115 Politics and Law: Metamorphoses

THE GLOBAL : A STRUCTURAL HOLE IN THE NATIONAL TERRITORIAL TISSUE

An Interview with Saskia Sassen by Elitza Stanoeva*

Elitza Stanoeva: When you research project on global to- introduced the concept and the day, which cities would you single theory of the ‘’, it was out as emblematic places where the outcome of your research on ‘the global hits the ground’? the interplay between processes Saskia Sassen: That is an inter- on the global scale such as post- esting question to ask me… I would Keynesian economic and labour select two types of cities: a) those restructuring, and changes on the that have long been international in local scale of the city, e.g. in migra- the inter-state system meaning but tion trends and income distribution, not global, where I would include as it unfolded in the 1980s. In the cities as diverse as Zurich and second edition of The Global City Mumbai, and most of the Central (2001) you took up the task of test- and East European major cities, in- ing your research framework vis-à- cluding Sofi a; and b) cities that are vis the decade of the 1990s on the not global nor international but that basis of updated empirical data. are the main cities in countries until Later developments prompted you now weakly linked to the traditional to further elaborate a typology of international system and the global cities participating in the network economy that began in the 1980s of global circuits and to talk of (cities in the Asian republics of the global cities as well as cities that former Soviet Union, many of the are not such, yet perform functions East European cities, and cities in of global cities. How do economic Africa – though not Johannesburg competition and/or cooperation and Cairo, which have long been shape the network of global cities articulated with both the interna- as well as their respective roles to- tional system and the new global day? And if you were to start your economy).

* Taken in Sofi a, Bulgaria, in July 2011. Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 116

And turning to the question of economic and of the the global cities… As the global current fi nancial crisis on diverse economy has evolved since the types of global cities. 1980s, the number of global cities E.S.: Throughout The Global has grown. The global system de- City, you are raising the question of mands more and more global cit- the long-term sustainability of the ies. This has led to a very common global city with regard to the sus- notion that cities compete harder tainability of the economic order and harder with each other. I fi nd produced by globalization. What is that this is not quite so. Why? Be- new about this economic order that cause the specialized differences makes it so precarious, as evident of cities matter much more today in the recent economic crisis? – in the global economy that be- S.S.: One challenge here is to gan to take shape in the 1980s – differentiate those areas which are than in the earlier Keynesian era of well-served by high fi nance and the post-war decades, when cities those which are better served by were far more administrative cen- more traditional banking. At the tres than innovation centres. I fi nd same time, we must ensure that that this is generally not suffi ciently both are embedded in adequate recognized – partly probably be- regulatory regimes defi ned in cause it goes against the common terms of democratic accountability notion that and limits to their destructive po- makes cities increasingly similar to tential. The Keynesian era accom- each other. plished this task in part by erecting I argue that this is based on fairly solid walls between these two confusion between the homog- kinds of activities, and subjecting enizing of the state-of-the-art built them to different regulatory struc- environment of cities worldwide, on tures. The fi nancialization of recent the one hand, and on the other, the decades was brought about in part actual economic activities that get by chipping away at this wall and done in those spaces. This does re-embedding the fi nancial sector require a far more fi nely-grained in a basically profi t-oriented and analysis of the economies of glob- private regulatory structure which al cities than the fact of specialized prioritized neither public account- corporate services and headquar- ability nor concern with social ters. Once we recognize that what consequences. This is a process gives cities their strength can vary that took off in the 1980s, as I de- enormously, we can also see that scribed in enormous detail in The global cities compete far less with Global City, both in the 1991 and each other than is commonly as- 2001 editions; I also develop this in serted. Finally, a focus on the spe- my 2008 book, Territory, Authority, cialized differences of cities allows Rights, especially in Chapter Five. us to capture the variable effects of But we must be careful not to 117 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... reject fi nance wholesale. We all banking and make fi nance less need debt, whether we are a fi rm, invasive and aggressive. Most a household, or a country. But we important, we need to rethink our need to ask whether we need this criteria for what is good economic level of debt, or enormously com- growth, what is prosperity that ben- plex instruments, to fi nance what efi ts all, what is environmentally are mostly rather basic needs for sustainable. fi rms and households. Many of E.S.: This question is especial- these needs can be met with tra- ly acute today against the back- ditional banking loans. We need ground of the fi nancial crisis but fi nance because it ‘makes’ capital, also with regard to the urgency of and large-scale projects need vast the environmental question. What amounts of capital: at this point, kind of social aggravation did the only fi nance can reach these or- last fi nancial crisis produce and ders of magnitude. how did it affect the social fabric of But what has been happening the city? over the last decade is an abuse S.S.: The critical factor for