The role of heritage conservation districts in achieving community economic development goals

Most jurisdictions have some kind of measures to protect physical fabric and manage change within historic neighbourhoods. In Ontario, Canada’s largest province, these are called Heritage Conservation Districts. While much has been written about such aspects as identifying such districts, the designation process and their role in the urban landscape, less exploration has been devoted to understanding their potential role in economic development. This study examined two heritage districts in the Town of Markham, a fast-growing exurban municipality north-east of Toronto. Both of these neighbourhoods and both designated heritage areas have in place an economic development mechanism called a Business Improvement Area. The research involved interviews, household questionnaires, observation and statistical analysis. It was found that overall the data indicated that the management of the heritage resources supported and enhanced economic development. It was also found that there were considerable differences between the two areas in spite of their close proximity. The reasons for those differences are outlined.     

Emplacement and the politics of heritage in low-income neighbourhoods of Marseille

Recent scholarship addressing efforts to celebrate heritage in low-income neighbourhoods and housing estates has stressed the importance of attending to the continuity of place-based social relationships as a key factor in residents’ understandings of heritage, and, drawing on Smith’s conception of an ‘authorised heritage discourse’, the ways these understandings differ from hegemonic and generalised expert discourse emphasising the deficiencies of the material environment. In this article, I examine a new object of state intervention in France, ‘the heritage of popular neighbourhoods’, and describe points of convergence and conflict between local heritage work in Marseille and the recent discursive framework established to employ heritage as a tool in reorganising French state policy towards urban peripheral neighbourhoods (the politique de la ville). Drawing on ethnographic research (2007–2014), this article identifies emplacement as a key feature in residents’ performances of neighbourhood heritage, a feature often absent or poorly elaborated in heritage work promoted by French urbanist policy in the past. I describe the ways emplacement has been expressed aesthetically in arts projects, trace the range of social networks and relationships enacted, and describe the political implications of these performances as a tool for promoting solidarity across time and space in Marseille.     

Picturing inclusive places in segregated spaces: a participatory photo project conducted by migrant women in Sweden

This article uses participatory photography to explore contradictory processes of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary Sweden. Our aim is to analyse the social relations that shape the kinds of places recently arrived migrant women experience as ‘safe’, as well as their everyday experiences of inclusion and exclusion. The use of photography – wherein the women choose how, when and where to shoot photos – helps us highlight what otherwise would not be immediately evident with regard to the experience of such places. We argue that there are inclusive places in segregated spaces, and that issues of ethnic inclusion and exclusion are linked to ethnic hegemony and other relationships of power. Drawing on theories of relational space in general, and transgressive space in particular, we demonstrate that our informants' daily existence is simultaneously integrated and segregated, included and excluded, and that emancipatory processes that are already under way must be allowed to proceed if the social landscape of integration is to be an open and equal one.     

NEIGHBOURHOOD ETHNIC MIX AND THE FORMATION OF MIXED‐ETHNIC UNIONS IN BRITAIN: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS

Although developed societies are becoming increasingly ethnically diverse, relatively little research has been conducted on geographies of mixed‐ethnic unions (married or cohabiting). There is some recent evidence from the US that mixed‐ethnic couples are more likely to be found in mixed‐ethnic neighbourhoods, but this research is based on cross‐sectional data. Therefore it is not possible to determine whether mixed‐ethnic couples are more likely to form in mixed‐ethnic neighbourhoods or whether they are more likely to move there. Our longitudinal analysis allows us to tease out the relative importance of these two processes, furthering our understanding of the formation of mixed‐ethnic unions. Using data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study we examine neighbourhood effects on the formation of mixed‐ethnic unions in England and Wales. We find that mixed‐ethnic unions are more likely to form in neighbourhoods with low concentrations of co‐ethnic population. The results from this study lend support to the contact theory that geographical proximity to other ethnic groups enhances mutual understanding between people from different ethnic groups and could lead to the development of intimate partnerships.     

