Everyday Lives in the Global City

This title investigates the global city environment as a feature of everyday life. Based on ethnographic research in London, this study investigates globalization as a feature of everyday life.
Based on ethnographic research in London, this study investigates globalization as a feature of everyday life. Rejecting simplifying notions of globalization as a macro-economic force, it provides a grounded picture of various ways in which people's biographical trajectories are tied up with the global cultural economy. While recent debates in the social sciences started to investigate the link between globalization and biography in general, this study more specifically stresses the catalytic function of the global city environment. The idea of "milieu" has always linked people to their surroundings. The main argument developed throughout the book is that the globalization of their lives is experienced by people as the "extension" of their milleux, both spatially and symbolically. This book shows that within a global cultural economy people's milieux can potentially span the world. Grounded in life histories and local history, it develops a concept of millieu that emphasizes the symbolisms of developing, against the primacy of place.