the of the capabilities of fi nance. The fi nancial crisis of 2008 was not the problem is that fi nance has en- millions of sub-prime mortgage tered domains – such as con- foreclosures, as is often said – the sumer loans and home mortgages idea that irresponsible middle- – where traditional banking would class families spent more money have been a safer option for con- than they had. The cause of the sumers. Traditional banking could crisis was something very different even go quite a way towards de- and far more complex. The overall veloping mortgages that allow low- value of foreclosures was relative- income people to buy a house, or ly small for global fi nanciers. The towards developing specifi c types way the housing crisis affected fi - of loans for small businesses. Fur- nance was by not knowing what ther, we need to ensure that once might next turn out to be a toxic as- fi nancial capital reaches certain or- set given the impossibility of trac- ders of magnitude we materialize it ing the toxic component in com- into public goods – a rapid transit plex investment instruments. This system, a new clean water system, in turn led those who had bought greening of our cities, clean-ups of credit-default swaps as a sort of the thousands of vast toxic stretch- insurance to want to cash in their es of land due to chemicals, etc. swaps, which by 2007 had reached There must be regulations in place an aggregate value of USD 62 tril- that keep fi nance from simply do- lion. That is when the fi nancial cri- ing speculative moves to make sis exploded in September 2008 more profi ts, as has been happen- (as opposed to the homeowners’ ing since the 1990s. We need to crisis which was about USD 300 expand and strengthen regulated billion, not much money for global Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 118

fi nance, and the resulting crisis of ing expanse of vacant land will be confi dence of August 2007). Those reincorporated into global capital who had sold the swaps had spec- circuits, is not yet clear. At present, ulated that there was going to be we can say that the incorporation no crisis, that all was going fi ne in of these neighbourhood and resi- the fi nancial system overall and dential spaces into the spaces and hence there was no risk that swap circuits of global fi nancial capital- owners would want to cash in. ism have come at the price of the So it became clear in September expulsion of actual people from 2008 that the sellers of swaps did these spaces. not have the money to pay for the E.S.: In your lecture in Sofi a cashed-in swaps. That was the fi - (Sassen, 2011b), you were quite nancial crisis. critical of the political rhetoric of We cannot lose sight of the fact ‘rescuing national banks’ and the that in fi nancializing the mortgage argument that the bailouts could market, the negative effects on be perceived as a revival of the pri- households, neighbourhoods, and macy of national economies and of cities, were not part of the equation. the nation-state in general. Could The sub-prime mortgage extended you say something more about the domain of high fi nance but in a this? way that delinked the fi nancial cir- S.S.: When the US government cuit from the actual material exist- allocated taxpayers’ money ‘to ence of houses, neighbourhoods, rescue the major national banks’, and borrowers. The long-term con- it was actually rescuing a global sequences of this are not yet fully fi nancial system. The facts have clear. now been made public: the Fed- The estimate of the Financial eral Reserve (the US central bank) Crisis Inquiry Commission is that allocated well over USD 1 trillion 13 million households will have of taxpayers’ money to rescue the been foreclosed within a few years. global fi nancial system. There were That is a lot of homes and even 21 000 requests from corporations more people, maybe as much as and banks for money from that fund 40 million. The whole population from 2008 to 2010, including Ger- of my country, the , is man, Swiss, and other banks. Even 15 million. What is clear already is when money went to Citibank, this the disproportionate impact of the is hardly an American bank – it is fallout of this fi nancialization on largely owned by international in- disadvantaged populations, and vestors! I see a similar trend in the the presence of large amounts ‘rescue’ of Greece, Portugal, etc. of vacant land in both cities and through EU taxpayers’ money: that suburbs. Whether and how these money is not going to the workers communities will recover, and or the fi rms of those countries. It whether or how this rapidly grow- is going straight to pay the banks 119 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... that have made the loans. Nor terrorism. These are old tactics. All were the EU citizens asked if this dictatorships have used them. We is how they wanted their taxes to see this now in Syria, where the be used: to go straight to the banks government keeps saying they are rather than, say, to stimulate the defending the people from armed Greek economy, help small fi rms gangs and enemies of Syria. in Greece, Portugal, etc. This dual process of urbaniza- The current crisis contains fea- tion of war and militarization of tures which signal that fi nancialized urban life unsettles the meaning capitalism has reached the limits of of the urban. At the conference its own logic for the current phase. on ‘Cities and the New Wars’ I or- It has been extremely successful at ganized at in extracting value from all economic 2009,2 Peter Marcuse explained sectors through their fi nancializa- how ‘the War on terrorism is lead- tion; however, when everything ing to a continued downgrading of has become fi nancialized, fi nance the quality of life in US cities, visible can no longer extract value. There- changes in urban form, the loss of fore, it needs non-fi nancialized public use of public space, restric- sectors to build on. In this context, tion on free movement within and one of the last frontiers for fi nan- to cities, particularly for members cial extraction are modest-income of darker skinned groups, and the households, of which there are decline of open popular participa- a billion or more worldwide, and tion in the governmental planning bailouts through taxpayers’ money and decision-making process.’ – which is real, old-fashioned, not Second, it questions the role of cit- fi nancialized money.1 ies as welfare providers. The im- E.S.: When you posed the sus- perative of security means a shift tainability question, it was very in political priorities. It implies a cut much related to the inner chal- or a relative decrease in budgets lenges and tensions of the new dedicated to social welfare, edu- economic order. Yet, in the last ten cation, health, infrastructure de- years some of the gravest havocs velopment, economic regulation the global cities have experienced and planning. These two trends, were unleashed by external forces, in turn, challenge the very concept such as the 9/11 attacks in New of citizenship, a subject I develop York. How would you position the both in The Global City (chapters global city in the context of the re- eight and nine) and also in my new ality and the discourse of a ‘war on book, Territory, Authority, Rights terrorism’? (Chapter Six). S.S.: Fear of terrorism is being E.S.: What are the effects of the used to justify widespread surveil- new imperative of national security lance and persecution of immi- and the intensifi ed securitization grants who have nothing to do with and policing inside major cities on Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 120 the social order? for the protection of the national S.S.: Let me fi rst address the state apparatus may go at a high question of asymmetric war and (increasingly high) price to major cities, and then my argument on cities and their people. the social physics of cities. Today With asymmetric war, then, the some particular trends are emerg- pursuit of national security has ing. Some of what are usually un- become the making of urban in- derstood as security. Asymmetric war – war challenges actually become partic- between a conventional army and ularly concrete and urgent in cities. armed insurgents – has made cit- These challenges range from envi- ies one site in the map for warring. ronmental questions to the fl ight of Cities worldwide are becoming a war-refugees from and into cities. key theatre for asymmetric war, re- The major implication of this ur- gardless of what side of the divide banizing is that cities also become they are on – allies or enemies. a site for the making of new norms, E.S.: Contrary or complemen- a potentially signifi cant possibility tary to the notion of urbicide, you in a world where national states also examine how cities can resist have had a quasi-monopoly over war and military power. norm-making. S.S.: Yes! Cities have long been Today when national states go sites for confl icts, from war to rac- to war in the name of national se- isms and religious hatreds. And curity, nowadays major cities are yet, where national states have likely to become a key frontline historically responded by militariz- space. In older wars, large armies ing confl ict, cities have tended to needed large open fi elds or oceans triage confl ict through commerce to meet and fi ght, and these were and civic activity. War is in the DNA the frontline spaces. The search for of national states; it is not in the national security is today a source DNA of cities – except of course if for urban insecurity. We can see they are military fortresses or city- this with the so-called War on Ter- states such as Genoa in the 1500s ror, whereby the invasion of Iraq with its army of 40 000 soldiers. became an urban war theatre. But I argue that cities can function we also see the negative impacts as a type of weak regime: killing of this War in the case of cities that civilians in a city is a different type are not even part of the immedi- of horror from killing people – far ate war theatre – the bombings in more people – in the jungle and in Madrid, London, Casablanca, Bali, villages. In that sense, the urban- Mumbai, Lahore, and so many izing of war points to the limits of others. The traditional security power and, perhaps, the weight paradigm based on national state of weak orders such as the hu- security fails to accommodate this man rights regime. The countries triangulation. What may be good with the most powerful conven- 121 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... tional armies today cannot afford that is a city, especially in its civic to repeat Dresden with fi rebombs components. It seems to me that or Hiroshima with an atomic bomb the explosion in ontological insecu- – whether in Baghdad, Gaza or rity around the world was far more the Swat valley in Pakistan.3 They acute with the bombings in New can engage in all kinds of activi- York, Mumbai, Madrid, London ties, including violations of the law: and other cities than with the death rendition, torture, assassinations of millions from curable diseases. of leaders they don’t like, exces- This might even be the case with sive bombing of civilian areas, the destruction of the Buddhist and so on, in a history of brutality temples in Cambodia and the large that can no longer be hidden and Buddha sculptures in Afghanistan. seems to have escalated the vio- Over and over, history shows lence against civilian populations. us the limits of power. It would But superior military powers stop seem that unilateral decisions by on this side from pulverizing a city, the greater power are not the only even when they have the weapons source of restraint: in an increas- to do so. The US could have pul- ingly interdependent world, the verized Baghdad and Israel could most powerful countries fi nd them- have pulverized Gaza. But they selves restrained through multiple didn’t. It seems to me that the rea- interdependencies. To this I add son was not respect for life or the the city as a weak regime that can fact that killing is illegal according obstruct and temper the destruc- to international law – they do this tive capacity of the superior military all the