"Pékin n'a plus rien à envier aux villes européennes": Descriptions du monde en mouvement, vu de Pékin

By examining some of the architectural forms and urban practices that contribute to the worlding of Beijing, this paper suggests ways of understanding how “immobile” actors participate in the creation and circulation of flows. While emphasizing the active agency of individuals, the paper seeks to explore the dialectic between different scales – and particularly China’s changing place in the world – in shaping the type and direction of flows. Keywords : China, globalisation, flows, urbanisation, cosmopolitism.