民族互嵌视野下的畲族海外移民研究——基于浙南文成侨乡的田野调查

论文以浙南侨乡文成县为田野调查点,基于畲汉民族互嵌的视角,分析了文成畲族海外移民的历史背景、动力机制、发展现状,阐释了侨乡畲族海外移民的时代意义。浙江文成县畲族海外移民既是中国改革开放的时代产物,也是文成县侨乡文化强烈辐射和畲族与汉族良性互动的结果。其深层动因则源于文成畲汉民族关系由形式上的互嵌向结构性的互嵌之顺利转型。文成畲族海外移民案例,标志着畲族历史变迁中的时代飞跃,有利于缩小畲汉发展结构性差异和增强畲汉民族关系的和谐,对当今畲族乡村振兴和畲汉民族关系发展亦具有重要启迪意义。     

A HISTORIC NEIGHBOURHOOD AS ARTS SPACE: THE LITTLE INDIA EXPERIENCE

Many cities around the world are redeveloping their neighbourhoods as arts and cultural precincts. Urban industrial zones and lower‐income residential areas have taken on new life as arts neighbourhoods in a bid to attract high‐yield visitors, propel their creative industry and brand themselves as attractive to investors and residents. This article has two aims. Conceptually it explores the notion of arts urbanization – the creation of arts spaces in cities and the socio‐spatial dynamics which they embody. Empirically, the concept is tested using the case of Singapore's Arts Housing Scheme. Under this scheme, historic ethnic precincts take on new roles as arts and creative belts. While the scheme has yielded some success by way of fostering spaces of identity and inspiration for artists, it has also generated social concerns and spatial challenges. Singapore's Little India offers an empirical setting to explore this concept. The paper argues that geography matters to the arts and that arts‐led urbanization creates distinct spatial configurations in cities. For this reason, a greater understanding of and research into arts neighbourhoods and their socio‐spatial dynamics are essential if we are to aspire to sustainable and sensitive development of cities and their creative communities.     

Collapsing contexts: social networking technologies in young people’s nightlife

In the latest discussions of children and young people’s new geographies of leisure and pleasure, one controversial issue has been how digital technologies co-produce and reconfigure young people’s everyday worlds. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with 40 young people who regularly use social networking technologies in their nightlife experiences in Zurich and Lausanne, two nightlife hubs in Switzerland. Informed by Danah Boyd’s concepts of ‘collapsing contexts’ and ‘imagined audiences’, this article enables a critical engagement with young people’s emerging understanding of their nightlife contexts, which are increasingly permeated by networking technologies. I show how social networking spaces facilitate the coming together, or collapse, of various social contexts which induce young people to imagine multiple audiences, including authority figures, in their nightlife practices. These collapsing contexts and imagined audiences, I argue, present new perspectives on debates about control and surveillance in young people’s contemporary urban nightlife.     

REPRODUCING AND RESHAPING ETHNIC RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN STOCKHOLM: THE ROLE OF SELECTIVE MIGRATION MOVES

This paper deals with the issues of selective migration moves, and the production and reproduction of immigrantdense neighbourhoods in Stockholm, Sweden. It has been shown earlier that selective migration, that is, socioeconomic and ethnic differences between those leaving, entering and staying in so‐called deprived neighbourhoods, reproduces these neighbourhoods' characteristics of being poor and immigrant dense. Key concepts launched to inform such studies and derived from the US segregation discourse are “white fight” and “white avoidance”, meaning that native people (or white people in the US case) tend to leave neighbourhoods experiencing growing numbers of immigrants (black people) and which they also tend to avoid moving into such neighbourhoods. Using a complete set of geo‐coded longitudinal individual data for the 2005–2008 Stockholm County population, this paper contributes to our understanding of ethnic differences in the intra‐urban migration system. Three empirical questions are addressed: what individual characteristics distinguish (1) those who move into neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those moving elsewhere in the urban region; (2) those who leave neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those who stay put; (3) those who move in the direction of higher immigrant densities from those moving into lower densities? Results from multivariate statistical analyses provide support for the avoidance hypothesis but less support for the fight hypothesis. When controlling for a range of individual and neighbourhood attributes there is clear evidence that native‐born Swedes are less inclined than most immigrant categories to move into immigrant dense areas while ethnic origin does not seem to matter much when explaining who leaves such areas.     