time. power, yet another component for I would posit that pulverizing a systemic survival in a world where city is a specifi c type of crime, one several countries have the capac- which causes a horror that people ity to destroy the planet. dying from malaria does not. The Under these conditions the city mix of people and buildings – in a becomes both a technology for way, the civic – has the capacity to containing conventional military temper destruction, not to stop it, powers and a technology of resist- but to temper it. We let millions die ance for armed insurgencies. The worldwide from diseases that can physical and human features of the easily be cured at low cost. So it city are an obstacle for convention- is not the death of human beings al armies – an obstacle wired into as such. It is people in the context urban space itself. Would Gaza of the city, and the fact of witness- have been completely, rather than es – a sticky web of constraints partially, destroyed if it was not consisting of a mix of law, recipro- densely populated, if it was just oc- cal agreements, and the informal cupied by Palestinian-owned fac- global court of public opinion. It is, tories and warehouses? I think, also the collective making E.S.: In addition to the devastat- Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 122 ing effects of military confl icts, the the production of food as far as sustainability question assumes an this can go. Why should we have ever sharper ecological edge and all foods twelve months a year, the environmentalist discourse is which requires vast amounts of gaining critical ground, especially transport, and so on? At the heart in the last few years. The pres- of this broad effort is the attempt to sures we have brought onto nature connect the city much more deeply are striking back and shaking the with its own and its regional re- urban order, e.g. through scarcity sources. This cannot be 100%, but of resources – not only fossil fu- it can be much more than we have els but also drinking water, which now. is much more alarming. And there I am right now researching the are also unforeseeable challenges many different ways in which we like natural disasters such as the can use the biosphere’s capabili- latest catastrophe in Japan. What ties for restoring our environment – is a sustainable city, particularly rather than chemicals made in fac- from the environmental perspec- tories.4 This is not about some sort tive? of ‘return to nature’. I do not believe S.S.: Beyond the familiar is- this is an option. This is about com- sues, I think one critical framing bining scientifi c and technological for environmental sustainability capacities with the biosphere’s ca- is a better articulation/interaction pacities in order to accelerate and – not just balance, as is the more enhance the biosphere’s capaci- common idea – between the bio- ties. I call this delegating back to sphere’s resources and the needs the biosphere, rather than return- of cities. Balance can be illustrated ing to the biosphere, because I see with a very basic (this does not it as bringing the biosphere into do- mean easy!) strategy: re-localize mains where now we use chemi- what we now import from all over cals, and asking the biosphere to the world. Over the last hundred please help us. For instance, we years we have abused our use of now know that to clean a deeply the biosphere, and this has made polluted and toxic water body the cities unsustainable along cur- best is to use algae, and to activate rent patterns. There is a very long their natural capacities with a bio- list of items that illustrate this: we reactor, so it augments the algae’s should not be importing from fara- capacities. We will have to help the way countries basic goods (tables, biosphere because we have been iceboxes, most of the tools we so destructive that it cannot clean need, etc.) that we can make at up our mess by itself. We used to home. Countries generally should think we can throw anything into develop the capacities to make the the ocean because it is so vast that basic goods. Secondly, it is urgent it can take care. Well no, there is (and far healthier) that we localize a limit, and we passed that limit 123 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... about twenty years ago. She, the a historic political rupture for low- biosphere, is still willing to clean wage workers. Traditionally, being our water, earth and air with her a manual or generally low-wage diverse algae, bacteria, photosyn- worker in leading economic sec- thesis and other capabilities – it is tors was a platform for the forma- probably in her DNA. But we have tion of a labour aristocracy – a to work with her. She can no longer process long evident in western in- rescue us by herself. dustrialized economies. This is no E.S.: One of the striking fea- longer the case. Now, ‘women and tures of the global city, as you immigrants’ emerge as the labour defi ne it, is that it is an extreme supply that facilitates the imposi- place of inequality. In your lecture tion of low-wages and powerless- in Sofi a in May 2011, you said that ness, even when they are in high New York City, being home to both demand and when their jobs are the poorest and the richest coun- in high-growth sectors, including ties in the US, is the real American some of the most advanced sec- edge today much more than the tors, where fl exibility is at a premi- US-Mexico border. How would you um and work is often undertaken describe these edge zones of the informally. The gendering and ra- contemporary world? cializing of these workers break S.S.: Insofar as my economic the historic nexus that would have analysis of the global city recovers led to their empowerment and si- the broad array of jobs and work multaneously legitimate this break cultures that are part of the glob- culturally. al economy though typically not E.S.: Do global cities shape po- marked as such, it allows me to ex- litical subjectivity mainly through amine the possibility of a new poli- economic activities, or do they tics of traditionally disadvantaged contribute