Street Textuality: Socialism, Masculinity, and Urban Belonging in Tanzania's Pulp Fiction Publishing Industry, 1975–1985

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-210
Author(s):  
Emily Callaci

AbstractFrom the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, a network of young urban migrant men created an underground pulp fiction publishing industry in the city of Dar es Salaam. As texts that were produced in the underground economy of a city whose trajectory was increasingly charted outside of formalized planning and investment, these novellas reveal more than their narrative content alone. These texts were active components in the urban social worlds of the young men who produced them. They reveal a mode of urbanism otherwise obscured by narratives of decolonization, in which urban belonging was constituted less by national citizenship than by the construction of social networks, economic connections, and the crafting of reputations. This article argues that pulp fiction novellas of socialist era Dar es Salaam are artifacts of emergent forms of male sociability and mobility. In printing fictional stories about urban life on pilfered paper and ink, and distributing their texts through informal channels, these writers not only described urban communities, reputations, and networks, but also actually created them.

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Yuliya Vladimirovna Vetoshkina

The subject of this research is the urban communities that provide regular group classes in writing practices. The key research instrument was the method of interview proposed by Steinar Kvale. The goal of interviewing consists in determination and analysis of the reasons why modern citizens choose a leisure activity that involves joint writing followed by group discussion. The respondents became ten attendants of the community “Breakfast with Tesoro Notes” and “Written Practices” (in Perm). This article is methodologically based on representation of the city as a social laboratory pf R. Park, the concept of “a third place” of R. Oldenburg, understanding of communities through communication process proposed by V. Vakhshtayn, and the concept of social solidarity of E. Durkheim. The scientific novelty is defined by insufficient examination within the scientific literature of the phenomenon of urban communities engaged in writing practices . The following conclusions were made: the activity of urban communities engaged in writing practices takes place in public locations, such as cafes in the city center; people of different social status and age can become the participants of such practice,  although such event mostly attract female audience; urban writing practices form a social model, within which the participants establish communication of a supportive type. The main motive for attending the writing practices is the process of self-identification through self-nurturing. Due to the common thesaurus that develops among the participants, the rules and norms of activity that are observed by all participants and form a sense of security, such communities have well-established in the urban life. At the same time, they are open to new people and social processes, which promotes their long existence as a cultural form.


Author(s):  
Gwendolyn Y. Purifoye ◽  
Derrick R. Brooms

Abstract Much of the scholarship on poor Black urban communities focuses on social disorganization at the neighborhood level and how Blacks experience various institutional inequalities that impact their access to quality education and housing, jobs, and equitable public transportation. But Black social life is not a monolith of chaos, subjugation, and inequalities, nor is it confined to stationary neighborhoods. Black urban life is in fact vibrant, celebratory, and communal. Using two years of ethnographic observations on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses and trains, we highlight the sociality of Black mobile experiences within Black spaces. Specifically, we examine how Blacks, while traveling into and through majority Black communities, form positive intraracial relationships that we refer to as Black transit affinities, which are a type of actively developed, temporal, meaningful interactions that take place on mobile systems. These transit affinities move beyond linked fate and solidarity but are actively formed and have four distinctive features, they are: 1) personal; 2) mutually engaged; 3) actively maintained although interrupted by stops on the bus or train; and, 4) particular to majority-minority areas of the city. These transit affinities are intraracial and were not observed, as defined, interracially or in majority White areas of the city. We do not argue that they are exclusive to Blacks but that they took place among Blacks in Black spaces that have often been ascribed a narrative of disorganization, violence, and social fragmentation.


Author(s):  
Dmitriy Timoshkin

The article analyzes “migrant” spaces created in Irkutsk by journalists and users of urban digital media. We considered professional news agencies, groups in Vkontakte, and forums as a tool for “space production” in combining many autobiographical descriptions of interaction with the city, images, and publicistic texts into an integral socio-spatial image. We were interested in how the texts’ authors of digital media integrate migrants into the “image of Irkutsk”: do they create specific “migrant” places on the map of Irkutsk? What are their features? Do the “migrant” spaces created on various digital platforms differ from each other? Does the social marginality of the “migrant” receive spatial expression? The materials were selected in the Google search engine, as well as in the built-in search engines of urban communities on Vkontakte and forums, using the keywords “Irkutsk” + “migrants” or “newcomers”. We used the method of retrospective online observation and discourse analysis. By observing the users’ dialogues and publicistic texts posted at different times, we determined which localities “migrants” and “newcomers” were placed in, and what characteristics they were given. It was found that the professional media mainly broadcasts the bureaucratic vision of the “migrant” and its location: it is associated with a set of “suspect spaces”, points of concentration of informal jobs, and are regularly “checked” by officials. Spaces are presented as marginal, do not fit into the city as an established socio-spatial order, and therefore are “dirty” and dangerous. These images move to social media where the image of “dirty” spaces and the “migrant” hiding there, as transmitted by the bureaucracy, collide with the subjective experience of users, becoming more complex and ambiguous. Thus, the “migrant” is placed in a wider range of spaces and social situations, gradually becoming a part of everyday urban life.


