It's what Cameroonian philosopher and critic Achille Mbembe calls the "afropolis", speaking specifically of Johannesburg and generally of these major cities as cosmopolitan spaces implicated in – and shaped by – complex and asymmetrical global flows of ideas, goods, capital and people.
He then describes how a wide range of players' private businesses, policy makers, citizens, the press' could help open flows of ideas, people, and goods across borders, but in ways that maximize economic benefits for all.
The course concludes with an analysis of contemporary urbanism and an assessment of the renewal of city life in an age of unprecedented global urbanization, peak oil and light speed flows of ideas and information.
Within the vast territories of our nation states, the floating horizon of a shared political lifeworld spanning large spaces and complex relations always had to be generated and maintained by mass media, and it had to acquire substance through the abstract flows of ideas circulating through the communication networks of civil society.
Affordable and ubiquitous online communications (social media) provide the means for flows of ideas and opinions and play an increasing role for the transformation and cohesion of society – yet little is understood about how online opinions emerge, diffuse, and gain momentum.
Increasing interconnectedness and flows of ideas and power shape what peoples in different parts of the globe think about the world, and their place in this world.
