Global Barcelona: Cultural territories and the limits of consumption

Global Barcelona: Cultural territories and the limits of consumption

Speaker
Mari Paz Balibrea (Birbeck College, London)

Discussant(s)
Patria Roman-Velazquez, City University

This paper will attempt to recontextualize dominant images of the city of Barcelona by discussing the terms in which this is a global city, but based on Kees Christiaanse’s reflections on the closed city rather than on Saskia Sassen’s well known definition. I will explore the concept of cultural territory (Fessler and Berenstein) as a demarcated space in the city defined by the presence of what is understood as a cultural manifestation, in order to make sense of the conditions of visibility in the city of Barcelona. The final section of the paper will be devoted to the analysis of the documentary film by José Luis Guerín, En construcción [Under construction] (2002), by focusing on its politics of space and reappropriation of the notion of cultural territory.