Doctoral Dissertation Research: Financialization and Urban Development

随着金融活动在全球范围内变得无处不在，全球不平等也在同时加剧，对于政策制定者和广大公众来说，理解金融化在社会生活不同领域的影响至关重要。全球一半的人口居住在城市，因此考虑世界上大多数居民面临住房困难的主要城市地区尤为重要。据联合国人居署估计，全球约有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16亿人没有住房保障。本研究旨在培养一名人类学研究生在科学严谨和经验数据收集和分析方面的方法，旨在阐明推动全球城市转型和世界各地相关住房危机的社会、政治和技术安排。这项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。塔里克·拉赫曼（Tariq Rahman）在加州大学尔湾分校西尔维娅·南（Sylvia Nam）博士的指导下，提议将土地金融化作为一种正在改变金融和城市的现象进行研究。巴基斯坦的拉合尔位于农业丰富的旁遮普省，是世界上发展最快的城市之一。本项目将探讨与土地相关的社会意义如何影响金融活动，以及土地的金融化如何反过来影响城市空间和生活。研究将在一家房地产开发商的办公室进行，在那里出售地块；在一个在线移动聊天群中，海外投资者分享与项目相关的信息；在拉合尔市中心，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。通过访谈、参与观察和档案资料，本研究将考察开发商、投资者、官员、当地居民和其他利益相关者如何理解和体验与土地金融化相关的价值、知识和治理观念的变化。这项研究将有助于从人类学、历史学、城市研究、媒体研究和法律研究等一系列学科中对金融、官僚主义和城市进行理论和实证辩论。本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。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.