Digital Makings of the Cosmopolitan City? Young People’s Urban Imaginaries of London

Authors

  • Koen Leurs Utrecht University
  • Myria Georgiou London School of Economics and Political Science

Keywords:

urban youth, imaginaries, cosmopolitanism, social media, transnationalism, cultural diversity

Abstract

This article focuses on young Londoners’ everyday digital connectedness in the global city and examines the urban imaginaries their connections generate and regulate. Young people engage with many mobilities, networks, and technologies to find their places in a city that is only selectively hospitable to them. Offline and online connections also shape urban imaginaries that direct their moral and practical positions toward others living close by and at a distance. We draw from a two-year study with 84 young people of different class and racial backgrounds living in three London neighborhoods. The study reveals the divergence of youths’ urban imaginaries that result from uneven access to material and symbolic resources in the city. It also shows the convergence of their urban imaginaries, resulting especially from widespread practices of diversified connectedness. More often than not, young participants reveal a cosmopolitan and positive disposition toward difference. Cosmopolitanism becomes a common discursive tool urban youth differently use, to narrate and regulate belonging in an interconnected world and an unequal city.

Author Biographies

Koen Leurs, Utrecht University

Koen Leurs is Assistant Professor in Gender and Postcolonial studies at the Graduate Gender Program, Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. He is a feminist internet researcher, who recently completed a EU-funded Marie Curie study on ‘Urban Politics of London Youth Analyzed Digitally’ at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2013-2015). Currently, he leads the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research funded research project ‘Young connected migrants. Comparing digital practices of young asylum seekers and expatriates in the Netherlands’ (2016-2019). Publications in Feminist Review, International Journal of Communication, International Journal of e-Politics, Observatorio OBS*, Crossings. Journal of Migration and Culture and Social Media + Society explore gender, race, class, migration, urbanity and youth culture using quantitative and qualitative approaches. He published Everyday Feminist Research Praxis with Cambridge Scholars Press (2014) and Digital Passages. Migrant Youth 2.0. Diaspora, Gender and Youth Cultural Intersections with Amsterdam University Press (2015). See www.koenleurs.net.  

Myria Georgiou, London School of Economics and Political Science

Dr Myria Georgiou is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Department at the Dept. of Media and Communications, LSE. She has a PhD in Sociology (LSE), an MSc in Journalism (Boston University) and a BA in Sociology (Panteion University, Athens). Her research focuses on migration and diaspora, media and the city, and the ways in which media contribute to constructions of identity and meanings of cultural diversity. For more than 18 years she has been conducting and leading cross-national and transurban research across Europe and between British and American cities. She has also worked as a journalist for BBC World Service, Greek press, and the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.

Downloads

Published

2016-07-27

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Articles

License

The International Journal of Communication is an academic journal. As such, it is dedicated to the open exchange of information. For this reason, IJoC is freely available to individuals and institutions. Copies of this journal or articles in this journal may be distributed for research or educational purposes free of charge and without permission. However, commercial use of the IJoC website or the articles contained herein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the editor. Authors who publish in The International Journal of Communication will release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) license. This license allows anyone to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given. For details of the rights authors grants users of their work, see the "human-readable summary" of the license, with a link to the full license. (Note that "you" refers to a user, not an author, in the summary.) This journal utilizes the LOCKSSsystem to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. The publisher perpetually authorizes participants in the LOCKSS system to archive and restore our publication through the LOCKSS System for the benefit of all LOCKSS System participants. Specifically participating libraries may:
  • Collect and preserve currently accessible materials;
  • Use material consistent with original license terms;
  • Provide copies to other LOCKSS appliances for purposes of audit and repair.
 

Fair Use

The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 specifies, in Section 107, the terms of the Fair Use exception: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; &
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. In accord with these provisions, the International Journal of Communication believes in the vigorous assertion and defense of Fair Use by scholars engaged in academic research, teaching and non-commercial publishing. Thus, we view the inclusion of “quotations” from existing print, visual, audio and audio-visual texts to be appropriate examples of Fair Use, as are reproductions of visual images for the purpose of scholarly analysis. We encourage authors to obtain appropriate permissions to use materials originally produced by others, but do not require such permissions as long as the usage of such materials falls within the boundaries of Fair Use.

The International Journal of Communication encourages authors to employ fair use in their scholarly publishing wherever appropriate. Fair use is the right to use unlicensed copyrighted material (whether it is text, images, audio-visual, or other) in your own work, in some circumstances. We consult the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication, created by the International Communication Association and endorsed by the National Communication Association, and you should too. If you have any questions about whether fair use applies to your uses of copyrighted material (whether it is text, images, audio-visual, or other) in your scholarship, simply include your rationale, grounded in the Best Practices, as a supplementary document with your submission.