Negotiating social identities: The influence of gender,age and ethnicity on young people's ‘street careers’ in Tanzania

This paper explores the diverse ways that children and young people negotiate their social identities and construct their life course trajectories on the street, based on ethnographic research with street children in Tanzania. Drawing on the concept of a ‘street career’, I show how differences of age, gender and ethnicity intersect with the time spent on the street, to influence young people's livelihood strategies, use of public space, access to services, and adherence to cultural rites of passage. Using the notion of ‘gender performativity’, I analyse how young people actively reconfigure gender norms and the concept of ‘the family’ on the street.     

Street child spaces: belonging,conflict and resistance in the city of Durban through the eyes of street youth

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the everyday ‘spatial tactics’ deployed by children in a street situation in order to deal with notions of public space that define them as ‘out of place’, marginal and deviant. Using photovoice, we reconstruct former street children’s definitions of and feelings about their spaces in the city, bringing into view a complex set of social problems, attitudes and strategies that moves beyond the traditional binary notion of street children as either deviants or victims. This work points to the importance of finding ways to ensure the voices of marginalized and disadvantaged children are heard and presents the narratives that are important to our understanding of their worlds. Analyzing their spatiality in contexts of conflict, belonging and resistance, we found that children and youth in a street situation are mainly concerned with empowering themselves and resisting dominant labels and police repression.     

Peripheral creativity: temporary cultural uses as alternatives to inefficient policies?

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on temporary and improvised cultural spaces in marginalized neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They are presented here as alternatives to current urban and cultural policies, often based on international ‘best practices’ models with exclusionary and segregating consequences. It begins with a brief overview into North American and Western European cultural planning policies. It then analyses the instability of cultural policies in Brazil, highlighting that, after a period of State recognition of bottom-up actions, administrators have turned to a contradictory planning scheme that mixes outdated and recent international trends, leading lower-income inhabitants to self-build their own cultural spaces. Unlike many products of today’s global strand of ‘tactic urbanism’, Rio’s temporary spaces are politically charged territories of resistance. An example is ‘Cine Taquara’ – an improvised cinema and debate forum that illustrates how, in an unequal city, such initiatives can do more towards social inclusion than ready-made models.     

Afterimages of the Victorian City

As emblematic spaces of social and cultural contamination, the Victorian street and underworld have had remarkable afterlives in twentieth-century reinterpretations of Victorian cityscapes. This article explores what persists in our vision of the nineteenth-century city well over a century after it was, so to speak, first seen, and how what persists impacts on our attempts to reconstruct that act of seeing. In the lived spaces around us there is in fact continuity, in that the city is a palimpsest and patchwork of Victorian and post-Victorian materials. However, to see those spaces as Victorian is in fact to elide a historical process of physical accumulation and syncretism. This article explores spectral ‘afterimages’ of the Victorian street and underground, in a variety of contemporary sources, ranging from Gary Sherman's Death Line (1972) and John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday (1980) to Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (New York: Picador, 1988), the material culture of steampunk and the Telectroscope by the artist Paul St George. It traces two distinct genealogies of renderings of Victorian urban spaces in current popular culture. While filmic renderings are obsessed with the ghostly circulation of Victorian spectres haunting the present, steampunk artists imagine an alternative temporality, locating the origin of an alternative future in the mobility of Victorian metropolitan culture.     

Spaces of the street: Socio-spatial mobility and exclusion of youth in Recife

The ‘street’ and ‘youth’ have long been issues of social concern and the subject of research both in Brazil and elsewhere. The perception and experiences of youth in relation to the street, however, and the corresponding gender and class relations which permeate these, remain an under-researched topic. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in low- and middle-income neighbourhoods in Recife, this paper shows how the street consists of different spaces and how the youth experience corresponding layers of socio-spatial exclusions and inclusions which vary over time.     