to the formation of politi- actors operating in this transna- cal identities in other ways as well? tional economic geography. This S.S.: The particularity of lies at the intersection of cities, of global urban space, is that economic participation in the glob- the making of political subjects and al economy and the politics of the practices cannot be reduced sim- disadvantaged, and in that sense ply to the functional needs of the retains an economic dimension, valorization of capital or the struc- specifi cally through those who ture of the labour market. Most im- hold the less glamorous jobs in portantly, the co-presence in the the global economy – whether fac- global city of massive concentra- tory workers in export processing tions of corporate wealth and pow- zones in Asia, garment sweatshop er and of massive concentrations workers in Los Angeles or janitors of disadvantaged populations has in Wall Street. made cities a contested terrain. Their experiences alert us to The global city concentrates diver- Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 124 sity. Its spaces are inscribed not farm or plantation, have a different only with the dominant corporate political identity from the one they culture but also with multiple oth- have in a large mixed global city. er cultures and identities, notably E.S.: Recently, within the EU through immigration. The slippage we can observe a revival of the is evident: the dominant culture sovereignty discourse with the can encompass only part of the protection of national interests un- city. And while corporate power in- dermining the presumably com- scribes non-corporate cultures and mon goals of a ‘European identity’. identities with ‘otherness’, thereby That is evident both on the terrain devaluing them, they are neverthe- of the EU fi nancial system (in the less present everywhere. The im- reluctant support for defaulting na- migrant communities and informal tional economies such as those of economy in cities such as New Greece, Portugal or Ireland) and York and Los Angeles are just two on the terrain of border policies (in instances. the Lampedusa case and the clos- E.S.: Could you comment fur- ing of borders within the Schengen ther on how the intersections of the area). How would you comment on powerful and the powerless take these tendencies that unfold simul- place in daily life and how they taneously with economic transna- shape political identities? tionalization? S.S.: Each, the powerful and the S.S.: We have an ‘immigration powerless, inhabits mostly specifi c crisis’ every time we have a crisis places, though there are important about no matter what – high un- points of intersection – think of the employment due to the economic professionals in a leading fi rm and recession of 2008-2010, the up- the janitors (cleaners) in the same risings to demand democracy in offi ce buildings; and, at home, the North Africa, the attack on the professional and the babysitter or World Trade Center, the fall of the cleaner. To a good extent, in their Berlin Wall, and on and on. Much presence in the city each rests of this is not related to immigration. on particular ‘localizations’ of the But mostly we blame the immi- global in these cities; for exam- grants for contributing to the crisis. ple, in the case of New York City, It is axiomatic in the history of the the localization of global fi nance US and that of the major European is in Wall Street, and the localiza- countries. tion of global migrations – in spe- This raises several questions. cifi c neighbourhoods of New York One is that we should know this City. Here we can see how urban by now and not need to scramble space itself produces particular po- in response to the sudden infl ux of litical identities and practices. The 25 000 refugees from North Africa same low-wage workers in anoth- as are the French and the Italians, er space, say a large commercial or have the US government para- 125 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... lyzed on the matter of immigration cutting government spending on reform, or Arizona’s governor au- health, education, and other peo- thorizing (unconstitutional) search- ple’s development goals. Both of es to establish the legal status of these policy goals have been the people stopped for matters not re- key frame that rich countries have lated to immigration. Our (still) rich imposed on poor countries. The re- and highly developed countries, sult has been a large-scale destruc- with solid histories of electoral tion of labour-intensive economies political systems, have simply not that may have been ‘ineffi cient’ but been able to address immigration were also a sticky web that incor- in a reasonable and workable way. porated vast numbers of people – A second question, raised by where nobody was allowed to sink what seems to be a permanent link in complete hopelessness. Emigra- between immigration and what- tion became the only way to feed ever crisis affects us, is whether the family. This explains the begin- this axiom is a projection from our ning of whole new migrations from receiving societies or is capturing Africa’s sub-Saharan countries. In a reality. In either case it indicates short, we actively made the condi- we are not handling immigration tions that generated these new mi- adequately. If it is a projection, it is grations into Europe. a sort of ideological exit from con- Better policy will also mean ad- fronting the real world. It is mostly dressing the fact that our current easier for politicians to believe that immigration politics rest on the the cause of major crises is ex- unilateral power of national states ternal – such as too many immi- and on a sort of carte blanche to grants coming into one’s country. violate the human rights of immi- It is easy to blame immigrants for grants. This is unsustainable in the everything. However, if it is a real- long run. These types of violations ity, we should roll up our sleeves are a cancer at the heart of our and go to work on designing better liberal democracies that will only policy. grow, and eventually hurt all of us, Designing better policy to gov- including the legal residents. ern immigration means abandon- If my son, a graduate and prize- ing an array of cherished policies winning student, decides to write and beliefs about how the world a great American novel, a new works and what are desirable The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck, aims. Here I include such diverse 1939), and spends time on a Cali- policies as opening up largely tra- fornia farm working with undocu- ditional economies to foreign mul- mented immigrants, what will hap- tinationals and fi nancial services pen when mounted patrols raid the fi rms, and pushing these countries farm and pursue the fl eeing work- to take on loans they do not need ers? He will run with them. He will and will only be able to repay by have no time to show his passport. Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 126

