Borders and belongings in Nordic feminisms and beyond

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with feminist grassroots groups and women’s organizations in a Nordic context, this article aims to explore how feminist enactments shape multiple layers of spatiality and belonging. I analyse autoethnographic reflections from two feminist events, both taking place in Malmö in June 2014. Rather than understanding Nordic feminisms as a stable object, I follow in this article the initiative of decolonial scholars to analyze how feminist communities are shaped by affects, enactments and inhabitations which both ‘speak back’ to located conditions and transgress beyond them. I use phenomenology in my engagement with the material and employ a palimpsestic reading mode to trace the multi-layered constructions of spatiality and belonging in feminist performances, identifications and affiliations. As affective value shaped the effects of surfaces or borders of bodies and spaces, theorizations on affect helped me to grasp how complex forms of belonging became entwined with particular performances of geography and history.     

Defining dreams: young mothers’ agency in constructions of space

Understanding young mothers’ emic, or insiders’, spatial experiences is critical to realizing how their agency manifests in constructing and producing spaces, as opposed to common images of them as passive, vulnerable women living in deprived neighbourhoods. Set in the shrinking region of Parkstad Limburg in the Netherlands, this article draws on in-depth interviews and long-term participant observation in order to explore which modalities of agency emerge from young mothers’ spatial engagements with their neighbourhoods and homes. This article contributes to greater diversity and more agentic representations of young mothers than commonly perceived, and to a nuanced understanding of agency. The findings reveal that these women are continually navigating the social, physical and economic–political dimensions of space, from which four modalities of agency emerge: (1) ‘adhering to norms’, (2) ‘defining dreams’, (3) ‘challenging rules’ and (4) ‘considering options’. Contrary to understandings within a dominant independence-oriented discourse of agency as taking subversive action, this article shows that agency occurs in tacit, routine spatial practices, whilst navigating through individual circumstances and sociospatial structures and norms.     

Rural youth and urban-based vocational training: gender,space and aspiring to ‘become someone’

ABSTRACT

The policy phrase Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is rapidly gaining ground across Southeast Asia (and beyond). Despite numerous policy reports, little is known about how vocational training and education work as sites of practice. This is especially true for informal household-based apprenticeships and privately organized, commercial classroom-based training. Yet, these latter arrangements are numerous, an integral part of the widespread informal economy, and reflecting the fact that homes have retained their productive character in much of the Global South. Combining a village-based perspective (Laos) with an urban-based perspective (Cambodia), we analyse how these informal and privately organized training spaces are situated in rural youth’s gendered lives and shaped by, but also generative of, aspirations of ‘becoming someone’. In addition, comparing informal apprenticeships with classroom-based training leads us to raise some important questions about the implications of the (global) policy emphasis on the standardization and formalization of TVET.     

基于手机信令数据的长春市活动空间特征与社区分异研究

居民时空行为成为透视城市空间的重要视角,本文基于手机信令数据研究长春市活动空间及其社区分异,轮廓性的揭示居住空间、就业空间和消费休闲空间的分布规律,从人地互动的过程与格局的视角认识城市空间。研究发现,居住活动对中心城区依赖明显高于就业和消费休闲活动,就业活动呈现多中心连片发展格局,近郊的欧亚卖场和郊区的净月潭成为人们消费休闲活动的重要选择。就业-居住距离和消费休闲-居住距离的社区分异显著,折射出三类活动空间关系复杂,由此感知城市生活空间质量和社会空间结构。通过对社区分异的空间聚类分析明晰各地域自身问题,从而有针对性的对长春的空间调整优化和居民行为引导提出建议,构建和谐宜居的城市空间。     

Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories

This article introduces the dossier ‘Spatializing Transnational History: European spaces and territories’. It examines the intersections between transnational history and the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in social sciences, and points at future directions in historical research. It reviews two main different methodological approaches to the problem of space in transnational, comparative and global history and examines recent contributions on the history of territory. Finally, it introduces the contributions to this dossier, which approach the history of modern Europe from a number of transnational and spatial perspectives. The dossier argues that incorporating a combination of spatial approaches, ranging from the examination of transnational spaces, to the interplay between different scales of analysis, and to the historicization of territoriality, into the practice of transnational, comparative and global history may contribute to a deeper, wider and more complex understanding of ‘Europe’.     

基于快递物流测度的区域流动空间特征——以江苏省为例

在信息技术推动下,流动空间作为新时期的新空间形式在带来时空压缩效应的同时不断地强化着区域城市间联系,推动着社会经济资源的城际流通。快递物流是互联网交易的虚拟流与快速交通实体流交互产生的物质流动,其代表了流动空间的虚实二元性,是研究流动空间网络特征的有效切入点。以江苏十三个城市为研究区域,以六家物流公司的网站数据为数据来源,采用权重分析法和重力模型方法建立起区域城市的快递物流水平、城市间流动空间连接度及城市快递物流总体评价等三项指标,结合区域流动空间的指标分析发现区域流动空间具有网络一体化、去中心化、扁平化、等级化及点轴式等五大特征,基于流动空间的可视化研究发现江苏省区域城市间关系显示出了一个具有等级特征的多中心扁平化点轴网络,围绕南京、苏州、徐州的都市圈一体化发展态势成为提高区域流动空间流动能力的重要突破方向。     

Traditions and transitions: teenagers' perceptions of parading in Belfast

The purpose of this article is to explore and illuminate teenagers' experiences of, and attitudes to, parades in Belfast. The research draws on responses from 125 teenagers located in interface areas (areas where Catholics and Protestants live side by side but apart) to government supported attempts to rebrand Orangefest (traditional parade associated with Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community) and St Patrick's Day (traditional parade associated with Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) as all-inclusive community events. For the most part, young people access these parades in pre-existing, single identity peer groups and view these parades as either inclusive or exclusive calling into question the extent to which Belfast's city centre can be viewed as shared space.     

Conceptions of place: approaching space,children and physical activity

In this paper, we argue that place mapping is useful for approaching children's conception of place and that this is of relevance when designing physical activity interventions. We contend that socio-material factors influence children's perception and use of places, and are crucial to understand in relation to their use of local neighbourhoods for physical activity. A place mapping of children's understandings and everyday use of their local neighbourhood in suburban Copenhagen was conducted with a fifth grade elementary school class. The mapping and subsequent analysis resulted in three categories of relevance to children's conceptions of place; located social experiences, experiences of the unknown, and children's contested spaces. We argue that such knowledge can provide useful information in the development and evaluation of activities that promote physical activity in urban spaces.