Doctoral Dissertation Research: Financialization and Urban Development

随着金融活动在世界范围内变得无处不在，全球不平等也在同时加剧，因此，决策者和广大公众都必须了解金融化对社会生活不同领域的影响。全球一半的人口生活在城市，因此考虑世界主要城市地区尤为重要，那里的大多数居民都面临住房问题。据人居署估计，全世界约有3.3亿城市家庭无法获得负担得起的住房。在未来六年内，将有16亿人住房无保障。这项研究，培养人类学研究生在科学严谨和实证数据收集和分析的方法，旨在阐明社会，政治和技术安排，推动全球城市转型和相关的住房危机在世界各地。该研究将有助于政策制定者、研究人员和公众更好地理解金融与城市发展之间的关系，从而促进设计更公平的城市治理战略和成果。Tariq Rahman在加州大学欧文分校Sylvia Nam博士的指导下，建议研究土地金融化，这是一种正在改变金融和城市的现象。巴基斯坦的拉合尔位于农业资源丰富的旁遮普省，是世界上发展最快的城市之一。该项目将探讨与土地相关的社会意义如何塑造金融活动，以及土地的金融化如何反过来塑造城市空间和生活。研究将在一个出售地块的真实的房地产开发商办公室、一个散居海外的投资者分享项目相关信息的在线移动的聊天组以及拉合尔市中心进行，在那里，政府正试图用一个新的数字数据库取代传统的土地收入官员。利用访谈，参与者观察和档案资料，本研究将探讨开发商，投资者，官僚，当地居民和其他利益相关者如何理解和体验不断变化的价值观，知识和治理的土地金融化。这项研究将有助于从一系列学科，包括人类学，历史学，城市研究，媒体研究和法律的研究，对金融，官僚和城市的理论和实证辩论。该研究的结果将有助于深入了解影响金融化进程的文化历史和规范、新的电子政务技术与当地生活方式的融合以及散居人口在世界经济和城市中的作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As financial activities become ubiquitous worldwide, global inequality is simultaneously rising, and it is crucial for both policy-makers and the public at large to understand the effects of financialization across different domains of social life. Half of the global population lives in cities, making it particularly important to consider the world's major urban areas, where a majority of residents face struggles over housing. According to UN-Habitat estimates, approximately 330 million urban households worldwide lack access to affordable housing. Within the next six years, 1.6 billion people will be housing insecure. This research, which trains an anthropology graduate student in methods of scientifically rigorous and empirical data collection and analysis, is designed to illuminate the social, political, and technical arrangements driving global urban transformation and related crises of housing around the world. The study will help policy-makers, researchers, and the general public better understand the relationship between finance and urban development, thus facilitating the design of more equitable urban governance strategies and outcomes.Tariq Rahman, under the supervision of Dr. Sylvia Nam of the University of California, Irvine, proposes to study the financialization of land as a phenomenon that is transforming finance and cities alike. Lahore, Pakistan, located in the agriculturally-rich Punjab province, is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. This project will investigate how the social meanings associated with land shape financial activity and how the financialization of land, in turn, shapes urban space and life. Research will be conducted in a real estate developer's office where plots of land are sold, an online mobile chat group where diasporic investors share information related to projects, and inner-city Lahore where the government is attempting to replace traditional land revenue officials with a new digital database. Utilizing interviews, participant observation, and archival sources, this study will examine how developers, investors, bureaucrats, local residents, and other stakeholders understand and experience changing notions of value, knowledge, and governance in relation to the financialization of land. This research will contribute to theoretical and empirical debates about finance, bureaucracy, and cities from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, history, urban studies, media studies, and legal studies. Findings from this study will provide insight into the cultural histories and norms that shape processes of financialization, the merging of new e-governance technologies with local ways of life, and the role of diasporic populations in the world's economies and cities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.