Author(s):  
Benedict F. Malele

This study examined the link between urban planning practices and disaster risks. The study used the former Kunduchi Quarry Site within the City of Dar es Salaam to demonstrate how laxity in enforcing the laid down planning rules, regulations and procedures facilitates the accumulation and occurrence of disaster risks and disasters in urban areas. This undermines one of the central roles of urban planning, which is to protect the lives of people from disaster risks and disasters. In exploring this, the study specifically focused on understanding the rules, regulations and procedures of planning in Tanzania; the extent to which they are followed and, where they are not followed, their implications for disaster risks and disasters; the coping initiatives adopted by local communities to reduce risks and their level of success or failure; and finally the drawing of lessons and recommendations for disaster risk reduction in urban areas. Strongly emerging from this study is the finding that although planning rules and regulations do exist, they are not enforced. As a result urban communities suffer from disaster risks and disasters caused by unregulated activities. The study analyzed the coping initiatives that urban communities apply to reduce disaster risks in their areas. It noted that, while a range of “coping” responses could be observed, these are not lasting solutions to the disaster risks being faced. Sustainable solutions seem to be known by the local community but they are not adopted for fear of compromising or undermining their existing livelihood strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Maryna Budzar ◽  
Tetiana Tereshchenko

The article examines the life of urban communities of Kyiv in 1880–1881 in the perception of an imperial official, senator Alexander Polovtsov (1832–1909). The author`s concept based on the opinion that an important part of historical urban studies is the analysis of the activities of urban communities. They represent the state of urban life at a particular historical stage. The article uses excerpts from the “Diary” of Alexander Polovtsov, the Head of the Senatorial Revision Commission, dedicated to his stay in Kyiv in the autumn of 1880 and early 1881. This source is valuable mainly because the author, who did not live in Kyiv (wider — in Ukraine), looked at inhabitants of the city from “outside”. Such a detached view allows us to see Kyiv citizens, firstly the officials of the administrative and administrative apparatus, clergy, landlords, intellectuals — from conservatives to liberals — through the eyes of an “outsider”, a representative of imperial power. At the same time, the article presents diaries and memoirs of representatives of the Kyiv national-democratic intelligentsia, where the events described by Alexander Polovtsov are shown from a different perspective. This perspective of the study deepens the ideas about the peculiarities of the social and cultural life of Kyiv at a crucial moment in history — on the eve of the death of Alexander II and the accession of Alexander III and the change in the political course of the Empire. The informative character of Polovtsov`s diary is determined by its genre specificity. The text is full of facts, descriptions of events, meetings with people. From the position of the imperial high official represented a diverse range of beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of Kyivans in the field of politics, economics, land tenure, education, urban development, etc. The diary is full of succinct descriptions of the individuals contacted by the author. Polovtsov`s assessments help to understand not only how the tsarist government dealt with pressing economic, social and political problems in Ukraine. It helps understand the actions in resolving urgent economic and sociopolitical problems of Ukrainian provinces, the tsarist official`s own attitude to the people in whose milieu he found himself.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew James Stone

<p>The motivation of this thesis is to generate an understanding of how cities can begin to shift towards pedestrian friendly centres for activity. Introducing streams into urban environments through the process of daylighting can generate public life, improve sustainability, and enable growth. Daylighting is the process of bringing a stream back to the surface into a more natural state. By ensuring the stream is used as the core driver for strategic change, development can occur on the edges of the stream as a decentralised hub for activity and movement within the public realm. The stream as a public element can connect people and create active stakeholders within urban communities as the contributors to the vibrancy of the city.  Daylighting can be the catalyst to revitalise Wellington and demonstrate that urban environments are not confined to the existing structure of the city when reintegrating natural elements. Pedestrian activity along stream edges can act as a central mode of urban life, complementing Wellington’s existing waterfront. Generating public space around water as a central hub can connect people to social spaces that the city has previously turned from in favour of roads. Establishing dominant pedestrian areas located around a daylighted stream enables public space to prioritise activity over movement and allows infrastructure to prioritise people over vehicles. From hills to harbour, water can be used as a design tool, generating a language that can activate urban environments.  In developing the stream’s framework, it is important that the first considerations take regard of the direction and flow of the water’s path. The directionality of the stream should have the greatest benefit to the affected stakeholders to ensure the stream positively contributes to the qualities of the city. This contribution is essential for the people that work or live adjacent to the new infrastructure, as they will occupy the new space most frequently. Viability of the stream is dependent on the path it takes through the city, as this affects which landowners will be included in the project. Old or small structures, empty sites such as car parks, or roadways with limited vehicle movement could provide the greatest opportunity for development within the city. These should be considered fundamental to the implementation of the stream as they mitigate the changes to the affected stakeholders and benefit other members within the adjacent area.</p>


