Search results

1 – 10 of over 4000
Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Zheng Wang

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation…

Abstract

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation has had a tremendous impact on the social networks and neighbourhood life of urban residents. This chapter challenges the common perception of neighbouring in demise and argues that neighbouring remains an important form of social relationship, even if the meanings and role of neighbouring have changed. This chapter first charts the changing role of neighbouring from the socialist era to post-reform China. It then provides an account of four common types of neighbourhoods in Chinese cities – work-unit estates, traditional courtyards, commodity housing estates and urban villages – and considers how and why neighbouring in different ways still matters to them. In pre-reform socialist China, neighbourhood life and neighbouring comprised much of the daily social life of residents. Since the reform era, with the proliferation of private commodity housing estates, middle-class residents prioritise comfort, security and privacy, such that neighbouring levels have subsided. Nevertheless, in other neighbourhood types, such as work-unit housing estates, traditional courtyards and urban villages, neighbours still rely upon one another for various reasons.

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Anupama Nallari and Ate Poorthuis

Singapore, a multiracial nation, where 80% of the population resides in mid- to high-rise public housing estates, provides an interesting milieu to study neighbouring in the…

Abstract

Singapore, a multiracial nation, where 80% of the population resides in mid- to high-rise public housing estates, provides an interesting milieu to study neighbouring in the context of high-density living. Its geopolitical position and socio-demographic features – such as an ageing demographic, changing family structure, and increasingly diverse population – have rendered social cohesion an integral aspect of national and neighbourhood-level policies, programmes, and institutions. However, these programmes and policies are built on a relatively static national narrative around mutuality, harmony, and community bonding that rarely takes into consideration current social, temporal, and spatial constructions of neighbouring. It is in this light that we re-examine the social construction of ‘neighbours’ and ‘neighbourliness’ in Singapore using a holistic quality of life (QoL) framework to better understand both institutional and lived forms of neighbourliness. A mixed-methods research approach, comprising 243 semi-structured interviews (161 with a Q method component) and a large-scale survey comprising 3,134 participants, was conducted to explore and assess current norms, attitudes, and practices around neighbouring. Our findings show a dominant set of practices around neighbouring that are polite, minimal, and often referred to as ‘hi/bye’. we note two particular perspectives of the relative importance of neighbours in contributing to QoL and consider the effects of hi/bye neighbouring upon an older group of residents for whom neighbours are still important. This deeper understanding around neighbouring in public housing estates also brings relevant insights to related social cohesion policies and programmes.

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Abstract

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Oksana Zaporozhets and Olga Brednikova

This chapter focuses on the newness of neighbour relations and new scenarios of neighbouring that have emerged in the recently built residential districts of large Russian cities…

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the newness of neighbour relations and new scenarios of neighbouring that have emerged in the recently built residential districts of large Russian cities – Moscow and St Petersburg. In the last decades, the scenarios of neighbouring in Russia have undergone significant changes due to the collapse of the Soviet system and the formation of a new sociality. In this situation, new urban districts have become a testing ground where new scenarios of neighbouring have been developed in everyday communication. The study finds that the emerging scenario of neighbouring differs from lifelong Soviet neighbouring with its close personal contacts, as well as from the isolationism of the 1990–2000s, and is based on the management and flexible reconfiguration of neighbour relations. This chapter argues that the newness of urban settings is a special state that influences neighbour relations and leads to enthusiasm for, and intensification of, interaction between neighbours; the invention of new forms of neighbour relations; and the actualisation of neighbour solidarity in a space that is still deficient in other ways. While newness is a state that allows creative forms of sociality to flourish, it is also a limiting state in the way it imposes absence and deficiencies upon residents that requires them to create new, compensatory structures and solidarities.