Street music,governance, and cultural policy in San Cristóbal de Las Casas

ABSTRACT

This article takes an ethnographic perspective to explore the changing ways in which the municipal government of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, a city in southern Mexico whose economy is highly dependent on tourism, has regulated street musicians over the last five years. It focuses on permits given to street musicians which served to exert spatial and temporal control over street performance, while giving musicians no substantial rights in practice. Engaging the so-called ‘anarchist turn’ in anthropology, it shows that this policy instrument effectively sidelined non-monetary forms of exchange between musicians and their various publics, and privileged the commercial interests of restaurants and bars. Further, in practice, it pushed some street musicians onto the margins of the city’s economic life, where their performances were often more, rather than less, disruptive. Nonetheless, this situation altered significantly in the wake of social unrest in Summer 2016, which caused a precipitous drop in tourism to the city. The municipal government’s response to the ensuing economic crisis signified a belated recognition of the economic value of street musicianship.     

Rethinking ‘safe spaces’ in children’s geographies

ABSTRACT

In this editorial, we provide a preliminary definition of ‘safe spaces’ before exploring how the collected authors have taken a fresh approach to understanding ‘safe spaces’ though a geographical lens. Until now, the material ‘location’ of safe spaces have remained under theorised, but by turning attention to how children and young people co-produce and bring safe spaces into being through their situated practices, this Special Issue provides rich ground for re-evaluating why places ‘matter’ in children’s lives. This editorial maps out those common threads that are uncovered across a diverse collection that spans playful protest in Johannesburg, family food struggles in Warsaw, to the theatrical parodies of second generation Somali youth in London.     

Istanbul’s intangible cultural heritage as embodied by street animals

ABSTRACT

Green, marginal, and sacred spaces in Istanbul host dogs, cats, and wild birds. In this essay, I argue that citizens enact embodied memories from the Ottoman era by caring for these animals. While birds are iconic representatives of the modern city, and street cats have become media denizens, the lives of street dogs are sadder. Animal rights activists are mobilized by the history of Ottoman administration efforts at eradicating them. Unlike actions inspired by this history, enactments of embodied memory are less conscious, such as residents cooking and distributing food to street cats. However, I argue that these are enacted social memories of compassion and charity and are an embodied form of intangible cultural heritage. Ottoman-era social practices of caring for street animals create an historical and legal foundation for justifying the right of street animals to live in the city.     

Cultural brownfields in European cities: a new mainstream object for cultural and urban policies

This paper develops the concept of ‘cultural brownfields’ and discusses how organic cultural projects developed in derelict sites have been progressively included in mainstream cultural and urban planning strategies and policies over the last 10?years. To do so the paper assesses the transformation of three mature cultural brownfields in Berlin, Marseille and Lausanne and their distinctive internal and external dynamics. It develops a typology of cultural brownfields which stresses the diverse nature of these spaces and their differential role in cultural and urban planning policies. The paper concludes by highlighting a series of policy lessons for urban planning and cultural strategies.     

Defying Delhi’s enclosures: strategies for managing a difficult city

Reflecting wider debates on the city as a site of coercion and opportunity, Delhi is marked by the coordinates of both cultural nationalism and neo-liberal aspiration. The former positions the city as a site of cultural pollution, at times claiming ‘western lifestyles’ have contributed to gendered assault. In juxtaposition, Delhi’s neo-liberal landscape positions the female body as a valued commodity, iconic of ‘globalised living’, embedded in discourses of autonomy and modernity. This article will argue that these entangled cultural constructs have created a city of threat and discomfort that problematizes women’s access, be it for livelihood or leisure, enclosing women within coordinates not of their making. Yet rather than acquiesce to this urban topology, the agency of the single, middle-aged, middle-class women in this ethnographic study extends our understanding of the agonistic relationships within urban space, and the capacity to negotiate them using practices of avoidance, deception, adaptation, defiance, and care, at times creating their own enclosures in the process that enabled access to the city. Age and class as well as gendered expectations impacted on the available resources and outcomes of these negotiations, revealing the diverse possibilities of urban living that can enable pockets of social and political flourishing even within a difficult city.     

