2 results
2 - Human Agency in the Asian City
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- By Shiqiao Li
- Edited by Bing Zhang, Neha Sami, R. Parthasarathy, Paul Rabé, Gregory Bracken
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- Book:
- Future Challenges of Cities in Asia
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 21 November 2020
- Print publication:
- 26 November 2019, pp 23-38
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- Chapter
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Summary
Abstract
Instead of yearning for absolute freedom as in the Western city, human agency as an idea seems to be generally understood as conditional in the Asian city. This chapter discusses the obscuring of indigenous urban traditions in Asia, the role of human agency in relation to the meanings of property ownership, conceptions of human labor, and the aesthetic experience of contingency, in an attempt to explore alternative ideas and practices of the place of human life in the environment. Human agency in Asian cities contains elements of intellectual and urban insights that have potential for future cities. However, these potentials and insights must be excavated and reformulated in order to gain theoretical and political efficacy in our fast-changing world today.
Keywords: human agency, land rights, labor, aesthetics of contingency
The assertion of Asia – and the Asian city – has largely been a social-political project: to build independence from its colonial dependence through the constructs of nation-states and national identities; it comes with all the intellectual anxieties and practical difficulties associated with this project. This chapter seeks a different kind of opportunity in the virtue of diversity of urban ideas and realities, which is crucially important, like in an ecosystem, to the long-term viability of city making. Have we been thrown off balance by the ever-increasing forces of monoculture today? Quite possibly; we pursue more or less similar goals worldwide with intense competition for the same finite resources. Crucially, we change our environment with cities, which, in the last instances, are imagined with intellectual conceptions, even though these conceptions are often obscured by the bustling appearances of commerce and entertainment, and by the immediate environmental and humanitarian crises taking place in them. What makes Hong Kong and Florence look and feel so different is not only the commodities or cultural performances that both cities house (today they have much in common), but also the real and material differences that result from intellectually formulated design and organizational decisions: Who has the final say in the use of land? Should we partition the city? How open or closed should a city be? What is a beautiful city? In each case, answers can be very different, leading to different physical outcomes. Articulating these differences would only make sense if they have potential to offer alternatives to our current intellectual predicament over the future of the environment.
2 - Spaces of the Prudent Self
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- By Li Shiqiao
- Edited by Gregory Bracken
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- Book:
- Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 16 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 14 December 2018, pp 47-62
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- Chapter
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Summary
Abstract
This paper seeks an understanding of the city through the formulations of spatial features stemming from the prudent self, which are constructed differently in China and in Greco-Roman conceptions. Space, caution, and foresight are intertwined in the spatial production of the city; here, the most profound force shaping the city is often the most intimate to the body as it takes care of itself. The body constructed in relation to perceived risk and safety not only formulates its own physical characteristics (i.e., the combatant body versus the body in safety), but also strategizes how to obtain protection in its immediate spatial context (i.e., openness versus concealment). These modes of spatial production result in enormously complex but conceptually distinctive decisions with regard to encirclement, access, and the articulation of large amounts of architecture that enable and perpetuate urban life. More importantly, these modes of spatial production are accompanied by patterns of moral and aesthetic cultivation that underpin the political, economic, and cultural institutions of the city. Ideas of prudence, despite their illusive nature in theory and in practice, command an important role in simultaneously explicating the physical construction of urban space and the moral and aesthetic constructs of cultural practices.
Keywords: prudence, China, city, safety, care
Among all ancient human concerns—the fertility of the body, the peacefulness of society, and the goodness of the cosmos—nothing seems to be as divergent as the formulations of the ideas of prudence. We may be enthusiastic about radical cultural change, but cultures are exceptionally stable structures: many deeper cultural structures do not seem to change, even though their surface appearances constantly adapt to outside influences. Prudence appears to be at the heart of the formation of one of these very stable structures of culture; foresight and caution are central to life, and the practice of the care of the self results from perception of emerging danger identified by foresight. While there is hardly a precise measure for the right amount of prudence—too much of it hinders one's ability to secure resources in a competitive environment; too little of it exposes oneself to destruction—civilizations make distinct choices based on what may be seen as their preferred ‘resource strategies’.