EPCFG · Understanding globalization outside 'global cities': European provincial cities in the first globalization, 1880-1914

Understanding globalization outside 'global cities': European provincial cities in the first globalization, 1880-1914

The project “Understanding globalization outside 'global cities': European Provincial Cities in the First Globalization, 1880-1914” (EPCFG) aims to bring new perspectives and understanding to the phenomenon of globalization by studying its historic meanings and effects in specific cities in north western Europe. Today, commonplace everyday usages of the term ‘globalization’ tend to refer to the very late 20th century and the early 21st century, but for EPCFG the focus is on the era of history known by some historians as the ‘first globalization’, roughly 1880-1914. Studying this period of globalization helps us both to better understand this earlier period, as well as serving the important goal of helping to make sense of globalization in the present day. EPCFG takes a global history approach. Global historians believe that the historical discipline’s traditional focus on nation-states and national histories limits its insights and therefore address themselves to historical research questions with a wider lens. Some historians are sceptical of both global history as an approach, and globalization as a paradigm, accusing both of tending to gloss over differences and to obscure the diversity of different ways in which processes of inter-connectedness took shape in the late nineteenth century. Hence, historians of globalization would benefit from detailed immersion into specific locales. Of particular importance to the insertion of specific spaces into global history, must be cities. Hence the other important historical sub-discipline for EPCFG is urban history, which has a long-standing interest in using cities as case studies or focal points for the study of broad historical phenomena. The project brings these two approaches together. This is the context in which EPCFG has been conceived: with the aim of understanding how globalization operated and most importantly what it ‘felt like’ on the ground during the period. For the purposes of EPCFG what are most interesting are the social, cultural and political meanings of globalization. The objectives of EPCFG are to research these questions through case studies of two European cities: Manchester and Lille. The objectives are 1. to identify the ways (if any) in which citizens of the two cities believed that their experience of globalization was distinctive and/or globalization had meanings which were unique to the city, because of the specific character of their cities. 2. To assess whether particular kinds of urban activities were especially associated with globalization and to determine how these associations took shape. 3. To map spaces within the city which were especially associated with globalization and to analyse their meanings. 4. To assess the role that globalization played in the conduct of city politics. The further objective of EPCFG is to disseminate the results of the research to academic colleagues through participation in conferences, and publication of two journal articles and a book. The project also involves activities to disseminate the results to the general public.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз