Overview

This international collection provides a comprehensive overview of twin cities in different circumstances – from the emergent to the recently amalgamated, on 'soft' and 'hard' borders, with post-colonial heritage, in post-conflict environments and under strain. With examples from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South America, North America and the Caribbean, the volume sees twin cities as intense thermometers for developments in the wider urban world globally. It offers interdisciplinary perspectives that bridge history, politics, culture, economy, geography and other fields, applying these lenses to examples of twin cities in remote places. Providing a comparative approach and drawing on a range of methodologies, the book explores where and how twin cities arise; what twin cities can tell us about international borders; and the way in which some twin cities bear the spatial marks of their colonial past. The chapters explore the impact on twin-city relations of contemporary pressures, such as mass migration, the rise of populism, East-West tensions, international crime, surveillance, rebordering trends and epidemiological risks triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With case studies across the continents, this volume for the first time extends twin-city debates to fictional imaginings of twin cities. Twin Cities across Five Continents is a valuable resource for researchers in the fields of anthropology, history, geography, urban studies, border studies, international relations and global development as well as for students in these disciplines.

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9780367609245

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Reviews

The book is inspiring and opens up new lines of research, such as the seven themes set forth in the Introduction, to which several others could be added, such as everyday border and cross-border practices and the representation of twin cities in the media, film, and literature. Personally speaking, reading this book has led me to wonder about how twin cities fascinate, how they are idealized, and how these two elements influence their conceptualization. It also makes me wonder what kind of spatial objects at different scales (bodies, buildings, neighborhoods, cities, regions, protected areas, etc.) and on distinct borders (not only political borders) also can be considered twins. - Xavier Oliveras-Gonzalez, Journal of Borderlands Studies

"""The book is inspiring and opens up new lines of research, such as the seven themes set forth in the Introduction, to which several others could be added, such as everyday border and cross-border practices and the representation of twin cities in the media, film, and literature. Personally speaking, reading this book has led me to wonder about how twin cities fascinate, how they are idealized, and how these two elements influence their conceptualization. It also makes me wonder what kind of spatial objects at different scales (bodies, buildings, neighborhoods, cities, regions, protected areas, etc.) and on distinct borders (not only political borders) also can be considered twins."" - Xavier Oliveras-González, Journal of Borderlands Studies"

Author Information

Ekaterina Mikhailova is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Geneva and Visiting Lecturer at the Graduate Institute of International Development Studies (Swit\erland). Ekaterina’s work lies at the crossroads of urban studies, border studies and Russian studies. John Garrard was Senior Lecturer in Politics and Contemporary History at Salford University (UK) until 2011. Although primarily a historian, his central teaching and research interests have bordered with political science.

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