TY - JOUR AU - Johnson, Martha PY - 2013/01/15 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - City As Relationship JF - Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad JA - Frontiers VL - 22 IS - 1 SE - Research Articles DO - 10.36366/frontiers.v22i1.322 UR - https://frontiersjournal.org/index.php/Frontiers/article/view/322 SP - 127-130 AB - <p>Volume XX (Spring 2011) of <em>Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of&nbsp;Study Abroad</em> takes a thematic focus on “Study Abroad and the City.” As&nbsp;part of the Global Cities Seminar hosted by CAPA International Education in&nbsp;Vancouver in May 2011, participants were asked to consider the use of the city&nbsp;as text, the city as document, and the city as cultural informant. The articles&nbsp;featured in the journal and at the workshop presented an array of case studies&nbsp;and compelling arguments for ensuring active engagement with the physical&nbsp;environment that various urban spaces provide as educative tools for students&nbsp;abroad.</p><p>During the discussion that followed the presentations, an aspect not&nbsp;fully explored either in the journal or on the panel occurred to me. What&nbsp;about the city as a relationship? As Rodríguez and Rink suggest in their article&nbsp;Performing the City: Engaging the High Tech Flaneur (2011), the ability of the&nbsp;city to elicit a visceral and emotional response is a powerful but often untapped&nbsp;element of the experience abroad.&nbsp;At the most obvious and basic level, travelers inevitably articulate their&nbsp;experience of destinations in the language of emotion: “I did not really like&nbsp;Venice, but I loved Rome.” I would like to give a bit of consideration to the&nbsp;emotional relationship travelers, and more specifically students on programs&nbsp;abroad, have with cities. I would also like to suggest some of the opportunities&nbsp;“the city as relationship” might offer if explored or presented as such.</p> ER -