Controlling the spectacular world city: A discursive analysis of inclusion and exclusion in the making of Giuliani's New York

In my dissertation I examine the 1999 slaying of African immigrant Amadou Diallo as a means of analyzing the relationship between crime/social control policies and the discursive construction of world cities regions (specifically New York). The project is principally composed of three parts: the first portion of which argues for a re-conceptualization of the world city region and world city formation with the goal of achieving a greater understanding of the world city as a lived environment; in the second portion I use frame critical analysis to examine the rhetorical constructions of politicians in New York City relating to crime/social practice and the perceptions regarding the safety of the city during the 1993 New York mayoral campaign; lastly, I analyze the shooting death of Amadou Diallo using a framework that associates the control of undesirable subjects in the city to the image of the city more generally, and consequently to the overall development and prosperity of the city. I accomplish this in part through an intensive interrogation and critique of the world cities canon using as an analytical framework three tansitional dualities: (1) the transition from the world city to the spectacular world city (drawn from Guy Debord's notion of the 'Spectacle'); (2) The transition of the World City from 'space of place' to a discursive space; (3) the transition from social control to spectacular social control. I conclude with a discussion of the criminalization communities of color potentially leading to world cities becoming spaces of privilege and exclusion as the promotion of the image of safety can lead to a reality of control wherein 'othered' or 'un-privileged' subjects see their access to the world city limited or denied.