Coloured Cabinets: A Reflection on Material Culture as a Marker of Coloured Identity in Cloetesville,South Africa

In coloured neighbourhoods of the Western Cape in South Africa, there are objects in people's homes that live in a unique historical and cultural moment. This article reports on an examination, in the neighbourhood of Cloetesville, Stellenbosch, of how these objects inside residents’ homes tell a story of a creolised people and the locations in which they are situated. In the case of Cloetesville, as in many neighbourhoods that arose from a history of forced removals, many people experience various social and economic problems. Coloured people's identities are commonly thought to rest in these problems. This article, however, seeks to suggest an alternative way of exploring coloured identity through looking at objects in households and broader living environments. Thus, I hope to provide insight into different yet distinct experiences by contributing new perspectives through looking at nostalgic and ordentlike (respectable) sentiments of belonging. Specifically cabinets in living rooms are conceptualised as repositories of such sentiments in the home, and how the objects residing in the home have the power/ability to symbolically ground their owners in the neighbourhood of Cloetesville.     

Hard to miss,easy to blame? Peacelines,interfaces and political deaths in Belfast during the Troubles

As Northern Ireland moves further from the period of conflict known as the ‘Troubles’, attention has increasingly focussed on the social and material vestiges of that conflict; Northern Ireland is still a deeply-divided society in terms of residential segregation between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists, and urban areas are still, indeed increasingly, characterised by large defensive walls, known as ‘peacelines’, which demark many of the dividing lines between the two communities. In recent years a body of literature has emerged which has highlighted the spatial association between patterns of conflict fatality and proximity to peacelines. This paper assesses that relationship, arguing that previous analyses have failed to fully take account of the ethnic complexity of inner-city Belfast in their calculations. When this is considered, patterns of fatality were more intense within the cores or ‘sanctuaries’ of highly segregated Catholic and Protestant communities rather than at the fracture zones or ‘interfaces’ between them where peacelines have always been constructed. Using census data at a high spatial resolution, this paper also provides the first attempt to provide a definition of the ‘interface’ in clear geographic terms, a spatial concept that has hitherto appeared amorphous in academic studies and media coverage of Belfast during and since the Troubles. In doing so it embodies both the material and demographic aspects of social division in Northern Ireland, and suggests an urgent need to reappraise the true role of these forms of social boundary in influencing patterns of violent conflict.     

Children's neighbourhoods,social centres to ‘terra incognita’

Neighbourhoods are changing as people lead more spatially dispersed lives diminishing their local social connections. This paper explores the way children interact with their neighbourhoods to see whether they are still socially connected to their neighbourhoods or leading more spatially dispersed social lives. It reports findings from a study of 92 children aged 9–11 in Dunedin, New Zealand. The study found that while many children did have minimal social contact with their neighbourhood, other children retained strong social connections. Key factors determining children's levels of social connectivity include attendance at the local school, levels of independence, neighbourhood urban form, road density and locally accessible classmates.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.     

Six decades of ethnic minority population change in China

ABSTRACT

China’s 55 non-Han ethnic minority groups were at least in part politically and institutionally ‘invented’ by China’s ethnic classification project, and also through the effects of the system of continuous population census. This paper investigates population change of the non-Han ethnic minorities (NHEMs) over the past six decades. The number of NHEMs as a whole tripled from 1953 to 2010. However, growth has differed among individual groups and in different time periods. The population of some groups has fluctuated while that of others has grown steadily, regardless of the size of the groups. As a whole, since 2000 the growth rate of NHEMs has been lower than that of the Han Chinese, and the population of 13 NHEM groups has begun to decline. A growing number of people belonging to ethnic minorities have switched their ethnic identities to Han. This has especially been the case for NHEM youth. The change in ethnic minority populations has been influenced by dynamic interactions among demographic factors, ethnic identification as well as political, economic and policy changes.     

CREATIVE CLUSTERS IN BERLIN: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE QUALITY OF PLACE IN PRENZLAUER BERG AND KREUZBERG

Urban creative clusters are currently a major focus of attention, as their prominent position in both local political and academic circles makes evident. Many authors stress the importance of spatial concentration for creative industries. However, only a few studies have focused on the individual entrepreneur. As a result, empirical evidence of the meaning of urban place as a site for social networks and a space for inspiration is still scarce. This is of some consequence as entrepreneurs provide a crucial link between creative activities and economic change and development. This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating how different creative entrepreneurs choose and evaluate their location. Using qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs in two creative clusters in the Berlin neighbourhoods Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, this article shows the significance of the look and feel of specific places and explains how and for whom local networks are important.     

Circassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus

Diasporas are an increasingly important phenomenon in the ‘era of globalization’. Transnational networks structure and restructure economic exchanges, familial bonds, cultural identities and political mobilization. This article examines one such diaspora, which traces its origin to the North Caucasus, the Circassians. The break-up of the Soviet Union has enabled some people to journey back to their ‘homeland’ and even take up residence there once again. Through such journeys and the encounters that accompany them, notions of identity, history, culture and tradition are challenged. This has the dual effect of fragmenting ethnic identity while simultaneously transforming the ‘homeland’ from an abstract concept to an everyday reality. The ensuing interplay between nation and diaspora is translated by different individuals in different ways. Three narratives of journeys to the homeland are presented here, showing the complex motivations and consequences of such journeys. Ethnographies of globalization thus reveal that concepts of ‘ethnicity’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘ethnonationalism’ have to be rethought in the context of shifting borders, transnational encounters and the production of diasporas.     

Enga Social Life and Identity in a Papua New Guinea Mining Town1

The process of modernisation coupled with division of labour and leisure have had an enormous impact on tribal people. This group of people have responded to the bewildering environment with the consolidation of their existing network on ethnic and tribal solidarity. This paper looks at one group of people, the Enga people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) while they sought employment in the now abandoned Bougainville copper mine. The paper explains that the Enga workers maintained their own identity through utilisation of leisure activities amid the diverse presence of other workers in the mining town. It concludes that if ethnic and tribal solidarity were to be superseded by other forms of social alliance, would the latter eventually perform the role of protecting, recruiting, and reciprocating not only in Bougainville but in other PNG town settings? These are some of the questions that need to be addressed in the context of socioeconomic development and change in PNG and in other similiar developing countries.     

BETWEEN PLACES AND FLOWS: TOWARDS A NEW AGENDA FOR NEIGHBOURHOOD RESEARCH IN AN AGE OF MOBILITY

This article discusses the role of the neighbourhood in an era of increased mobility. It explores the consequences of the “new mobilities paradigm”, which argues that the growing importance of flows – of people, goods and information – results in a deterritorialization of social practices. Rows thus gain prominence in comparison to places like regions and neighbourhoods. At the same time, however, neighbourhoods continue to play a role in the actions and imaginations of people, neighbourhood organizations, and government policies. People still live in neighbourhoods, and governments still try to solve often severe social problems through neighbourhood policies. We argue that the neighbourhood has to be re‐imagined as a collection of hybrid nodes connecting a multiplicity of flows that bind actors and objects in order to understand the potential effectiveness of these policies. From this new mobilities perspective, we make suggestions for future neighbourhood research.     

Young people’s everyday securities: pre-emptive and pro-active strategies towards ontological security in Scotland

Abstract

This paper uses a framework of ‘ontological security’ to discuss the psychosocial strategies of self-securitisation employed by ethnic and religious minority young people in Scotland. We argue that broad discourses of securitisation are present in the everyday risks and threats that young people encounter. In response and as resistance young people employ pre-emptive and pro-active strategies to preserve ontological security. Yet, these strategies are fraught with ambivalence and contradiction as young people withdraw from social worlds or revert to essentialist positions when negotiating complex fears and anxieties. Drawing on feminist geographies of security the paper presents a multi-scalar empirical analysis of young people’s everyday securities, connecting debates on youth and intimacy-geopolitics with the social and cultural geographies of young people, specifically work that focuses upon young people’s negotiations of racialised, gendered and religious landscapes.     

文化冲突与跨国迁移群体的适应策略——以南非中国新移民群体为例

论文运用田野调查的方法,选择南非的中国新移民作为研究对象,介绍了20世纪90年代以来南非中国新移民群体的概况,阐释了中国新移民在南非遭遇的文化冲突以及他们的适应策略。研究发现,中国新移民在基本价值、家庭观念、消费观念等方面与南非人有明显的冲突,新移民群体对＂南非文化＂持一种＂保持距离＂的态度。具体体现在居住区域、社会交往和通婚等方面。同时,同质性强的中国新移民身处介于同质与异质之间的社会空间,对南非文化仍有明显的隔阂。