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This article explores the assimilation of second-generation migrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who grew up in Israel's social and geographic urban periphery. Their upbringing in peripheral towns and neighborhoods exposed them almost exclusively to Mizrahim (Oriental Jews), a stigmatized minority group whose members make up the overwhelming majority in those locations. We argue that their interaction with members of this group resulted in an alternative process of assimilation, which we term Hitmazrehut (Orientalization). Children of migrants, who were unaware of the historical stigmatization of Mizrahim and their culture, conceived of Hitmazrehut as their only viable trajectory of assimilation into what they erroneously perceived as the Israeli mainstream. However, embracing Mizrahi socio-cultural practices, including consumption and production of ethnic culture, religious traditions and romantic partnerships, did not lead to their downward assimilation, as the model predicts. Rather, it allowed second-generation Russian-speaking migrants to fit in and attain social and economic mobility by assimilating sidewards, into the growing Mizrahi middle-class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Over the last decades Barcelona has experienced social and economic transformations brought by the conversion of peripheral urban neighborhoods into tourist attractions. In this sense urban tourism has been the latest chapter of spatial reorganization to sustain capitalism within the global neoliberal environment in the Catalan city. In addition, the urban commodification process has expanded into not only central and historical districts, but also more peripheral zones outside the tourist bubble. Those transformations signify a symbolic turn: they became part of the centre. Since the 1992 Olympic Games, Barcelona's brand, both for the city and for tourism, has experienced an important promotion where the urban periphery has become both part of the centre, as well as part of its global city imagery through placemaking, public policy, and political decisions. In short, the steady inclusion of neighborhoods such as Vila de Gràcia and Poblenou into the tourist experience enhances the Barcelonan tourist imagery. The inclusion of new cultural icons and tourist attractions embody a slight spatial and symbolic turn to boost the city's visitor activities. In order to facilitate an in-depth comprehension, the ethnographical approach has been taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon the everyday agency of marginalized youth in the Brazilian urban periphery in responding to the climate crisis. In the context of the global covid-19 crisis, which has exacerbated patterns of social exclusion between urban centers and peripheries, we reflect on the extent to which current theorizations of youth activism are appropriate for understanding youth agency in the periphery of Sao Paulo. We seek to 'blur the -ism' in climate activism by introducing more multi-faceted understandings of agency based on young people's everyday (inter-)actions with their environment as well as their contradicting emotions regarding their vulnerabilities and potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the spatial development problem of university-led innovation in peripheral urban areas. Highlighting issues of proximity, uneven geographic development, and multiscalar urban governance as weaknesses of the regional innovation systems literature, we provide a novel synthesis of regional economics, innovation policy, and critical urban studies to assess the development roles of universities in concrete contexts. A comparative investigation of Naples and Newark, NJ captures the functional operation of regional innovation and urban development as a contested product of discourses, technologies (material and governance), and territorial arrangements. Our analysis demonstrates the significance of multi-scalar relationships in structuring innovation policy and practice in peripheral urban areas. The architecture of innovation is not simply rolled out into pre-determined spatial containers in places lacking established 'institutional thickness' or urban centrality. The spatial development of university-led innovation is a social product: material and governance infrastructures are essential components of the urban fabric and are essential to its co-constitution. Universities are shown to contribute differing resources dependent on their institutional strategic goals and the capacities and spatial imaginaries afforded to them by their situation in broader territorial governance regimes. We conclude by drawing comparative lessons and identifying directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is founded on the premise that, while banlieues and favelas do not share the same history, architecture or demography, their residents experience similar forms of stigmatization and these prompt comparable responses from writers. The comparison between French ‘banlieue narratives’ and Brazilian ‘marginal-peripheral literature’ offers an important insight into how literature produced inside vulnerable communities looks at itself and is perceived by the gatekeepers of literary institutions, and what strategies are available to writers who wish to destigmatize disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The article starts with a comparison of urban development in France and Brazil before it discusses both countries’ respective literary traditions and ways of conceiving urban and literary margins. Finally, a range of key strategies equally relevant to both contexts are discussed. The conclusion sheds light on what is universal about the experience and on the literary representation of urban disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconsiders the epistemic and geographic boundaries that have long separated scholarship on urban water poverty and politics in the Global North and South. We stage an encounter between the seemingly dissimilar cases of Tooleville outside of the city of Exeter in California's Central Valley and Bommanahalli outside of Bangalore, India, to illuminate the geography of water marginalization at the fringes of urban areas, and to deepen cross-fertilization between two geographic literatures: environmental justice (EJ) and urban political ecology (UPE). We argue that there is scope for transnational learning in three arenas in particular: (1) water access, (2) state practice, and (3) political agency. In so doing, we aim to advance a genuinely post-colonial approach to theory and practice in the pressing arena of urban water politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the participation of São Paulo as guest of honor at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair (2014). We will examine why the event's curators opted to take writers from thesaraus, poetry readings on the city's outskirts, to the Fair, as well as the political arrangements that made the participation of those writers possible. We also discuss why participation in Buenos Aires was so different from that promoted by the federal government for other events, like the Frankfurt Book Fair (2013), where curators prioritized authors with greater prestige or international exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's metropolis is polycentric. Core city borders are undergoing major transformations and the urban periphery is becoming an attractive area for investment as well as an experimental ground for planning innovation. Yet, its development entails deep political tension. This paper starts from the assumption that the role of political dynamics and political agendas of elected groups is under-investigated in today's spatial planning research, even though they are crucial in enabling innovation in times of economic change. This paper contributes to this field of research in two ways: first, it conceptualizes the political challenges for planning into three major dilemmas: over approaches to spatial investment, over regulation, and over spatial interventions in the periphery. The paper then empirically demonstrates that to address these tensions in spatial planning there is a need to consider more fundamental political issues over future city-regional agendas. Examining recent transformation efforts in Amsterdam's northwestern areas, where industrial, housing, and environmental change all conflict, the paper shows that these dilemmas are attached to broader political questions over growth strategies, the meaning of regulation, and the role of governments in land management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]