The Function and Foundations of Urban Tolerance: Encountering and Engaging with Difference in the City

Abstract

The key contribution of this article is its articulation of a conceptual framework for understanding the function and foundations of urban tolerance. The function of tolerance is defined as the capacity of the citizenry to negotiate harmonious encounters with difference and to engage with difference to secure improvements to social well-being. Yet the populations of cities are increasingly disconnected, spatially and socially. Has the citizenry lost its capacity, or indeed its willingness, to encounter and engage with difference? Strategies that endeavour to impose a mode of social interaction, which treat difference as illegitimate and understand tolerance as static, run the risk of perpetuating a cycle of intolerance. In contrast, the existence of a shared language of social interaction and the recognition of the legitimacy of difference are defined as the interrelated foundations of tolerance. Strategies to accommodate difference that appreciate the dynamism of tolerance, can unlock the potential of the citizenry to encounter and engage with difference.

Transformation From Representational Space To Tolerance Space: The Juxtaposition Of Ideal And Real In The Urban Public Area

“…A literature overview shows that several studies consider tolerance an important urban concept. These studies have settled arguments in a multiplicity of understandings, including the relationship between migration and tolerance (Wilson, 1991), misleading semantic and social signals of concept of tolerance within multiculturalism (Schirmer et al, 2012), lived diversity in urban space and tolerant attitudes (Wessel, 2009), function and foundations of urban tolerance (Bannister and Kearns, 2013). Institutional research projects and programs (for example, the EU-funded "Towards a Topography of Tolerance and Equal Respect" (2011) and the multidisciplinary Norwegian research initiative and symposia titled "Tolerance and the City" (2010)) focus on conflict and intolerance as general and fundamental problems of cities -and not only cities in developed countries but also in recently developed and developing ones, which unavoidably experience socioeconomic differences among citizens.…”

“…Recognizing differences, multiplicity and fragmentation through their negative or positive effects on cities is a major interest of urban studies and geographical research in different perspectives, contexts and scales (see Young, 1990;Garza, 1996;Sandercock, 1998;Sennett, 2003;Robinson, 2004;Fainstein, 2005;Amin, 2008;Brown, 2012;Bannister and Kearns, 2013). Interestingly, these effects can be easily discerned when they perform within a realm of formal consistency and within an "assumed stable situation" (Lefebvre, 2012, 182).…”

Mediated Conviviality and the Urban Social Order: Reframing the Regulation of Public Space

“…As such, the focus is on thinking about the everyday regulation and policing of public space (Crawford and Hutchinson, 2015) rather than a broader political-economic project. The concept of mediated conviviality put forward in this paper draws together and develops upon philosophical ideas on urban tolerance and diversity (Bannister and Kearns, 2013), ethnographic observations of public spaces (Jacobs, 1961;Worpole and Knox, 2007), theoretical models of responsive regulation (Ayres and Braithwaite, 1992) and the findings of studies on the use of procedural fairness by street-level bureaucrats when enacting authority (Tyler, 2013). It also takes inspiration real world examples, including City Park in Bradford, where the local authority has made deliberate attempts to develop an inclusive approach to regulation of this new urban space .…”

“…Moreover, this securing of the city has led to charges that the 'right to the city' for certain marginal groups have become significantly curtailed fuelling debates about the decline of civil liberties and 'the end of public space' (Sorkin, 1992;Mitchell, 1995;. Furthermore, it is suggested that in this process people harden their attitudes towards 'others', which have the counter-productive effects of producing even greater demands for security and more intrusive and intolerant forms of policing (Crawford, 2008;Bannister and Kearns, 2013). This paper develops upon these well-established critiques by harnessing inter-disciplinary perspectives and utilising contemporary real world examples to re-frame and advance debates about the future regulation of public space.…”

« Ici, c’est polyethnique » : les cadrages de la diversité ethnique dans quatre quartiers de classes moyennes à Montréal

“…Les espaces publics des quatre quartiers partagent en commun cette caractéristique. Cependant, il ne faudrait pas conclure trop rapidement à une adoption indifférenciée de cette attitude civile au fondement de la société moderne (Bannister et Kearns, 2013). On observe au contraire des variations dans sa mise en oeuvre d'un quartier à l'autre, lesquelles peuvent avoir un impact sur la manière dont les personnes interagissent dans l'espace public.…”