University of Heidelberg

Labour migration, expatriate family life and inter-cultural marriages have been re-drawing the urban landscape, contributing to richer cosmopolitan fabrics in both aspiring global cities such as Shanghai or Delhi and in a more established global metropole such as Tokyo. However, these mobilities have also brought along new groups of urban youth: bi-lingual children, expat teenagers, translocal students, hopeful labourers, sojourning artists or settling young professionals. In this process of messy cosmopolitan transitions, the ways in which young people experience, visualise and interact with the city and its generational maps have been changing. Re-contextualised urban spaces, evolving sub-cultures and growing creative opportunities are building new avenues for self-expression and place-making. But they also impact upon the division of roles and responsibilities between the generations. The youthful tropes of branded spaces and dynamic urban change, for example, are shifting visibilities. The global city of neoliberal subject-making and radical adaptation, of hyper-productivity, flexibility and fast consumer trends celebrates youth just as it is sidelining ageing as a value for society. While changing social relations provide for growing choice and freedom in managing biographical transitions, youth-centred urban imaginaries  con­tribute to an increasing public invisibility of growing old, re-configuring age-appropriate spaces, movements and contacts of urban life, and re-working the social (and gender) scripts of urban access and belonging.

To capture the complexity of this new generational context, experts from a variety of cultural studies disciplines have been invited to contribute their experience, ranging from anthropology, urban planning and geography to film, art, architecture, food and music. Drawing attention to the diverse ways in which people make sense of their generational belonging, the workshop will juxtapose the powerful imagery of the mega-city against its cosmopolitan translations in individual places, creative projects and personal stories.