Gillian McIver invited me down to take part in the Generalized Empowerment Urban Forum, which was put on by City Mine(d) and Luna-Nera. The room was packed, and Saskia Sassen’s keynote was really interesting. You can listen to an mp3 of her keynote here.
My notes from the day are unfortunately a bit of a scribble, but two things I wrote down whilst listening to Sassen’s keynote stand out (in terms of both significance and legibility):
– “…the formal political system has no capacity to address many aspects of “the political”.”
– the importance of a notion of “immobility”, since vast numbers of people cannot or will not move, their communities are static and the idea of a “cosmopolitan globality” that involves much air travel and the latest model of mobile phone don’t apply.
The room was a bit too hot and too big to have a proper forum afterward, so we retreated to the pub and had some great conversation over a pint there. Kudos to City Mine(d) and Luna-Nera for a great day.