Philip Hubbard

Worlding a city: Twinning and urban theory

Twinning is a practice that creates formal and informal political, economic, social and cultural relationships between cities throughout the world. Despite its prevalence there has been relatively little academic attention paid to twinning. Indeed, where writers have considered city twinning they have tended to describe local institutional structures and programmes of events rather than theorising the importance of twinning as a global practice. Although producing a detailed picture of current twinning arrangements, existing research has thus glossed over the wider significance of twinning. In this paper, we argue that there is much to be gained from a more focused and sustained theoretical engagement with twinning. We do this by highlighting the twinning activities of the city of Manchester (UK), drawing out two key dimensions of twinning, namely, hospitality and relationality, which reveal twinning as a symptomatic urban process. In doing so we signpost the important contribution that research into twinning can make to broader debates within urban theory.

Introduction: sex, consumption and commerce in the contemporary city

Recent accounts of sexual commerce have drawn attention to the proliferation of online and sexual consumption. Yet the mediated exchange of sexual images and content folds into the spaces of the city in a variety of complex ways. Drawing on a variety of social science perspectives, this paper provides an introductory overview of a collection of papers exploring the changing contours of sexual consumption in the city and the distribution of sexual commerce across – and between – private, domestic and public, commercial spaces. Exploring the ways in which diverse LGBT and heterosexual identities are differently marketised, commodified and consumed, this introduction argues that over the last decade, contradictory moments of sexual emancipation and repression have changed where (and how) sexual consumption is visible in the city, shaping rights to the city in complex ways which need to be more thoroughly acknowledged in ‘mainstream’ urban studies.

Enthusiasm, craft and authenticity on the High Street: micropubs as ‘community fixers’

Abstract The retail recession has left a legacy of vacant shops on many shopping streets, with closures having significant consequences for local populations. But several new ‘pop-up’ formats are bucking this trend by bringing community-oriented forms of consumption back to the High Street. The micropub is a notable example, a small-scale venue selling real ale that has taken over a vacant shop premise, usually in smaller and struggling town centres. The rapid take-up of the micropub concept has attracted considerable attention, suggesting a model for retail regeneration based on community-mindedness and a close relationship between owner and customer. Based on ethnographic research in micropubs, alongside interviews with landlords, this paper suggests that their success is dependent upon the enthusiasm of landlords and customers alike, with such ‘cultures of enthusiasm’ encouraged via the nostalgic motifs of craft, tradition and Britishness that inform the curation of these seemingly ‘authentic’ spaces. The paper concludes that the micropub offers a form of socially-connective consumption highly valued by some, but stresses that there are clear limits to the ability of such spaces to be ‘community fixers’ given enthusiasm for real ale remains a distinctly white, male, and middle-aged pursuit.

Introduction: Streetlife – the shifting sociologies of the street:

The street has long been a key laboratory for studies of social life, from the roots of urban sociology in the ethnographies of the Chicago School to the diverse range of contemporary studies which consider the performative, affective and non-representational nature of street etiquette and encounter. For all this, the street remains only loosely defined in many studies, and sometimes disappears from view entirely, with social action often privileged over material and environmental context. This Special Issue is intended as a spur to take the street more seriously in contemporary sociology, and explores the importance of the street as a site, scale and field for sociological research. Recognising that the street is both contradictory and complex, the Introduction to this Issue draws out emerging themes in the shifting sociologies of the street by highlighting the specific contribution interdisciplinary work can make to our understanding of streets as distinctive but contested social spaces.