He will run and jump into the river ized citizens, at least partly – they and drown along with his undocu- are citizens, but of another coun- mented fellow workers; incidents try. In the global city they become like this have happened in the US. denationalized citizens. The trans- This is just an extreme example nationalization of labour markets to illustrate that citizens, i.e. eve- results in the formation of identities ryone, will eventually get caught and loyalties among various popu- up in raids against undocumented lation segments that explicitly re- immigrants, just as it is happening ject the imagined community of the right now in Arizona or in France, nation. With this come new solidar- unless we roll up our sleeves and ities and notions of membership. go to work on designing better pol- The resulting denationalizing icy. of urban space and the formation E.S.: One of the major topics of of new claims centred in transna- your research and writing is indeed tional actors and involving contes- immigration. Among the problems tation constitute the global city as you highlight in The Global City is a frontier zone for a new type of how the casualization and informal- engagement. An important ques- ization of labour make immigrants tion is whether it is also a space for especially vulnerable to practices a new politics, one going beyond of exploitation, and simultaneously the politics of culture and identity, make those very practices not so though at least partly embedded in visible for regulation and sanction. these. Another important question What are the political dimensions could be how these transnational of immigrants’ economic vulner- identities and geographies install ability which also produces a sort themselves in the physical space of defi ciency of civic status? of the city – for example, what dif- S.S.: The centrality of place ference does it make if people mi- in a context of global processes grate to traditional urban enclaves has consequences. It engenders or to the suburban ring? a transnational economic and po- E.S.: How do recent anti-immi- litical opening for the formation of gration laws and practices affect new claims and hence in the mak- the social integrity of the city? ing of possible, at its best, rights S.S.: In my reading of urban his- such as rights to place, and ulti- tories, I fi nd an interesting dialectic mately, in the making of new forms which contains a critical lesson for of ‘citizenship’ and a diversity of our times. Often the overcoming of citizenship practices. Immigrants urban confl icts became the source are in many ways informal citizens for an expanded civicness. One in global cities – they engage in specifi c actor in this dialectic is the the same practices as the locals in excluded: minoritized immigrants, their same neighbourhood or so- citizens who had the ‘wrong’ reli- cial class. And they are denational- gion, the physically impaired, the 127 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... psychologically impaired. When and bumping into each other, there they (and those who worked with is no added meaning or offence… them) demanded inclusions and people walk on. Imagine this in a succeeded, the effect was that the neighbourhood – that bump takes rights of the included were also on the meaning of violence. Those strengthened. invisible rules of the city centre are We, the included, saw our rights a critical glue for civicness. We strengthened when the excluded need to mobilize it to make the city succeeded in gaining some rights. an open city. This is in sharp contrast with how One big challenge is the fact the larger society – whether in Italy that much of the violence that or in the US, or in the rest of Europe happens today in cities around – tends to see it. The more com- religion, ethnicity, terrorism, is so mon view – rooted in fear and inse- extreme that cities are at risk of curity – is to see that whatever the losing this capacity for making the immigrant or the ‘other’ gains, we civic. They are becoming sites for the included lose. That is wrong: a whole range of new types of con- exclusion and discrimination are a fl icts, such as asymmetric war and cancer in the larger social system. ethnic and social cleansing. It is interesting to note that surveys Furthermore, the dense and (such as those in the Pews Global confl ictive spaces of cities over- Attitude Project) tend to fi nd that whelmed by inequality and injus- citizens in many countries around tice can become the sites for a the world who ‘hate’ immigrants, variety of secondary, more anomic when asked about their neighbour- types of confl icts, from drug wars to hood immigrant residents tend to the major environmental disasters say – ‘oh no, they are very nice.’ looming in our immediate futures. There is something about getting All of these challenge the tradition- to know the ‘other’ which can hu- al commercial and civic capacity manize ‘us’. that has allowed cities to avoid war E.S.: Why or how can cities fa- when confronted with confl ict, and cilitate this? And is the global city to incorporate diversity of class, the stage where these contradic- culture, religion, and ethnicity. tory attitudes towards the ‘other’ The unsettling of the urban or- assume their most extreme form der is part of a larger disassem- or the same twofold process takes bling of existing organizational place in smaller cities as well? logics. This disassembling is also S.S.: Cities are spaces of in- unsettling the logic that assembled tense proximities. The crowded city territory, authority and rights into centre is a space with an invisible the dominant organizational format set of rules – no matter how often of our times – the nation-state, a you bump into another in the mas- subject I develop in my book Terri- sive crowds walking and rushing, tory, Authority, Rights. Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 128