Heritage on the move. Cross-cultural heritage as a response to globalisation,mobilities and multiple migrations

Globalisation is creating new perceptions of social and cultural spaces as well as complex and diverse pictures of migration flows. This leads to changes in expressions of culture, identity, and belonging and thus the role of heritage today. I argue that common or dominant notions of heritage cannot accommodate these new cultural identities-in-flux created by and acting in a transplanetary networked and culturally deterritorialized world. To support my arguments, I will introduce ‘Third Culture Kids’ or ‘global nomads’, defined as a particular type of migrant community whose cultural identities are characterised high patterns of global mobility during childhood. My research focus on the uses and meaning of cultural heritage among this onward migrant community, and it reveals that these global nomads both use common forms of heritage as a cultural capital to crisscross cultures, and designate places of mobility, like airports, to recall collective memories as people on the move. These results pose additional questions to the traditional use of heritage, and suggest others visions of heritage today, as people’s cultural identities turn to be now more characterised by mobility, cultural flux, and belonging to horizontal networks.     

Shifting meanings in changing contexts: the role of the creative city in Shanghai,Hong Kong and Taipei

Abstract

This paper probes the underlying motives behind the adoption of the ‘creative city’ policies in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. It argues that while the global appeal of the creative city is commonly attributed to urban entrepreneurialism, this reason alone is insufficient in explaining the so-called ‘cultural turn’ in these three cities, because none of them ascribe to the conventional format of the post-industrial ‘entrepreneurial’ city. In order to identify other major forces driving the adoption of creative city initiatives in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, this work delves into the ways in which the idea of the creative city is reworked within the context of global city making. The study found that in addition to urban entrepreneurialism, the inherited cultural policy agenda, which largely stems from national interests, also plays a significant role in directing (and changing) the ‘global cultural city’ making process. By looking into different roles attached to the ‘imported’ policy discourse of the creative city in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, this study not only contributes to the understanding of urban cultural policies within the Chinese-speaking world and East Asia more generally, but also lends some insights to the developing field of cultural policy mobility.     

Negotiating spatial identities: mobile perspectives on street life in uganda

Previous geographical research with street children has principally focused on their micro-geographies in the city. This paper draws on nomadic and episodic processes of homeless mobility, to explore street children's geographies from a wider social, spatial and temporal perspective. By examining street life in Kampala, Uganda as a continued negotiation of public/private and street/non-street locations, the fluid nature of street children's identity is illustrated. Over time, movement between spaces, such as divergent city niches, institutions, homes and other towns, is often subject to power relations operating in street/non-street spaces with each requiring conformity to a different set of values and behaviours. The paper demonstrates how this results in children's street identity changing as they move through the street life path.     

Culture for competitiveness: valuing diversity in EU-Europe and the ‘creative city’ of Berlin

The European Union (EU) has in recent years propagated an approach to ‘culture’ that pulls together support for the creative and cultural industries with diversity-sensitive immigration and integration strategies, drawing on popular policy visions of the ‘creative’ and ‘intercultural’ city. This approach emphasizes the role that the diversity of culture, as personal resource, can play in enhancing economic competitiveness. The article examines its logic and possible effects through an analysis of EU documents and policy in Berlin. Berlin intersects with the EU’s agenda, using EU structural funds and participating in the European program ‘Intercultural Cities’. It is shown that the attempt to use ‘culture for competitiveness’ equates support-worthy ‘diversity’ with forms of culture that conform to (neo)liberal values and priorities. The attempt to shape a cosmopolitan place attractive for investment and the high-skilled feeds into gentrification processes that create ‘diverse’ neighborhoods where ‘difference’ has no place.     

