Becoming Otherwise: Artful Urban Enquiry

Sitas, Rike

doi:10.1007/s12132-020-09387-4

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Even if the form has changed slightly, the substance feels almost intact. However, perhaps we expect too much of an incident that has made it into calendars and Wikipedia entries; it is not where we will see the kinds of ongoing and incremental re‐arrangements that would amount to re‐ordering, un‐doing, or becoming otherwise (Sitas, 2020).…”

Section: Aftermath: Cape Town 1961–2021mentioning

confidence: 99%

MOVEMENT 4. BREATH SIGH TEMPEST: On the Temporal Dimensions of Re‐arrangements

Cante¹,

Hussain²,

Makori³

et al. 2023

Int J Urban Regional Res

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The fourth movement explores the temporal relationship between arrangements and re-arrangements, addressing the question of how an obdurate and 'sticky' temporal order may give way to palpable re-arrangement of the ways in which subjects experience time. Eschewing a concern with linear homogenous time, it addresses the processes of rearrangement by understanding the dynamics of grave events, hauntings of the past, subtly changing rhythms of everyday life, and the force of potential futures in synchrony. Beginnings: Minneapolis and Atlanta 2020In the summer of 2020 and amidst a global pandemic, a wave of protests swept the USA in response to the police murder of George Floyd. The massive outpouring of crowds condemning police violence inevitably spread to Atlanta-the city of Martin Luther King Jr., the 'Black Mecca', styled (perhaps presumptuously) the 'city too busy to hate'. The crowd of protestors claiming their streets may not exactly have had hate in their hearts. There was nevertheless anguish, righteous anger and resentment. More deaths ensued, more destruction, with one site being burned to the ground by angry protestors.The fire this time was distributed across a crowd unprecedented in its diversity, tenacity and size (McAdam, 2020). Saturated in the affect of solidarity, it appearedbeing in that crowd, as one of us (Adeem) was-that the murder of George Floyd had propelled the world into a new temporality. In this new present, no longer would instances of racialized state violence go unnoticed, unanswered and unmourned. The fire spread. It unleashed sympathetic flames that burned to revivify movements with diverse but interrelated foci. Atlantans rose up, demanding that the tattered social safety net be patched and the ritual cultivation of violent anti-blackness redressed.Indeed, the death of George Floyd precipitated a thousand such movements the world over. The agonizing strangulation of a man's life-breath unleashed a storm of subaltern sighs globally. These sighs threatened to become a force of nature, a global tempest. What appeared as a moment in which the normalization of racial violence was supremely expressive of its murderous impunity paradoxically inaugurated a widespread rejection of that deadly prerogative. This time, the death of a black man, caught on tape and circulated globally, became an n-dimensional mirror in which folks in different situations of subjection around the world saw the reflections of their own trials and tribulations.Anthropologist Katherine Verdery has studied cases from post-socialist Eastern Europe, demonstrating how, under certain conditions, the materiality of the body of the murdered removes societal bars on re-casting the past. They render possible hitherto unimaginable futures (Verdery, 1999). Giorgio Agamben's (1998) homo sacer may be killed to maintain existing and embattled social relations, but this time, the case appears to be different. Some killings may unleash the genesis of new cosmologies, re-arranging rusty relations between objects (Nugent and Suhail,...

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Section: Aftermath: Cape Town 1961–2021mentioning

confidence: 99%

MOVEMENT 4. BREATH SIGH TEMPEST: On the Temporal Dimensions of Re‐arrangements

Cante¹,

Hussain²,

Makori³

et al. 2023

Int J Urban Regional Res

Self Cite

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“…We are thus pleased to present an exciting array of research and practice-based articles that are putting the voices of Africa's urban youth centre stage. 'We' are Laura Nkula-Wenz, an urban geographer working on the nexus of urban governance, cultural production, engaged pedagogy and critical urbanism (Cupers et al 2022;Nkula-Wenz 2018), Rike Sitas, a researcher on the humanities side of the social sciences interested in the role of youth, culture, technology and artful methods of urban enquiry (Sitas 2020), and Mercy Brown-Luthango, a researcher interested in issues of socio-spatial justice and inclusion in the city, with a focus on youth and marginalised communities (Brown-Luthango 2019). To situate this themed volume, we start by looking at how Africa's youth is commonly viewed and talked about in global media and policy discourses.…”

Section: Fortuin Cited In Mazetti Et Al (This Volume P 9)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Guest Editorial : Urban Youth - Engaging young people and their futures in African cities