E.S.: Europe’s historical notion ies to transform confl ict into open- about the good city posits it as a ness rather than war. But it will not civic place symbolizing the demo- be the familiar order of the Open cratic ideal, with beautifully built City, and of the civic as we have centres for multiple social, cultur- come to represent it, especially in al, and political uses. How does the European tradition. It will take this connect to notions of the civic foundational change, including a and public space in today’s larger kind of denationalizing of one’s world? sense of security and a denational- S.S.: The type of urban order izing of citizenship. that gave us the Open City in Eu- E.S.: If we are to bring this in rope, for instance, with its beauti- the political domain, the ‘right to ful piazzas and public buildings is the city’ comes to the fore as an still there, but increasingly as mere important concept embraced by visual order, and less so as social the new social movements. order. S.S.: Around the world people/ Where do we go from here, urban protest movements have then? Ironically, a key condition used or have referred – and still that can help us move on is the do – to the idea of ‘the right to the fact that this is also a moment of city’ in their political struggles. In so challenges (asymmetric war, envi- many ways this claim to the city is ronmental catastrophes, massive justifi ed by the massive displace- inequality) that are larger than our ments that are happening in cities differences. At some point we will as diverse as New York and Mum- all (regardless of religion, income, bai. We could see this coming way race) feel these challenges and back in the late 1980s. I remem- worry that ‘life as usual’ is becom- ber writing an article that I named ing unsustainable. We now know ‘Whose City Is It?’ (1996) which that this acute sense of injustice dealt with these issues. Global cit- and unsustainable lives is a major ies, of which there are over a hun- source for what we saw in Tunis dred today, are the most extreme and in Cairo and Alexandria, and version of this, but many cities are then on in other cities: the courage undergoing these changes, even if to resist military power with only often in less brutal ways. We are one’s body and voice. And now we seeing here a powerful systemic see it in Greece and in Spain, and trend – there is a systemic world- it is beginning to happen in the UK wide demand for global cities. Do and in some cities of the US. remember though that I said global It is the acuteness of injustice cities also have a political func- and unsustainability of the eco- tion – so the two historic subjects nomic, political and environmental I talked about earlier both fi nd in order which emerges as a potential the global city a strategic space for for reinventing that capacity of cit- their projects. It is not only about 129 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... and about mainstream inhabiting and reshaping the na- politics. tional from the inside, opens up a In the end, after all the struggles vast agenda for research and poli- and continuing growth in inequal- tics. It means that research on glo- ity I am still left asking: Whose city balization needs to include detailed is it? Consider, the 2010 census studies, notably ethnographies, of found that New York City, a very multiple national conditions and rich city, contains both the richest dynamics that are likely to be en- county (Manhattan) in the whole of gaged by the global and often are the US, and the poorest! (Bronx)… the global, but function inside the In other words, we have powerful national. And it will take decoding: systemic forces that are making much of the global is still dressed this extreme form of inequality. in the clothes of the national. E.S.: In your latest book, a In my new book I elaborate on winner of several distinguished this by arguing that when the global awards, Territory, Authority, Rights, gets made inside the national, one you speak of how the global gets effect is to create structural holes mostly constituted inside the na- in the tissue, the fabric of the na- tional. Is the global city an instance tional: these become spaces that of this? exit the construction of territory we S.S.: One key argument there call sovereign national territory, a is that the global gets partly struc- complex category that contains tured inside the national – and this within it logics of power but also process entails a denationalizing the right to make claims on your of what was historically construct- government. In a way, the global ed as national. This is mostly not city is a new type of assemblage of part of the most widely accepted bits of national territory, authority, defi nitions of globalization – which and rights which partly can be seen focus on the growing interdepend- as a structural hole in the national ence of the world – with which I territorial tissue. The space of the agree only partly. Why only partly? global city is neither fully national Because I think it leaves out those nor fully global. There is more and critical parts of the global that get more of this, and it gives us very constituted inside the national – bad things and also some interest- and thereby leaves out the conse- ing possibilities along the vector of quences of this for the state, for cit- denationalizing politics and