Search results

This chapter draws on analysis of the spatial and material configuration as well as analysis of use to establish whether and how open spaces contribute to an increased spatial justice in Comuna 13. Location, and visual and physical accessibility have been found to be limiting factors for the spaces’ usability by diverse user groups. Regulations and management issues have also been found to be highly influential on the sites’ usability, the diversity of its users or the regulation of behaviour deemed ‘inappropriate’, such as informal trade. On the other hand, design and spatial organisation into subspaces increased the spaces’ usability and accessibility for a diversity of user groups, thus increasing spatial justice. Analysis of use underlines the multifunctionality of people’s everyday spaces for pedestrian traffic, recreation and socialising as well as informal trade. It also shows that not all new spaces are accepted equally, and that new spaces fall into disuse especially if they fail to provide a design and functionality that relate to people’s everyday activities.

This chapter scrutinizes the role of ethnic categorizations in everyday-lived experiences in a diverse neighbourhood. It was found that ethnic categorizations do play an important part in use and perception in widely divergent ways. Users of public space categorize relevant others in terms of ethnicity in various situations and in relation to several activities. Ethnic categories provide meaningful frameworks both in the case of negative evaluations of behaviour and in understanding spatial segregation. Indigenous Dutch are ethnically categorized in terms of them avoiding public space. Established newcomers are aware of an ethnic hierarchy and feel abandoned by indigenous neighbours. On their part, these established newcomers consider more recently arrived new migrants as a sign of decay of the neighbourhood. Next to (perceived) ethnicity, language is taken in account as a separate important classifying principle.

In this chapter, we explore to what extent storylines about the internet and social media are absent or marginal in The Archers. In particular, we examine these storylines to better understand how the inhabitants of Ambridge interact online and how their online activities intersect with their real-world experiences. We compare what happens in The Archers with the moral panic that often characterises narratives of technology use and find a striking contrast that we argue supports a broader way of understanding and characterising practices of online safety and security. We analysed four social media-related Archers’ storylines from the last 24 months. Our analysis shows that The Archers storylines enable us to look at human–computer interaction in relief so that instead of only looking at how people use technology we can also see the context in which it is used and the usually unseen support structures. The Archers narratives also provide a rich picture of how the fixed space of the physical world interacts with virtual space. In the broader context, the social media storylines provide us with an understanding of how connecting, care receiving and care giving take place in both fixed space and virtual space, and how these co-connected relationships of care receiving and care giving contribute to a form of security more expansive than technologically enabled data protection.

Links between urban areas and public space have always had a central presence in the field of Urban Sociology. During the last four decades, and in relation with globalization processes, reflection about city places and what constitutes the “public” has increasingly been in line with what has been called an “emplacing heritage process,” which emerged as a controversial point of intervention in urban areas. In this sense, itineraries have been considered of primary importance in urban heritage signification, recognition, and symbolic production. In short, these routes appear as ways in which public space is materially and symbolically occupied, becoming emplacing heritage processes in themselves.

In this chapter, we study two heritage-making processes through neighborhood itineraries, which are carried out in district territory and are located in two peripheral neighborhoods belonging to the City of Madrid (Hortaleza and Carabanchel). Ultimately, the point here is that these routes are not merely a pathway that “goes” along acknowledged heritage places; these itineraries are an emplacement and a signification of patrimony itself. These processes act as markers of iconic places and as remembrance performances of neighborhood memory. We would argue that routes around historical places in Carabanchel, as well as the “Three Wise Men” popular parades in Hortaleza bring shared geographical imaginaries, collective memory, and iconic places together in everyday experiences of both places. These itineraries change both urban sites in terms of their neighborhood heritage by disputing spatial discourses and imaginaries of heritage, urban place, and neighborhood.

This chapter presents the concluding arguments. It explores the implications of the analyses for understanding open spaces in informal settlements in the context of spatial justice by looking at their material configuration and design, the process that led to their establishment, the ways they are used and the rules and regulations affecting their use. This work has found evidence for the continued and structural denigration of informal settlements and their inhabitants, which influence the upgrading initiative. At the same time it has established the ways in which the new open spaces and the processes surrounding their establishment have improved the quality of life for comuna residents. It thus confirms the importance of combing equity, empowerment and recognition as equal goals into understandings of spatial justice, and claims that the different aspects of justice are not interchangeable or hierarchical. This chapter draws on the empirical data presented in the preceding chapters to explore the potentials and limitations of the new generation of upgrading programmes in an abstract way, which makes the results of this study transferable and applicable to other cities.

This chapter presents the topic of the ‘new generation’ of upgrading initiatives in informal settlements in Latin America and the rationale for this book, its objectives and research questions, focusing on the issues of spatial justice and public open spaces in informal settlements. It also provides a short insight into the research setting, i.e. the social, economic and physical characteristics of the case study location, Comuna 13 in Medellín, including short descriptions about the three spaces that were investigated in detail. It also provides a brief overview of the research methodology applied.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Young people in rural areas often face barriers when accessing participation opportunities in their municipalities. This affects their voices being heard and their ability to create change. Even though almost half the world’s population lives in rural areas, rural young people’s activism is often overlooked in the literature. In addition, when young people’s activism is explored in empirical research, conceptualisations of activism and methods are often not tailored to rural areas. This chapter, thus, adds to our understanding of young people’s activism in rural municipalities by drawing on a mixed methods case study including thirteen focus groups (FGs; n = 35) and a questionnaire (n = 106) with young people aged 13–17, and semi-structured interviews (n = 11) with teachers from one secondary school in a rural municipality in Germany. Five of the FGs were conducted and analysed by Year 10 students, adding unique insights into participants’ experience of activism. In this chapter, activism is conceptualised as one of the multiple dimensions of citizenship. Activism includes demanding systemic change, individually or collectively, which may include refusing to do things, aiming to prevent laws, raising awareness, and making consumer choices. Rather than being full-time activists, the young people in this study were engaged in only a few forms of activism, often carried out ad-hoc, part-time and in connection with other citizenship activities such as volunteering. Spaces for activism included online, the local municipality, everyday spaces such as the supermarket, and school. Participants experienced multiple barriers when engaging in activism including narratives of non-activist young people, age restrictions, power imbalances and few opportunities for creating change, particularly at participants’ school and in their municipalities.