The Global Cultural Capital

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introduction: Still Paying Homage to Barcelona

   • Mari Paz Balibrea

   Pages 1-10

3. In Theory: The Subject of Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

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   2. Theorizing Culture in the Creative City

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 13-42

4. Taming the Political Citizen

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43

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   2. Stories We Live By:…and the Games Created the City

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 45-51

   3. Culture Is to the Social Materialization of Democracy as the Critical Subject Is to Democratic Citizenship

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 53-76

   4. Building Participatory Measures

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 77-99

5. The Olympic Framework

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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   2. Preamble

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 103-106

   3. Working for the City Image: Municipal Publicity Campaigns Redefining the Preferred Barcelona Subject

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 107-128

   4. Exercising Democratic Citizenship: Sport in the Run-Up to the Olympics

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 129-146

   5. Rethinking Barcelona’92 as a Cultural Milestone

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 147-161

   6. Olympic Volunteers: Rise of the Super-Citizen

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 163-177

6. Back to Work: Governing the Creative City

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 179-179

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   2. Volunteers Unbound

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 181-190

   3. New Regimes of Government

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 191-201

   4. Masterminds of Culture

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 203-213

7. Be Yourself Out There: Inhabiting Barcelona for the Global Market

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215

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   2. Capital Subjects: Redefining Capitality in Global Films on Barcelona

      • Mari Paz Balibrea

      Pages 217-233

This book argues the crucial role of culture and cultural policies in defining the notion of urban citizenship in Barcelona since 1979. Through analysis of official documents, municipal publicity campaigns, sport – including the Olympic Games and Barcelona F.C – and film, Balibrea makes sense of the city as a global cultural destination and reveals how such transformation impacts local inhabitants. 


Scrutinizing municipal discourses on culture from the late 1970s, this interdisciplinary work unveils how ideas of the function and nature of citizenship articulate changing definitions of the city, from model to brand. Over the course of topics such as: tourism, social democracy and urban regeneration, Balibrea constructs an original argument for how the Barcelona image mobilizes neoliberal fantasies of subject transformation. A wide-ranging study, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban geography, sociology and cultural studies.

• Barcelona
• Olympic Games
• Barcelona Football Club
• governmentality
• subjectivation
• branding
• volunteers
• grassroots movements
• urban social movements
• Foucault
• civility
• anti-francoism
• Mediterranean sociability
• consensus
• electoral campaigns
• neoliberal subjectivity
• postindustrial city
• transition
• urban geography and urbanism

“This book delivers a deep meditation on the contradictions surrounding participatory municipal discourse. Deftly working at the crossroads of cultural, political, social, economic and urban discourses, she returns us from abstractions driving the neoliberal creative city to the people of Barcelona themselves. With urban citizenship as the common ground for analyzing pre-democratic activism, (post-)Olympic processes, sports, and visual images, the book’s combination of theoretical savvy, historical specificity and insight into local-global residence is unparalleled.” (Benjamin Fraser, Hispanic Studies Professor, Editor, Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, Co-Editor, Hispanic Urban Studies book series)

“Balibrea’s study of the diverse actors and producers of Barcelona’s urban identity is a fascinating read. Describing a range of important cultural fora, including the construction of the cultural policy of the post-Francoist city government, the citizenship practices inculcated duringthe planning and staging of the 1992 Olympics, and the identity politics behind FC Barcelona, the book provides a nuanced, and intellectually nourishing, analysis of how we have come to understand this celebrated city. This is a very significant study, and useful more broadly for anyone who wants to really understand how the cultural politics of cities is about more than just flagship museums and creative districts.” (Donald McNeill, Professor of Urban & Cultural Geography, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University)

• Cultures and Languages, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom

  Mari Paz Balibrea

Mari Paz Balibrea lectures on Spanish Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, where she directs the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies. She has published widely on contemporary Barcelona, including the articles Barcelona, from Model to Brand, Becoming Mediterranean: The Resignification of the Sea in Post-Industrial Barcelona and Urbanism, Culture and the Post-Industrial City: Challenging the ‘Barcelona Model’.

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