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Article
Publication date: 10 October 2016

Véron Ophélie

Literature on social movements increasingly identifies everyday life as significant to understand political practices and activism. However, scholars have retained a major bias…

2237

Abstract

Purpose

Literature on social movements increasingly identifies everyday life as significant to understand political practices and activism. However, scholars have retained a major bias towards movement mobilisation and collective action, often relegating the everyday at the margins of social movements. While there have been notable exceptions, with studies of prefigurative activism and everyday practices of social change, they have usually focussed on alternative community spaces such as autonomous social centres and protest camps, and paid less attention to “ordinary” practices and spaces of activism. The purpose of this paper is to address these problems by suggesting that everyday life may be central to the production of activist spaces and the action of social movements.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing upon ethnography methods, interviews with vegan activists, an on-line survey of supporters of vegan movements and an examination of on-line vegan forums, it seeks to analyse the practices of the vegan movement in France.

Findings

This paper attempts to demonstrate that prefigurative activism and seemingly banal practices may be central to strategies for social change. Drawing on an anarchist perspective on activism, it further suggests that activism and everyday life should not be studied in isolation from each other but as mutually constitutive in the creation of everyday alternative spaces – hemeratopias.

Originality/value

This paper adds to the literature on activism and social movements by offering a more complex picture of the spatial politics at work in social movements and a better understanding of individual action and mobilisation.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 36 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 February 2022

Sarah Aboualy, Yasser Mansour and Sherif El-Fiki

The paper aims to study the applicability of Lefebvre's everyday life theory “production of space” in Sheraton's in-between spaces upon local residents' daily practices. Space as…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to study the applicability of Lefebvre's everyday life theory “production of space” in Sheraton's in-between spaces upon local residents' daily practices. Space as Lefebvre said is a result and cause, product and producer. Sheraton District, Cairo comprises lots of underutilized spaces between buildings. The in-between spaces have great potentials for accommodating diverse activities. The present study addresses the phenomenon of in-between spaces in this district. It is argued that in-between spaces can be developed to realize better functional and symbolic values, as the users attach special meanings based on users' everyday living.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate the above relationship on the mentioned district. The study devises direct observation to investigate people's behavioral patterns in such appropriated areas to analyze them in the light of preceding literature.

Findings

The study concludes that people's everyday practices could re-invent the in-between spaces by realizing new functions and meanings in dynamic and creative ways. That experience can apply to other underutilized spaces in the district and the city toward improving the built environment and the quality of residents' life.

Research limitations/implications

Finally, it is important to note that the findings of the study are limited to the studied context. Undertaking similar studies to other in-between spaces in Cairo, in other Egyptian cities or other countries may yield different findings. It may be equally interesting to study the means of adaptation in other underutilized urban spaces, such as those found underneath bridges, underneath buildings and on the rooftops.

Originality/value

The main aim of the present study is to examine the impact of everyday practices on the appropriation of a transformed in-between space in the aforementioned district, and the extent to which that may improve in-between spaces' role toward the local community, in order to promote such approach for developing many underutilized in-between spaces in the area. Toward realizing this goal, the study begins with a theoretical background about everyday life. Then, the paper addresses the theory of space appropriation. The outcome is then empirically investigated in relation to one transformed in-between space in Sheraton District, Cairo.

Details

Open House International, vol. 48 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0168-2601

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 May 2022

Siiri Piironen

The purpose of this paper is to advance spatial studies of change interventions by conceptualizing them as liminal spaces and examining how these spaces are conceived, perceived…

1653

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to advance spatial studies of change interventions by conceptualizing them as liminal spaces and examining how these spaces are conceived, perceived and lived during the intervention process.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores change interventions as liminal spaces in the empirical context of LEGO serious play workshops through participant observations and interviews.

Findings

The study shows that in change interventions an abstract, conceived liminal space is created, maintained and closed down to enable the planned change to take place. While practicing the space, the change participants may indeed perceive this space as liminal, but the space is less manageable because of their both prescribed and unprescribed interpretations. Furthermore, as subjectively experienced, the space may hold a spectrum of liminal, liminoid and everyday (business as usual) notions.

