Whose city? Which sociality?

Middleton, Jennie; Samanani, Farhan

doi:10.1080/02723638.2021.2007665

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Social infrastructures may foster forms of sociality that enrich urban life. But they are also “implicated in wider patterns of power” and can “involve processes of urban appropriation and transformation that diminish or cut against” other forms of sociality (Middleton and Samanani 2022:780, 782). These concerns risk being overlooked by a politics of provisioning focused only on the presence, quantity, and upkeep of social infrastructures, in which diversity is approached in terms of spaces for different activities, accessible “ regardless of age, race, class, sexuality, or gender” (Latham and Layton 2019:8, emphasis added).…”

Section: Towards An Urban Political Economy Of Social Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti‐Social Infrastructures” in London

Horton

Penny

2023

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In this paper, we develop a situated and intersectional urban political economy approach to social infrastructure. This approach contrasts with a growing body of liberal urban geography, which offers an optimistic account of how shared spaces afford encounter and social connection. We present four arguments about why such outcomes cannot be assumed, which are informed by a case of contested redevelopment in the London borough of Haringey. First, social infrastructures express power relations, enacting distinct visions of “the social”, that are at times premised on the denigration of other forms of collective life as anti‐social. Second, elite social infrastructures are increasingly central to speculative urban development, serving to procure consent for, and valorise, investment. Third, other social infrastructures are essential networks of social reproduction and survival, especially for diverse working‐class communities: demolition and displacement mean infrastructural disruption. Finally, unequal political economies of social infrastructure are a realm of structural antagonism over urban citizenship (un)making.

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Section: Towards An Urban Political Economy Of Social Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti‐Social Infrastructures” in London

Horton

Penny

2023

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“…Autores clásicos como Santos (1993) o Escobar (2010) han hecho énfasis en el papel del lugar como potencial eje de una resistencia a la imposición de territorios 49-Especial una globalización desigual. Sin embargo, la glorificación del lugar, de lo local, de lo comunitario, nos puede llevar a la tentación de cierto culturalismo y de una homogenización que esconde las diferencias y las desigualdades (Massey, 1991;Middleton & Samanani, 2022;R ipoll & Veschambre, 2002). En este trabajo, que se apoya en las perspectivas de las y los habitantes que participaron en los talleres, estas dos posturas se encuentran en tensión.…”

Section: -Especialunclassified

Movilidad peatonal, sentidos del lugar y (des)territorialización en una periferia popular de la Ciudad de México

Ducharme

2023

TERRIT

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Este trabajo se enfoca en la temática de las representaciones del espacio local por parte de habitantes de una periferia popular de la Ciudad de México desde sus prácticas de movilidad peatonal. Está basado en la observación de cinco talleres de realización de mapas mentales enfocados en la movilidad peatonal, en los cuales participaron habitantes del “pueblo originario” conurbado de San Gregorio Atlapulco, ubicado en la periferia sur de la Ciudad de México. Los habitantes relatan una imposibilidad de caminar libre y decentemente en San Gregorio, de la cual nace un sentimiento de desterritorialización. El análisis de los talleres usa la movilidad peatonal como enfoque para entender los modos de “apropiación del espacio”, con la idea que cuando el potencial de apropiación del espacio se ve debilitado, los habitantes hacen resaltar ciertos elementos de un “sentido del lugar” que desean preservar.

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“…As a result, different and partly contradictory expectations are linked to the infrastructure: social meeting place for the neighbourhood, provider of do-it-yourself courses, magnet for socially diverse new residents, source of high-quality cultural programmes for the entire city and region, multifunctional node in a beaded necklace of knowledge-related cultural institutions, and incubator for a lively creative industry, to name a few. This suggests that infrastructures such as socio-cultural centres cannot be understood as facilitating fixed or clear-cut "cultural" or "social" functions, but that a more open and nuanced interpretation is required to recognise multiple and sometimes conflicting demands and outcomes (Middleton & Samanani, 2022).…”

Section: Conclusion: a "Motor" For The Neighbourhood?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dissecting the features of a single cultural infrastructure's embeddedness over time allows us to ask how much rationales of urban cultural planning and policy are site-specific and path-dependent. From a planning perspective, this can help us to reveal different meanings and multifaceted demands on infrastructures that go beyond simple and fixed functional attributions (Krisch, 2019;Middleton & Samanani, 2022).…”

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confidence: 99%

A “Motor” for the Neighbourhood? Urban Planning and the Challenges of Relocating Cultural Infrastructures

Mager

Wagner

2022

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In the past 40 years, alternative cultural institutions have been established in many Western welfare states to respond locally to the social and urban crises that have arisen in the post-war era. Community centres and workshops for local history and youth offer new opportunities for cultural and social participation and complement the offerings at more traditional cultural infrastructures such as art museums, theatres, and opera houses. Initially borne of grassroots movements that struggled for political recognition and necessary resources in protracted disputes with municipal authorities, these facilities now play important roles in the cultural landscape of many cities. In response to calls for a “democratisation of culture” and social development programmes targeting urban geographical inequalities, these institutions provide accessible and persistent spaces for socialisation, cultural empowerment, and negotiating community concerns. These facilities are often located on brownfields and are material manifestations of socioeconomic change and urban regeneration. Using the relocation of an established socio-cultural centre to a new neighbourhood in the city of Heidelberg, Germany, as an example, we seek to understand the evolving ways political and social relations are formed, negotiated, and challenged through cultural infrastructures. By analysing newspaper coverage, policy documents, and interviews with stakeholders from urban planning, city administration, community work, and resident populations, we map and evaluate shifting planning discourses and forms of embeddedness in the processes of de- and re-localisation. We end by reflecting on more open and nuanced understandings of cultural infrastructures that could generate multiple and diverse outcomes interacting and possibly outbalancing each other.

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Whose city? Which sociality?

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti‐Social Infrastructures” in London

Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti‐Social Infrastructures” in London

Movilidad peatonal, sentidos del lugar y (des)territorialización en una periferia popular de la Ciudad de México

A “Motor” for the Neighbourhood? Urban Planning and the Challenges of Relocating Cultural Infrastructures

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