Nkula-Wenz¹,

Sitas²,

Brown-Luthango³

2022

Gateways

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The twin reality of Africa as the world’s demographically youngest and most rapidly urbanising continent should, by default, make it a hotspot for youth-centred urban research. And yet, the voices of young Africans remain grossly absent in public discourse, policy debates and mainstream research on issues that directly affect them. This lacuna propelled the conceptualisation of this themed volume, entitled Urban Youth – Engaging young people and their futures in African cities. Showcasing submissions that not only push the envelope in terms of conceptual debates but also reflect in unconventional ways on experimental methods of co-production, this volume contributes to contemporary youth scholarship in three ways: firstly, by bringing together empirically rich, theoretically profound and collaborative scholarship from Africa; secondly, by showcasing cities in general and African cities in particular as productive, epistemological and relevant socio- political settings; and thirdly, by highlighting the importance of collaborative, multimodal research with youth that takes seriously their agency, aspirations and lived experiences, as much as the everyday structural challenges they face. To situate the volume, we first look briefly at common representations of young people, and particularly young Africans, within global media and policy discourses. To outline the broader knowledge project this volume connects to, we then discuss a few basic epistemological overlaps between the emerging fields of Global South Youth Studies and Southern urbanism. Introducing the rich array of creative, rigorous, experimental and propositional practices and research- based contributions that make up this themed volume constitutes the heart of this editorial. In conclusion, we argue that to secure our common urban future, it is pivotal to centre the voices of Africa’s youth. For this, creative multimedia approaches to knowledge co- production and representation will be needed, as will robust, multimodal Afro-centric partnerships.

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“…Thus, cities in the Global South have a strong imperative, as well as complex historical contexts, unique biocultural diversity and creative capacities, to advance the global sustainability agenda to be spaces for inspiration instead of just intervention (Nagendra et al 2018;Nkula-Wenz 2019;Ziervogel 2019). Cities are increasingly hives of opportunities for experimentation, with novel responses for catalysing change (Hebinck et al 2021;Sitas 2020). As most of the infrastructure for cities in the Global South is yet to be rolled out, there are immense opportunities for (re)imagining what equitable, resilient and multifunctional cityscapes could look like (Nagendra et al 2019;O'Farrell et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Youth visions in a changing climate: Emerging lessons from using immersive and arts-based methods for strengthening community-engaged research with urban youth

Sitas¹,

Selomane²,

Atkins³

et al. 2022

Gateways

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Despite increasing efforts, youth perspectives remain largely excluded from decision- making processes concerning their future and the social-ecological challenges they are set to inherit. While youth are a critical and powerful force for social change, many youths in underserved communities have limited access to appropriate information on the root causes and consequences of environmental change, in addition to an array of other complex social injustices. To address this, we embarked on a participatory action research process which focused on democratising research, science and the arts by facilitating experiential, immersive learning opportunities with the intention of eventually co-producing artifacts (in the form of participatory murals) in public spaces to facilitate longer term engagement with human nature futures. This article outlines and shares reflections on our process and offers insights for future engagement activities that seek to mobilise youth imaginaries and agency. We found participants were better engaged when conversations were (1) facilitated by other participants; (2) were outdoors and centred on public art; and (3) were happening in parallel with a hands-on activity. This contrasted with asking interview-type questions, or asking participants to write down their answers, which felt more like a test than a conversation, minimising participation. Key learnings included: the need to co-develop knowledge around enhancing climate literacy that is based on local realities; that multiple capacities and hives of activity already exist in communities and need to be mobilised and not built; that creative visioning and futuring can help identify options for change; and that many youths are seeking creative, immersive and safe spaces for co-learning and connection. Initiatives that aim to engage diverse voices should therefore be well- resourced so as to carefully co-design processes that start by acknowledging contextual differences and capacities within those contexts, and co-create immersive dialogues, in order to move away from test-like engagements which perpetuate power imbalances and discourage participation.

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Becoming Otherwise: Artful Urban Enquiry

Cited by 8 publications

References 43 publications

MOVEMENT 4. BREATH SIGH TEMPEST: On the Temporal Dimensions of Re‐arrangements

MOVEMENT 4. BREATH SIGH TEMPEST: On the Temporal Dimensions of Re‐arrangements

Guest Editorial : Urban Youth - Engaging young people and their futures in African cities

Youth visions in a changing climate: Emerging lessons from using immersive and arts-based methods for strengthening community-engaged research with urban youth

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