On the city at war - with Saskia Sassen

On the final episode of season two, Vishakha N. Desai interviews Committee on Global Thought member, and former chair, Saskia Sassen. She discusses her latest book with Mary Kaldor, Cities at War. The book examines cities as sites of contemporary warfare and insecurity. Sassen’s perspective on cities and their geographies provides new insight into how cities and their residents encounter instability and conflict, as well as the ways in which urban forms provide possibilities for countering violence. Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and a member of the Committee for Global Thought at Columbia University. Her research and writing focuses on globalization, immigration, global cities, new technologies, and changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. Her interests include urban sociology, the sociology of transnational processes and globalization, technology, the dynamics of powerlessness in urban contexts and migration.