News
/ Forschung, Doktorat
Call for Chapters: Creative Cities and Advanced Models for Knowledge-Based Urban Development
Proposals submission deadline is 16 December 2019.
Talking about the Global Society entails predominant characteristics of knowledge-based activities in all walks of life. Its main characteristic is based on creativity, innovation, freedom, and networking. The emergence of such a society posed several challenges to all disciplines of social sciences to which each discipline addressed uniquely. Economics, for instance, managed to “highlight the bonds rather than the differences between countries . . . while sociology has tended to emphasize the differences and the peculiarities of each society, rather than emphasizing what they can have in common” . Within such a context, sociologists are demanded to have practical encounters to the theoretical, methodological, and empirical challenges imposed within the contemporary global society. In this vein, studying creative cities from an interdisciplinary perspective could help providing critical reading of the phenomenon and the different levels of the concept in reality.
Objective
Creative Cities in Changing Global Society provides a joint platform for multidisciplinary international scholars to contribute to the theoretical and methodological rooting of the main topics and concepts of the book. It allows them to engage critically with the current literature about the global society and its creative cities on a comprehensive universal scale providing best practices, case studies, and empirical data. At the same time, writing the book within a global extent is considered an excellent opportunity to learn from each other about different models of creative cities worldwide that might not be available to researchers if the publication is limited to their local regional levels. The value of the book is also in addressing the methodological challenges in studying creative cities and the levels of the concept.
The detailed aims of the book are:
- Define key concepts of creative cities, global society, and creative class.
- Engage critically with the current literature on creative cities for more comprehensive understanding of creative cities around the world.
- Provide global models and best practices of creative cities worldwide to ensure a chance of mutual learning amongst scholars.
- Identify key methodological challenges in studying creative cities globally and how to surmount them based on ethnographic, practical, and fieldwork experiences.
- Illustrate different theoretical blueprints for better understanding of the contemporary global society.
- Identifying the main perspectives related to creative cities.
- Highlighting the best practices of Creative Cities.
- Highlighting the best locations and sites for establishing future creative cities, especially in the Middle East and Egypt in specific.
- Clarifying the main differences between hubs, parks, and precincts and their contributions to the knowledge-based development.
Target Audience
The targeted audience varies between multi disciplinary and social-science researchers, decision makers, and postgraduate students. As the book follows an interdisciplinary approach, it will be a valuable edition for sociologists, urban designers, political sciences, economists, anthropologists, and historians.
Recommended Topics
The book editors aim to cover a wide range of topics which include, but not limited to:
1. Social dimensions of knowledge-based urban development.
2. Knowledge economy, innovation, and creativity.
3. Social structure and functions of a creative city.
4. Knowledge capital and quality of life.
5. Quality of education and sustainable development.
6. Sustainable learning society and creative class.
7. Competition and network society.
The book project also seeks to investigate different horizons while answering the following questions:
- Where to situate different cases of creative global cities in light of Manuel Castells’ vision of Network Society?
- Within the contemporary global society, has globalization being replaced by competitiveness?
- How to use Amartya Sen's Capability Approach in addressing the idea of human freedom in order to achieve development?
- What is the role of the creative class and how to reach a sustainable learning society?
Editors
Aly Abdel Razek Galaby, Professor at Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, Egypt.
Amal Adel Abdrabo, Lecturer at Faculty of Education, Alexandria University, Egypt.
The book is anticipated to be published in 2021 by by IGI Global.