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Abstract

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Sarah Neal

This chapter reviews the conceptual developments in neighbour studies, charting the shift and bringing together older work on the ‘distance-closeness’ dynamic of neighbour

Abstract

This chapter reviews the conceptual developments in neighbour studies, charting the shift and bringing together older work on the ‘distance-closeness’ dynamic of neighbour relations with newer ‘equality of neighbours’ approaches. It seeks to empirically extend the sociology of neighbours through an analysis of the experiential narratives of neighbours living in contexts of urban multiculture in the United Kingdom. Drawing on two previous studies of urban multicultural social life and a small street study of neighbours in London, this chapter explores the everyday ‘publicness’ of the neighbour and examines the ways in which recent work on social infrastructure can be productively applied to neighbour relations. This chapter concludes that where cultural and social difference is a very ordinary – although not necessarily easy – experience, neighbour relations offer the potential to work as radical sites of pragmatic multiculturalism.

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 September 2017

Daniel Deak

The essence of the ecological crisis is not that resources are out of reach, but that the relationship between living beings has deteriorated. For this reason, ecology cannot…

Abstract

The essence of the ecological crisis is not that resources are out of reach, but that the relationship between living beings has deteriorated. For this reason, ecology cannot simply be seen as a scientific matter but rather as a genuine social problem that requires social actions.

The law in its present form falls short of managing ecological problems despite the fact that the right to a natural environment is recognized in most jurisdictions as a basic one and that international covenants have been created to protect the natural environment. Environmental law ought to bring about a reverence for life and promote the cooperation of biotic communities. A legal system given to innovation could offer foresight-based regulation, integration of the ensemble of living beings, and cooperation in the living world. One of the main challenges the law has to meet is the exploration of a theoretically established and practically viable basis for extending its influence to address the problems of future generations.

Details

Integral Ecology and Sustainable Business
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-463-7

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 June 2021

Antonela Tommasel, Andrés Diaz-Pace, Juan Manuel Rodriguez and Daniela Godoy

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for forecasting mental health conditions and emotions of a given population during the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina based on…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for forecasting mental health conditions and emotions of a given population during the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina based on social media contents.

Design/methodology/approach

Mental health conditions and emotions are captured via markers, which link social media contents with lexicons. First, the authors build time series models that describe the evolution of markers and their correlation with crisis events. Second, the authors use the time series for forecasting markers and identifying high prevalence points for the estimated markers.

Findings

The authors evaluated different forecasting strategies that yielded different performance and capabilities. In the best scenario, high prevalence periods of emotions and mental health issues can be satisfactorily predicted with a neural network strategy, even at early stages of a crisis (e.g. a training period of seven days).

Practical implications

This work contributes to a better understanding of how psychological processes related to crises manifest in social media, and this is a valuable asset for the design, implementation and monitoring of health prevention and communication policies.

Originality/value

Although there have been previous efforts to predict mental states of individuals, the analysis of mental health at the collective level has received scarce attention. The authors take a step forward by proposing a forecasting approach for analyzing the mental health of a given population at a larger scale.

Details

Information Discovery and Delivery, vol. 49 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-6247

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2022

Florence Padovani

This chapter seeks to analyse neighbouring in times of rapid change in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai. Using the local neighbourhood of Tianzifang as a case study, this…

Abstract

This chapter seeks to analyse neighbouring in times of rapid change in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai. Using the local neighbourhood of Tianzifang as a case study, this chapter shows how the pace of change in Shanghai since the 1950s has reshaped the social fabric of the area, including traditional neighbour relations. As Tianzifang has shifted from an unknown neighbourhood comprised of traditional lilong dwellings, where social relations played out in private communal settings, to one of Shanghai’s most famous tourist spots, the relationships between residents, as well as with ‘outsiders’ and the familiar local environment, have also changed. Traditional neighbourly ties have been broken, rebuilt and transformed again through waves of new residents coming into the area and the displacement of others who can no longer afford to live there. For those who remain, the question of who is, and thus who is not, a ‘real’ neighbour has been narrowed to include only ‘insiders’ with a deep sense of belonging and connection to the area – i.e. the urban working class who have always lived in Tianzifang and own rather than rent their homes. Yet even this is no longer sufficient. The disruption that Tianzifang’s physical and social transformation has brought to residents’ lives has also imposed new social norms about how neighbours should behave in this new, intermediary space of public and private. ‘Real’ neighbours are those who conform to changing social norms while neighbours who breach them can be ostracised and excluded by others who once saw them as an insider.

Details

Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-370-0

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 4000