ABSTRACT
The globalization of recent decades has been characterized by the acceleration of “flows of capital, goods, people, images and discourses around the globe, driven by technological innovations” (Blommaert, 2010, p. 13). The increase in the flow of goods, capital, and people over larger geographic spaces brings a concomitant need to manage these complex operations, thus drawing to global cities a highly diversified workforce, making apparent the “spatial and socio-economic inequality […] in these cities” (Sassen, 2005, p. 30). Consequently, this raises pressing questions about how individuals lay claim to and contest these spaces (Sassen, 2005, p. 39). Of equal importance, however, is how individuals manage and cooperate in this diversity.
