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Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945

Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945
Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945
Town twinning describes the establishment and practice, by various groups and to various ends, of relatively formal and long-term relationships between settlements usually located in different nation-states. Twin towns are sometimes called sister cities. This paper draws on a study of town twinning that focused on the involvement of British localities since the end of the Second World War and analysed data collected by the Local Government Association (for England and Wales), materials archived in the National Archives at Kew, London and various local record offices, and transcripts of interviews with representatives of relevant local, national, and international organisations. The paper makes three main contributions. Firstly, it provides a brief history of town twinning involving British localities. Secondly, it develops from this historical narrative an original conceptualisation of town twinning, arguing that it should be approached less as a coherent movement and more as a device, a repertoire, and a model. Thirdly, it argues that town twinning has often been used as a device for extending care across space – and that much can be learned from its history for contemporary geographies of care. Town twinning participants have approached the problem of care-at-a-distance as both an ontological problem and a practical problem. Some have focused more than others on the role of distanciated causal relationships in the generation of needs in distant places. Some are currently encountering another problem as they attempt to globalise care: the problem of care-in-a-hurry.
0016-7185
115-125
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8

Clarke, Nick (2011) Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945. Geoforum, 42 (1), 115-125. (doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.10.006).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Town twinning describes the establishment and practice, by various groups and to various ends, of relatively formal and long-term relationships between settlements usually located in different nation-states. Twin towns are sometimes called sister cities. This paper draws on a study of town twinning that focused on the involvement of British localities since the end of the Second World War and analysed data collected by the Local Government Association (for England and Wales), materials archived in the National Archives at Kew, London and various local record offices, and transcripts of interviews with representatives of relevant local, national, and international organisations. The paper makes three main contributions. Firstly, it provides a brief history of town twinning involving British localities. Secondly, it develops from this historical narrative an original conceptualisation of town twinning, arguing that it should be approached less as a coherent movement and more as a device, a repertoire, and a model. Thirdly, it argues that town twinning has often been used as a device for extending care across space – and that much can be learned from its history for contemporary geographies of care. Town twinning participants have approached the problem of care-at-a-distance as both an ontological problem and a practical problem. Some have focused more than others on the role of distanciated causal relationships in the generation of needs in distant places. Some are currently encountering another problem as they attempt to globalise care: the problem of care-in-a-hurry.

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Published date: January 2011

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 169119
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/169119
ISSN: 0016-7185
PURE UUID: 24f03169-fac0-4f94-8a13-083f014dc079
ORCID for Nick Clarke: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9148-9849

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Date deposited: 10 Dec 2010 09:27
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:50

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