CASIE seeks to understand and highlight the importance of collective action and social innovation for resilient neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia and Europe.

Two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, which are considered the engines of global and national economic growth and hubs of social, cultural, and political life. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of urban areas to various risks, and building resilient neighbourhoods and cities is seen as the key to addressing these risks in the long term.¹

This refers to capacity of communities to resist and recover from external and internal disturbances.² Understanding resilient neighbourhoods and cities is crucial not only for building just and sustainable cities, but also for greater human prosperity.

Strengthening social innovation, along with adaptive capacity and social learning, is crucial to building resilient and sustainable socio-ecological systems.³ Social innovation refers to the development of new social relations and forms of social organisation that enable citizens and communities to collaborate with the public and private sectors, tackle pressing social challenges, and enable long-term environmental, social and political transformation. 

Neighbourhood collective action is seen as an important source of social innovation in cities. Public policies and partnerships also play a role in fostering social innovation, especially when the state collaborates with citizens and communities towards common goals.⁴

In contrast to Europe, East Asia has been known for its rapid economic growth and urban development with little attention to adverse environmental, social and political impacts on neighbourhoods. However, cities in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have recently developed innovative practices and policies that are increasingly relevant to Europe. It is therefore important to see East Asia and Europe as mutually interlinked, rather than simplistically dividing them into East and West.⁵

The transformation of neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia has been studied extensively. On the one hand, Asian studies have focused on the role of the state and markets in facilitating economic, social, and political change, whereas grassroots and civil society have received less attention.⁶ In addition, Asian studies have lacked a broader comparative approach and have rarely applied their findings beyond Asia.

On the other hand, urban studies are increasingly focusing on Asia. Although it is more common in urban studies to compare neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia and Europe, their approach often follows general theoretical and methodological frameworks that are not always able to fully explain the transformation of neighbourhoods and cities in the region.⁷

Asian studies and urban studies could benefit from synergies and greater interdisciplinary integration in the study of neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia. 

CASIE aims to address their theoretical and methodological shortcomings by integrating Asian studies and critical urban theory to understand the environmental, social and political transformation of neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia from a cross-cultural perspective. It also aims to explore the urban dimensions and scales of the transformation, focusing on civil society as a historical actor of urban change in East Asia.

CASIE seeks to understand and highlight the importance of collective action and social innovation in neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia, and to provide policy recommendations for cities in Europe by examining best practices in building resilient neighbourhoods and cities in East Asia.

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1. UN-HABITAT. 2018. Tracking Progress Towards Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT. ↩︎
2. F. Berkes, H. Ross. 2013. Community Resilience: Toward an Integrated Approach. Society & Natural Resources, 26(1): 5–20. ↩︎
3. C. Folke. 2006. Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16: 253–267. ↩︎
4. M. Ledwith. 2011. Community Development: A Critical Approach, second edition. Bristol: Policy Press. ↩︎
5. G. Delanty. 2006. Europe and Asia Beyond East and West. Oxon: Routledge. ↩︎
6. B. G. Park, R. C. Hill, A. Saito (Eds.). 2011. Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia: Neoliberalizing Spaces in Developmental States. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell; T. Carroll, D. S. L. Jarvis (Eds.). 2017. Asia after the Developmental State: Disembedding Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ↩︎
7. K. H. Chen. 2010. Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization. Durham: Duke University Press. ↩︎