Stadtkolloquium workshop presentation - March 2013 - UCL - London
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Stadtkolloquium workshop presentation - March 2013 - UCL - London
- 1. Transformative encounter? Exploring the effects of urban planning practices on encounter in multi-ethnic micro-publics Elnaz Ghafoorikoohsar The University of Manchester Elnaz.ghafoorikoohsar@manchester.ac.uk
- 2. The Outline The research problem The aim Terminology Objectives & goals Methods
- 3. What is the problem? Planning for diversity: Redistribution, recognition and encounter (Fincher & Iveson, 2008) An analytical framework for critical thinking on diversity More focus on process and outcome, rather than values and substances ( e.g. communicative planning or new-urbanism)
- 4. What is the problem? Diversity and justice: the issue of encounter From anonymity & freedom to Hybridity & otherness Concept of difference (Sandercock, 1998) Spatiality of difference; spatial justice Encounter: what is the meaningful encounter? Jacobs (1961): A certain degree of contacts that is useful or enjoyable in result of having a ‘natural and casual public life’. It is a sense of ‘belonging’ and the meaning of belonging is always far from settled.
- 5. What is the problem? Retail marketplaces Everyday settings of interaction; place of both economic and social exchange Notion of hybridity and local identity Strangers vs. members Encounter in both negative and positive terms Previous studies on planning for encounter
- 6. The current status of English marketplaces
- 7. Research aim To explore the effects of planning practices on convivial encounters among different multi-ethnic groups in urban micro-publics. Planning for encounter Retail marketplaces Diversity & justice Spatiality of justice
- 8. Some important terms… Planning practice: Spatial/structural change in marketplaces Renewal or redevelopment schemes Planning policy changes
- 9. Some important terms… Convivial encounter: Results to build shared identifications Needs material base as a shared platform to do purposeful activities Existence of ‘third-spaces’ or ‘micro-publics’
- 10. Micro-publics (Amin, 2002): Places of everyday social interaction Including purposeful activities between different people; stranger or member Scale of interaction Places of domesticated urban complexity and diversity Some important terms…
- 11. Establishing the role of encounter as a social logic for planning and conceptualize recommendations for planning for diversity agenda Exploring the role of encounter in improving the intercultural understanding or entrenching the differences. Identifying and exploring the effects of planning practices on encounters in marketplaces among multi-ethnic groups. Conceptualizing and testing a typology of ‘convivial encounter’ in marketplaces. Objectives and goals
- 12. In a marketplace Practical activities Activities & stories Encounter Work & Economic life Shopping Visiting Events & Rituals Marketplace management Marketplace associations Planners & planning system Physical outline Spatiality of marketplace Cultural diversity Social relations & institutions Economic activity Politics of marketplace Scale of encounter Boundaries of encounter Physicality & spatiality of encounter Outcomes of encounter Reciprocity Activity-related encounters
- 13. Methods Two stage ethnographic study 1. Baseline study and case study selection: Pilot study of 6 marketplaces in Greater Manchester Observations and limited interviews 2. In-depth case studies: Selecting 2 marketplace for in-depth focus Participant observation Interviews with people in marketplaces Interviews with people excluded from marketplace Interviews with planners
- 14. Next steps… Collecting data Mapping the networks and relations Exploring the human, non-human relations Exploring the social production of space in marketplaces
Editor's Notes
- Hello everyone. I am Elnaz and I am in my second year of PhD studies in University of Manchester and I am very glad to be able to present my research here. Today I am going to present my research progress so far and would like to start by explaining the research problem, continued by aim and objectives, some clarifications on key terms in this research and finally explaining on methods and my future route in this research.
