Endnote export
%T The rhetoric of nostalgia: postcolonial Alexandria between uncanny memories and global geographies %A Dora, Veronica Della %J Cultural Geographies %N 2 %P 207-238 %V 13 %D 2006 %= 2011-03-01T07:25:00Z %~ http://www.peerproject.eu/ %> https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-232751 %X Memory, nostalgia and place are subjects of increasing scholarly interest. While invoked by cultural geographers as a ‘productive force’ moulding urban landscape, nostalgia often remains an unexamined, a priori concept. Through the exploration of different reactions to the spatialized history of postcolonial Alexandria, I consider nostalgia as a fluid, multifaceted, and performative force operating at different scales and levels: on one hand, an unconscious phenomenon in the years following Egyptian nationalization, intertwining with the uncanny and bringing to surface ‘unwanted’ memories; on the other, a powerful device increasingly exploited by urban developers and the state for the construction of a ‘cosmopolitan memory’. While the former kind of nostalgia presents itself as an effective counterpart to the colonial ‘cartographic gaze’, the latter responds to the logics of cultural consumption, and constitutes a strategy adopted in an increasing number of former cosmopolitan cities seeking to negotiate a position within the global capitalist economy. %G en %9 journal article %W GESIS - http://www.gesis.org %~ SSOAR - http://www.ssoar.info