Future Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West investigates some of the greatest challenges facing society in the twenty-first century, including the struggle for rights and recognition by indigenous peoples, women, migrants, and the young, as well as the dampening effects some government responses to COVID-19 have had on artistic freedom and citizen participation. The ill effects of digitisation on citizenship, however, are tempered by some more positive approaches from grass-roots activities. Perhaps the most acute challenge facing the world today is climate change, an issue that can be both positive and negative, depending on how we respond to it. All the papers in this book share a people-centred approach based around Michel Foucault’s Care of the Self.@en

The ten essays in Future Challenges of Cities in Asia engage with some of the most critical urban questions of the near future across Asia. These comprise socio-economic and cultural transitions as a result of urbanization; environmental challenges, especially questions of climate change, natural disasters, and environmental justice; and the challenges of urban infrastructure, built form, and new emerging types of urban settlements. The essays demonstrate that it is increasingly difficult to conceptualize the ‘urban’ as one particular type of settlement. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that the ‘urban’ characterizes a global transition in the way we are beginning to think about settlements. This book is of interest not only to researchers interested in comparative and inter-disciplinary research, but also to urban practitioners more broadly, illustrating through concrete cases the challenges that urban regions in Asia and beyond are facing, and the various opportunities that exist for dealing with these challenges.@en