Synopses & Reviews
Edge of Empire examines struggles over urban space in four contemporary first world cities: two sites in London, and two in the Australian cities of Perth and Brisbane. Through these examples the spatialized cultural politics of a number of postcolonial processes are unravelled: the imperial nostalgias of the one-time heart of empire, the City of London; the struggle of diasporic groups to make a homespace in the old imperial heartlands; the unsettling presence of Aboriginal claims for the sacred in the space of the modern city. The book is distinctive in that it takes theories of colonialism and postcolonialism to the space of the city, giving real space to the spatial metaphors of much contemporary social theory. It is about the unruly spatial politics of race and nation, nature and culture, past and present.
Synopsis
Edge of Empire examines struggles over urban space in three contemporary first world cities in an attempt to map the real geographies of colonialism and postcolonialism as manifest in modern society. From London, the one-time heart of the empire, to Perth and Brisbane, scenes of Aboriginal claims for the sacred in the space of the modern city, Jacobs emphasises the global geography of the local and unravels the spatialised cultural politics of postcolonial processes.
Edge of Empire forms the basis for understanding imperialism over space and time, and is a recognition of the unruly spatial politics of race and nation, nature and culture, past and present.