Research limitations/implications

The study contributes to the research on (1) the spatiality of change interventions and (2) artificially created liminal spaces of organizing.

Practical implications

The paper reminds consultants and organizations embarking on change interventions to pay attention to the spatiality of such interventions. The study shows that it is not enough to plan how these spaces are to be used, but also it is equally important to consider how the participants use and experience them.

Originality/value

The study provides a novel insight into change interventions by examining them as liminal spaces that are simultaneously conceived, perceived and lived during the intervention process.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 35 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2007

Andrew Gorman‐Murray

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between…

Abstract

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

Article
Publication date: 21 May 2019

Tess Bird

Drawing on ethnographic research in selection of urban households in Providence County, Rhode Island, the purpose of this paper is to define uncertainty as an everyday experience…

Abstract

Purpose

Drawing on ethnographic research in selection of urban households in Providence County, Rhode Island, the purpose of this paper is to define uncertainty as an everyday experience embedded in material and social worlds and explore the relationship of uncertainty to creative improvisation and well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

This research was anthropological and ethnographic, drawing on an everyday material culture approach to the home. Participant observation and interviews began in April 2015 and ended in April 2016. The data presented in derived from interview transcripts, field notes and photography.

Findings

Responses to uncertainty are embedded in habits and practices that help sustain well-being. During uncertain periods marked by transition, change and disappointment, participants draw on domestic practices as well as narrative frameworks to foster stability. Security, well-being, uncertainty, and improvisation emerge as an important intersection in everyday life.

Originality/value

This paper offers a perspective on uncertainty at the intimate level of the home, helping nuance the difference between collective creative improvisation and the economic expectation of individual adaptability.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2021

Andrew Smith, Goran Vodicka, Alba Colombo, Kristina N. Lindstrom, David McGillivray and Bernadette Quinn

There are two main aims of this conceptual paper. The first is to explore the issues associated with staging events in public spaces, and to produce a typology of different event…

1816

Abstract

Purpose

There are two main aims of this conceptual paper. The first is to explore the issues associated with staging events in public spaces, and to produce a typology of different event spaces. The second is to explore if and how events should be designed into parks, streets and squares and whether this might reduce some of the negative impacts and associated user conflicts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper analyses the history, drivers and effects of using public spaces as venues and examines the reciprocal relationships between events and the spaces that host them. To explain the range and dynamics of contemporary events, a typology of event spaces is developed. This typology highlights nine different types of event spaces which are differentiated by the level of public accessibility (free entry, sometimes free, paid entry), and the mobility of event audiences (static, limited mobility, mobile). Using this typology, the paper discusses ways that public spaces might be adapted to make them better suited to staging events. This discussion is illustrated by a range of examples.

Findings

The paper finds that it makes practical sense to adapt some urban public spaces to make them better equipped as venues, but designing in events presents new issues and does not necessarily resolve many of the problems associated with staging events. Disputes over events are inevitable and constituent features of public spaces.

Originality/value

This paper makes an original contribution by developing a new classification of event spaces and by synthesising ideas from urban design with ideas from the events literature.

Details

International Journal of Event and Festival Management, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1758-2954

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 September 2022

Reijo Savolainen

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end…

2879

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end, particular attention is directed to how they have characterized everyday life as a constellation of work-related and non-work constituents.

Design/methodology/approach

Evolutionary concept analysis was conducted by focussing on 40 studies on the topic. It is examined how the conceptualizations of everyday life and the relationships between work-related and non-work constituents have been evolved since the 1990s. The analysis is based on the comparison of the similarities and differences between the characterizations of the above constituents.

Findings

Early conceptualizations of everyday life as a context of information behaviour were largely based on Savolainen's model for everyday life information seeking. Later studies have proposed a more holistic approach to everyday life in times when the boundaries between work-related and free-time activities have become blurred, due to the growing use of networked information technologies and telecommuting. Since the late 1990s, the understanding about the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour has become more nuanced; thanks to a more detailed identification of the overlaps of work-related and non-work constituents.

Research limitations/implications

As the study is based on a sample of studies examining the relationships of work-related and non-work constituents, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the contextual nature of everyday life as a whole.

Originality/value

The study pioneers by offering an in-depth analysis of the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour.

