their clarity? How do transnational and diasporic structures of sensibility alter the languages of belonging in the city? This seminar will interrogate how we think about the interplay of urban change and normative theory in the cities that accommodate demographic change across the world in the 21st century.