Port Cities as Areas of Transition – Comparative Ethnographic Research

Abstract

Port cities are nodes of international trade, channelling movements of cargo and flows of migration. In recent decades, international port cities have been increasingly affected by global transformation processes. Economic and technological changes have fundamentally restructured ports all over the world, dramatically altering the relation between port and city, the cities’ images and representations, and the condition of people living and working around the ports. A five-stage model of the historical course of this development has been presented by Hoyle (1988, 1989, see also Schubert 2001 and in this volume), ranging from “primitive” inner-city ports, increasing industrialisation of port economies, to highly modernised container terminals far removed from the inner cities, with traditional port areas turning into urban wastelands and, eventually, into targets for urban renewal programmes. Segments of the urban population living close to the ports, or making their living from port activities, have been particularly affected. In the context of global economic and political change, port cities have also become transit points and interfaces of transnational migration. At the same time, in many cities, historical port areas and their environs have become an object of redesigning and restructuring the urban space, and of resulting gentrification. As Schubert (2001) points out, transformation processes in port cities have so far been mainly studied by urban geographers, economists and urban planners. Consequently, most research has concentrated on long-term development, on the position of ports in national economies, and on the physical results of urban restructuring. In view of rapid