Details

Aslib Journal of Information Management, vol. 75 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-3806

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2004

Wayne H. Brekhus

Adumbrates that Laud Humphrey’s studies have shaped the debate on sociological methods, they have also distracted from emphasizing his potential contributions to sociological…

1504

Abstract

Adumbrates that Laud Humphrey’s studies have shaped the debate on sociological methods, they have also distracted from emphasizing his potential contributions to sociological theory. Identifies four themes in Humphrey’s work, which are important to the sociological study of identity. Concludes that Humphreys demonstrates that sexual identity may not be as permanent and fixed as may first appear.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 24 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 February 2019

Francis Farrell

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore and foreground secondary religious education (RE) student teachers’ accounts of the dilemmas they experienced in their…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore and foreground secondary religious education (RE) student teachers’ accounts of the dilemmas they experienced in their classrooms and schools in a highly racialised post referendum environment. Teacher narratives are analysed in order to suggest ways in which a transformative teaching and learning agenda drawing from a pluralistic human rights framework can be reasserted in place of government requirements to promote fundamental British values (FBV).

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative data were collected in focus group interviews to gain insights into how the referendum environment was experienced phenomenologically in localised school settings.

Findings

The interview data reveals the complex ways in which the discourses circulating in the post referendum milieu play out in highly contingent, diverse secondary school settings. These schools operate in a high stakes policy context, shaped by the new civic nationalism of FBV, the Prevent security agenda and government disavowal of “multiculturalism” in defence of “our way of life” (Cameron, 2011). A key finding to emerge from the teachers’ narratives is that some of the ways in which Prevent and FBV have been imposed in their schools has reduced the transformative potentials of the critical, pluralistic RE approaches to teaching and learning that is promoted within the context of their university initial teacher education programme.

Research limitations/implications

The findings suggest that existing frameworks associated with security and civic nationalism are not sufficient to ensure that young citizens receive an education that prepares them for engagement with a post truth, post Brexit racial and political environment. Transformative teaching and learning approaches (Duckworth and Smith, 2018), drawing upon pluralistic, critical RE and human rights education are presented as more effective alternatives which recognise the dignity and agency of both teachers and students.

Originality/value

This paper is an original investigation of the impact of the Brexit referendum environment on student teachers in a university setting. In the racialised aftermath of the referendum the need for transformative pluralistic and critical educational practice has never been more urgent. The data and analysis presented in this paper offer a compelling argument for a root and branch reformulation of current government security agendas in education.

Article
Publication date: 22 July 2022

Doha Eissa

The study examines socio-spatial appropriations in dwellings of Cairo, which were undertaken to expand dwellings affordances and accommodate new utilitarian demands during…

Abstract

Purpose

The study examines socio-spatial appropriations in dwellings of Cairo, which were undertaken to expand dwellings affordances and accommodate new utilitarian demands during lockdown. The study questions whether those appropriations impacted dwellers' conceptions of dwellers' dwellings and scrutinizes how those appropriations could feedback the design of dwellings post-pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopted a mixed-method approach and was constructed over two phases as follows: first, in-depth interviews with 20 participants to acquire qualitative data about the adopted appropriation strategies and the subsequent actualized affordances and second, an online quantitative survey answered by 133 respondents to quantify the frequency of the adopted appropriation strategies and test the relationship between appropriations and mental conceptions of dwellings.

Findings

The study identifies five main appropriation strategies undertaken by dwellers and builds upon them to recommend favorable design features of dwellings post-pandemic. Those are: securing unscripted spaces, reviving dormant spaces, space compartmentalization, temporal programing of space and space esthetic personalization. The study also affirms a relationship between undertaking appropriations and improved mental conceptions of dwellings. Finally, the study suggests recommendations for space use optimization which could be deployed in existing dwellings and could ultimately be considered for designing post-pandemic dwellings.

Originality/value

The originality of this study lies in the study's opportune documentation and analysis of such an exceptional condition. Thus far, very few studies have tackled socio-spatial practices in dwellings during lockdown, let alone the impact of the pandemic on the design of future dwellings.

Details

Open House International, vol. 48 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0168-2601

Keywords

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