Bittersweet ambivalence: Austin’s street artists speak of gentrification

Both gentrification and street art are concerned with the conquest of urban space. Although historically, graffiti and street art have functioned to challenge the status quo, a growing appreciation for urban art unveils a far more collaborative attitude between some street artists and the elite. A familiar esthetic of gentrified terrains involves repurposing spaces that capture the urban experience. In some cities, urban redevelopment preserves original materials that capture that “urban feel” by highlighting exposed brick structures, rustic furnishings, industrial lofts, and urban art. In other cities, these styles are recreated consciously. This paper draws from in-depth interviews with street artists from Austin, Texas, one of the fastest growing urban landscapes in the U.S., to discuss street artists’ attitudes towards gentrification. Its examination of stories and personal narratives about gentrification shows the complexities of rapid urban expansion as perceived by Austin street artists, and concludes that street artists remain ambivalent towards gentrification. While street artists experience some negative effects resulting from gentrification, urban redevelopment also has another clear benefit for them: an expansion of their urban canvas. The growth of city space extends street artists’ creative playground, which advances the artists’ opportunities for paid work and exposure.     

Kitchenspace: Gendered territory in central Mexico

Drawing on extensive ethnographic field research with multiple women and kitchens in two central Mexico communities, this article argues for kitchenspace—indoor and outdoor spaces where food preparation takes place—as gendered territory. Using a feminist political ecology approach, it explores private and semi-public space in the everyday, household kitchen and the fiesta or ‘smoke’ kitchen at the center of community celebrations. Marked as gendered territory by distinct social boundaries and gendered, discursive strategies, kitchenspace is vital to the maintenance of traditional forms of organization and generational transmission of cultural and embodied knowledge. This article questions assumptions about ‘the kitchen’ as a site of social isolation and women's oppression that often characterize feminist approaches. It considers embeddedness in local social and spatial contexts and the importance of everyday life in private and public spaces.     

Towards Culture 3.0 – performative space in the public library

The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss the development of performative spaces in public libraries from a cultural policy perspective. First, a framework of three concepts of culture, 1.0–3.0, is used as a tool to analyse the overall development of public libraries. Against this background, we introduce the notion of performative spaces in public libraries by highlighting Nordic examples. The tendency can also be seen on a broader level in European and North American libraries, where a ‘performative turn’ can be seen as the relationship between the library and its users, especially the younger ‘digital natives’. The rationales behind the emergence of performative spaces in public libraries are analysed and discussed: democratisation, empowerment and economic impact. This article concludes that the performative spaces are legitimized by multiple rationales in the same way as cultural policies and cultural institutions are legitimised today.     

Public space and memories of migration: erasing diversity through urban redevelopment in France

This article examines the meaning of public space and impact of heritage-led urban redevelopment in a diverse neighbourhood in Montpellier, France. It traces the relocation of a North African market from a central city plaza in favour of French antiques, and the resulting contestation over what constitutes local heritage, who has the capacity to determine how public space is used, and the seeming erasure of migrant identities and memories from an important community site. The paper considers how urban areas are re-imagined through a change in the materiality of public space, and outlines the role of outdoor markets in defining the social function of such spaces. The paper examines the intertwining of physical erasure (urban redevelopment and the removal of a diverse food market) and cultural erasure (the loss of certain community memories), and how these processes speak to broader debates about French national identity, cultural heritage, and the meanings attached to public spaces.     

‘Lockout’ laws or ‘rock out’ laws? Governing Sydney’s night-time economy and implications for the ‘music city’

‘Lockout laws’ are not new in Australia – variants exist and have been trialled or continue to operate in Newcastle (since 2008), Melbourne (abandoned in 2008), and Adelaide (since 2013) and Darwin (since 2007). In February 2014, the New South Wales O’Farrell Coalition government introduced 1.30 am lockout and 3 am last drink laws for the Sydney CBD (Central Business District), among a series of other measures. The subsequent controversies about the ‘lockout laws’ in Sydney have provoked a curious and vivid set of debates encompassing crime, medical, moral, social, libertarian, cultural and industrial discourses. In this paper I wish to assess the new regulatory landscape within historical and contemporary perspectives of nightlife economies increasingly privileging cultural and entertainment city uses. Beyond unpacking the ‘lockout’ debate in terms of ‘liveability’ and ‘cultural city’ meanings as practised by Australian cities, this article will focus on the implications for Sydney’s ability to maintain its national and global status as a music city.