Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rethinking Urbanization and Development in the 21st Century

博士论文研究：21世纪城市化与发展的反思

• 批准号: 1459010
• 负责人: Judith Farquhar
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1459010&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Rethinking; Urbanization

The rapid urbanization being experienced today around the world is both lauded and feared by policy and development experts. Yet there are no standardized definitions of what constitutes the "urban" or how it should be measured, even in United Nations data bases. Consequently, urbanization projects are informed by variable and shifting definitions and goals. Because these projects include not only the expansion of cities and rural development but also large-scale demolition of urban spaces and relocation of city residents, urbanization can no longer be thought of as simply population shift or city growth. We need to better understand the effects of the shifting aims and ideologies that direct current urbanization policies and programs in practice.University of Chicago doctoral student Victoria Nguyen, who is supervised by Dr. Judith Farquhar, will undertake 12 months of ethnographic field research on the contemporary meaning and significance of urbanization. She will focus in particular on how diverse state, institutional, and everyday urban actors articulate and mediate changing ideologies and expectations of "correct urbanity." The research will be conducted in Beijing, China, a particularly apt research site because China is presently executing one of the most ambitious urbanization programs in modern history. The country's New National Urbanization Plan seeks to move 250 million rural residents into cities and towns within the next 12 years and also to remedy what it diagnoses as pervasive "urban disease" in China's largest and oldest cities. Beijing's antiquity should make the conflicts around urbanization particularly visible and therefore amenable to social scientific research. Nguyen's research will take place at four sites: a state-owned development firm, a cultural preservation NGO, international urban think-tanks, and within the neighborhoods of Old Beijing. Using such research methods as interviews and participant observation, the researcher will collect information on how shifting ideals of urban life affect built and social environments, the delineation of urban and non-urban spaces, historical preservation and demolition, and social inclusion and exclusion. Findings from the research will have applicability to theorizing the significance of urbanization in the world today, wherever it takes place, including in the United States. Her findings should also be helpful to planners, policy makers, and citizens who confront and must respond to urbanization in their daily lives.

政策和发展专家对当今世界正在经历的快速城市化既表示赞赏，又表示担忧。然而，即使在联合国数据库中，也没有关于“城市”的标准定义，也没有关于如何衡量“城市”的标准定义。因此，城市化项目的定义和目标各不相同且不断变化。由于这些项目不仅包括城市的扩张和农村的发展，而且还包括大规模的城市空间拆除和城市居民的搬迁，城市化不再被认为是简单的人口转移或城市增长。我们需要更好地理解在实践中指导当前城市化政策和方案的不断变化的目标和意识形态的影响。芝加哥大学博士生维多利亚阮，由朱迪思法夸尔博士指导，将进行为期12个月的民族志实地研究，探讨城市化的当代含义和意义。她将特别关注不同的国家、机构和日常城市行为者如何表达和调解不断变化的意识形态和对“正确城市化”的期望。“这项研究将在中国北京进行，这是一个特别合适的研究地点，因为中国目前正在执行现代历史上最雄心勃勃的城市化计划之一。中国新的国家城镇化计划寻求在未来12年内将2.5亿农村居民转移到城镇，并解决中国最大和最古老的城市普遍存在的“城市病”。北京的古老性应该使城市化的冲突特别明显，因此适合社会科学研究。 Nguyen的研究将在四个地点进行：一家国有开发公司，一家文化保护非政府组织，国际城市智库和老北京的社区。通过访谈和参与观察等研究方法，研究者将收集关于城市生活理想的转变如何影响建筑和社会环境、城市和非城市空间的划分、历史保护和拆除以及社会包容和排斥的信息。研究结果将适用于理论化当今世界城市化的重要性，无论它发生在哪里，包括在美国。她的研究结果也应该有助于规划者、政策制定者和在日常生活中面对城市化并必须对此作出反应的公民。