- To define the research problem I start with the core theory in this research; planning for diversity. Different academics identified some main principles for planning for diversity. What I draw on here are these three principles. The first one is redistribution of resources that is often recognized to be the answer for inequality rooted in class and aiming to overcome spatial or locational disadvantages.The second one is recognition of social diversity that deals with ‘identity politics’ and it is understood as an answer to the failure to treat all social or identity groups as equivalent in their diversity. And the third one is encounter which is deeply rooted in the view of the ‘right to the city’ and distinguishes the diversity of diversities and hybridity of identities. These three goals are intended as elements of an analytical framework that can be applied in thinking critically about the planning and they are finding ways to address the different kind of diversity that characterise cosmopolitan towns and cities.A gap here is that, in most studies on this issue focus is more on process and outcome like as in communicative planning or in new-urbanism approach. But it has been argued that there is a need to explore values and substances when planning for diversity.
- In exploring for values, this study is focusing on the social logic of ‘encounter’. As explained it has been identified as one of the theoretical principles of planning for diversity. In order to understand encounter we need to understand cosmopolitan city life. City life is being togetherness of strangers. Big cities are defined as sites of ‘anonymity’ and ‘freedom’ for urban dwellers. In such environments, while people can become free from their inherited identities and social groups they might belong to, they can also entre into the experience and interests of unfamiliar lives, to develop a more hybrid and complex sense of themselves.So cosmopolitan life has a paradoxical nature that says that there should be always some forms of other. So within the notion of cosmopolitan life, differences and otherness might be simultaneously valued and pathologised.Based on what Sandercock (1998) argues, with the rise of diversity in urban settlements, there is a need to revise the ‘concept of difference’. She argues that these differences are reflecting the need to plan for heterogeneous public, rather than for the ‘modernist’ public interest and this involves the need, and the right, to give articulation to differences in the public sphere, which include spatiality of differences.So by this background, encounter is being considered as an integral part of peoples’ everyday life. Indeed, not all of the daily interactions can be considered as encounter at all and only having contact between different social groups is not sufficient to produce meaningful encounter and respect. So it is needed to understandthe meaning of meaningful encounter. It can be explained as what Jacobs argued on: a certain degree of contact that is useful or enjoyable that happens in result of having a natural and casual public life. It is a sense of belonging and the meaning of belonging is always far from settled.
- In exploring for the meaningful encounter, it was needed to select a public space for in-depth exploration to explore everyday settings of interactions which are wrapping different people and activities together.Retailmarketplaces that includes different people and activities selected, as they represents cosmopolitanism in microcosm. The locality of marketplace is connected with emerging globalisation of its users and to the ‘otherness’ they are seeking to experience in such public spaces.Those are public spaces that gives the opportunity to people to experience otherness. So encounter may happen in both positive and negative terms.Another reason for selecting marketplaces is that same previous studies that were focused on exploring encounter were only focused on public spaces such as libraries and community centres and exploring marketplaces would be a different and novel one.
- I am exploring marketplaces in English context. The English marketplaces are facing with different challenges these days. Planning proposals are changing them. Some of them can not survive anymore because of their economic failure and being replaced by chain stores and supermarkets. Their role as important and valuable public spaces for people are being ignored and this is becoming a threat for their existence. There are some minor activities from different groups in marketplaces who want to save their marketplace but the thing is that the values of marketplaces are still hidden and new studies needed to explore them.
- So by considering these multiplicity of areas and grounding this research in different theories, the main aim of this research is: to explore the effects of planning practices on convivial encounters among different multi-ethnic groups in urban micro-publics. I have highlighted some terms here which needs more clarification in order to identify the focus of this research.
- One of the terms here is planning practices. By using the term planning practices in this research, I mean different types of practice such as spatial or structural changes in marketplace, renewal or redevelopment schemes that includes the marketplace or happening in the bigger scale of neighbourhood. And also these practices might be urban policy change focused on marketplace or its neighbouring area.