space, ies, for citizens, for norm-making, at least a bit. for the defi nition of what is ‘national E.S.: In your lecture in Sofi a, you security’, for what is membership outlined as a paradox of globaliza- in the ‘nation’. tion that the global is short of legal Conceiving of globalization not standing – with hardly any global just in terms of interdependence binding laws and with no such le- and global institutions, but also as gal persona as a ‘global fi rm’. What Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 130 does this legal defi cit mean for glo- of the ‘expelled’ are larger than the bality and globalization? newly ‘incorporated’ middle class- S.S.: What I fi nd in my research es of countries such as India and is that the global – whether an China. institution, a process, a discur- I use the term ‘expulsion’ to dif- sive practice, an imaginary – both ferentiate from social exclusion. transcends the exclusive framing Exclusion is a well developed of national states and also partly and established concept. So- emerges and operates within that cial exclusion happens inside the framing. Seen this way, globali- system. I am focused on what is zation is more than its common expelled from the system. I use representation as growing inter- ‘expulsion’ to describe a diversity dependence and formation of of conditions: the growing num- self-evidently global institutions. It bers of the abjectly poor, of the includes sub-national spaces, pro- displaced in poor countries who cesses, actors.5 are warehoused in formal and in- E.S.: Now you are doing re- formal refugee camps, of the mi- search on a very peculiar instance noritized and persecuted in rich of ‘commodifi cation of land’ – na- countries who are warehoused in tion-states purchasing pieces of prisons, of workers whose bodies the territory of other states. Could are destroyed on the job and ren- you briefl y describe this trend and dered useless at far too young an its challenges for the notion of sov- age, able-bodied surplus popula- ereignty? tions warehoused in ghettoes and S.S.: I am currently working on slums. I also include the fact that a new project I call ‘Logics of Ex- the sons and daughters of today’s pulsion’. It builds on my book Terri- middle classes will have lower lev- tory, Authority, Rights. els of education, lower incomes, My argument is that we have and far lower chances of owning a moved from a logic of incorporation home than their parents (the data to one of expulsion. In the Keynes- in the US already show this). This ian period (1940-1970s in much is also an expulsion from a mid- of the West), the logic of the sys- dle class project/promise that was tem was to incorporate people as born in those Keynesian decades. consumers. Incorporation was not My argument is that this mas- about being nice to people, it was sive expulsion is actually signaling about needing people in an econo- a deep systemic transformation. It my of mass production, mass con- is being documented in bits and sumption, mass building of subur- pieces by all kinds of experts work- ban housing, etc. In the phase that ing on some of these trends, even begins in the 1980s, the logic of though they are just interested in the system is to expel people. In studying that trend for reasons the last two decades the numbers that may have nothing to do with 131 Interview: The Global City: A Structural Hole... my questions. I need these multi- cused on very local issues. I think ple specialized studies, some fo- of this as a global subjectivity that cused on rich countries others on gets shaped by a) the recurrence poor countries, on a wide range of of these localized struggles, and b) issues. What we do not have, and given the imaginaries about the in- what I am working on is detecting ternet and connectivity and social some overarching dynamics in all media, even if you are not online these diverse often micro expul- you can be open to that imaginary sions – if this is taking us into a and ‘know’ that there are many oth- new phase of global capitalism. ers just like you around the world E.S.: When you spoke of the fi ghting for local issues… That is a new international professional type of horizontal consti- class, you emphasized that what tuted through the thickness of local makes them global does not make struggles and localized concerns. them cosmopolitan. Today we can We do not want to leave this out talk also of international or global of the picture. And cities are good academia. If we are embracing the for this type of global subjectivity of ideal of , what are connection. Many academics who our responsibilities as academics may not have many chances to in order to avoid joining the ranks travel can still have a global sub- of ‘provincial ’? jectivity – you strike me as such! It S.S.: I think cosmopolitanism is is crucial to develop the solidarities overvalued, but at the same time that can strengthen the position of I do think we must make distinc- such academics in what might be tions so that traveling a lot is not very narrow, often nationalistic, the same as being cosmopolitan, settings. The current epoch gives and globalization is not the same us, if we need it for our research, as cosmopolitan. I am interested access to a global subjective in subjectivities that can be global space, where we can belong even even if the actors are local and fo- if we are immobile.

NOTES

1 For more details on the fi nancial issues, see Sassen (2011a), Chapter Eight. 2 On the topic of cities and the new wars, see Sassen (2010). 3 Although we need to recognize that even if the nuclear threat to cities has remained hypothetical since 1945, cities remain highly vulnerable to two kinds of very distinct threats. The fi rst one is the specialized aerial attack of new computer-targeted weaponry, which has been employed ‘selectively’ in places like Baghdad or Belgrade. The second is terrorism, an old practice that precedes the current epoch. 4 See Sassen and Dotan (2011). 5 See Sassen (2008b). Critique & Humanism, vol. 40, 2012 132

REFERENCES

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