- Another term here is conviviality and convivial encounter. Followed by what discussed on the meaning of encounter, I mentioned that encounter can take many forms, not all of them can be identified and measured and not all of which can contribute to social and spatial justice. What this study is arguing on is the role of planning to foster convivial encounters. Convivial encounter can be identified as those forms of encounter by the means of them people in urban spaces have opportunities to build shared identifications with one another as strangers rather than as members of a particular identity groups. It is more than free mingling of people in large public squares and spaces… conviviality…describes encounters with a certain intent or purpose. Planning as an urban governing system, as a creative process of placemakingcan work to establish the platform of such infrastructure upon which convivial encounter might be built in. What different commentators put emphasize on is presence of ‘third spaces’ or ‘micro-publics of everyday life’ as main settings to seek conviviality in them as they offer sociability and familiarity in a range of guisesComparing to similar terms:In planning the focus is more on ‘community’ as the political unit of planners engagement with people. Community and conviviality can be identified as two different ends of one occasion that “where “community” points to the human needs for root, “conviviality” points to the human need to flower”. In the former one there is a need to have a shared substance or value, but in the other one, it is meant to create a special occasion out of ordinary materialsIn the UK, multicultural policies aimed at supporting minority identities are said to have fostered separation rather than inclusion (Pilkington 2008) and somehow resulted into sense of tolerance instead of building dynamic inter-relation. argue that the social cohesion strategies hardly pay attention to cultural membership and identity and are more focused on interactions without recognising the differences and diversities of diversities.
- And the final term here is micro-publics:To understand encounters among different groups there is a need to explore ‘lived spaces’. Amin (2002 ,p959) terms the micro-publics of everyday social contact and encounter to best achieve this goal. These sites represent places of purposeful organized group activity where people from different backgrounds become together in ways that provide them with the opportunity to break out of fixed patterns of interaction and learn new ways of being and relating.These sites are not only places of cultural exchange, but also cultural destabilization and transformation. Different scales of interaction may happen in micro-publics: person-to-person or group-to-group. They are identified as places of domesticated urban complexity and diversity and I will explain more on this in next slides in details for the case of retail marketplaces.
- Based on what discussed so far, this study is aiming to achieve 4 groups of objectives. The first one is about conceptualizing and testing a typology of convivial encounter in marketplaces. The second one is on identifying and exploring the effects of planning practices on encounter in marketplaces among different multi-ethnic groups. The third one is about exploring the role of these encounters in improving the intercultural understandings or entrenching the differences. And finally based on all of these that is aimed to establish the role of encounter as a social logic for planning and conceptualize recommendations for planning for diversity agenda.
- In this slide by exploring different layers of activities and interactions in marketplace I am aiming to reflect on domesticated complexity and diversity in scale of a retail marketplaces. In the left side part you can see an outline of the practical activities that includes internal parts inside a marketplaces such as work and economic life and also external parts such as market associations and planners or planning system. In the middle part the focus is more on activities and stories in marketplaces that includes different physical, social, cultural, political and economic components.And in the final part it is focused on encounter specifically, on scale of encounter, on positive or negative encounters, boundaries of encounter or some other factors. This outline is a start point for my exploration on cases and it is developing and should be developed while I go further in my research.The outlined parts in each of these columns can be connected to each other and different networks exist between different human or non-human actors.
- So in order to explore these complex network a two stage ethnographic approach is applied. I am going to do case studies in two different stages. In the first stage 6 marketplaces will be explored in Greater Manchester, as it include diverse range of retail marketplaces and also diverse population from different ethnic backgrounds and the scale of marketplaces is manageable for a PhD study.In the second stage, I will select 2 case studies based on explorations in level 1 for in-depth exploration. I will select 2 not to do a comparative study, but because some exploration here might have a normative nature, exploring two cases might decrease the risk of bias here.Participant observation for duration of 7 months, with doing interviews with different groups of people inside and outside the marketplaces would be main methods for collecting data there.
- In this final slide, I want to conclude that in order to meet the research objectives and by use of different methods outlined I am aiming to use qualitative data to map the network and relations, to explore the human, non-human actors and generally explore social production of space in a limited boundary of marketplace. Thank you so much for your kind attention.