Author(s):  
Germaine Halegoua

The Digital City focuses on the interface of people, urban place, and the role that digital media play in placemaking endeavors. Critics have understood digital media as forces that alienate and disembed users from space and place. This book argues that the exact opposite processes are observable: many different actors are consciously and habitually using digital technologies to re-embed themselves within urban space. Five case studies from cities around the world illustrate the concept of “re-placeing” by showing how different populations employ urban broadband networks, social and locative media platforms, digital navigation technologies, smart cities, and creative placemaking initiatives to reproduce abstract urban spaces as inhabited places with deep meanings and emotional attachments. Through clear and accessible language and timely narratives of everyday urban life, the author argues that a sense of place is integral to understanding contemporary relationships with digital media while highlighting our own awareness of the places where we find ourselves and where our technologies find and place us. Through ethnographic and discourse analysis of everyday digital media practices and technologies, this book expands practical and theoretical understandings of the ways urban planners envision and plan connected cities, the role of urban communities in shaping and interpreting digital architectures, and the tales of the city produced through mobile and web-based platforms. Digital connectivity is reshaping the city and the ways we navigate through it and belong within it. How this happens and the types of places we produce within these networked environments are what this book addresses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  

Urbanization is making urban communities grow and increase in density. As this occurs, nature is expelled from urban areas and use of solid, slate and metal surfaces; carbon discharges increase the Urban Heat Island Effect. Rooftops are the spots that give an individual a chance to fantasize and allow them an imaginative standpoint towards their environment. What better place could there be for a garden or far and away superior, a vegetable garden? Rooftops are underutilized whereas it has a great potential. This paper is the study to understand the scope of development and perception of rooftop farming in residences in Bangalore. Two distinct surveys have been conducted to know the citizen's perception of the rooftop farming: one being a practitioner survey and the other is the non-practitioner survey. Rooftop farming has a wide applicability in zones with moderate climate and hence could be incorporated in the city very efficiently. To conclude, a few guidelines have been recommended to enhance rooftop cultivating practice and urge more individuals to rehearse rooftop farming for the better change of urban life.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew James Stone

<p>The motivation of this thesis is to generate an understanding of how cities can begin to shift towards pedestrian friendly centres for activity. Introducing streams into urban environments through the process of daylighting can generate public life, improve sustainability, and enable growth. Daylighting is the process of bringing a stream back to the surface into a more natural state. By ensuring the stream is used as the core driver for strategic change, development can occur on the edges of the stream as a decentralised hub for activity and movement within the public realm. The stream as a public element can connect people and create active stakeholders within urban communities as the contributors to the vibrancy of the city.  Daylighting can be the catalyst to revitalise Wellington and demonstrate that urban environments are not confined to the existing structure of the city when reintegrating natural elements. Pedestrian activity along stream edges can act as a central mode of urban life, complementing Wellington’s existing waterfront. Generating public space around water as a central hub can connect people to social spaces that the city has previously turned from in favour of roads. Establishing dominant pedestrian areas located around a daylighted stream enables public space to prioritise activity over movement and allows infrastructure to prioritise people over vehicles. From hills to harbour, water can be used as a design tool, generating a language that can activate urban environments.  In developing the stream’s framework, it is important that the first considerations take regard of the direction and flow of the water’s path. The directionality of the stream should have the greatest benefit to the affected stakeholders to ensure the stream positively contributes to the qualities of the city. This contribution is essential for the people that work or live adjacent to the new infrastructure, as they will occupy the new space most frequently. Viability of the stream is dependent on the path it takes through the city, as this affects which landowners will be included in the project. Old or small structures, empty sites such as car parks, or roadways with limited vehicle movement could provide the greatest opportunity for development within the city. These should be considered fundamental to the implementation of the stream as they mitigate the changes to the affected stakeholders and benefit other members within the adjacent area.</p>


Author(s):  
Azhari Amri

Film Unyil puppet comes not just part of the entertainment world that can be enjoyed by people from the side of the story, music, and dialogue. However, there is more value in it which is a manifestation of the creator that can be absorbed into the charge for the benefit of educating the children of Indonesia to the public at large. The Unyil puppet created by the father of Drs. Suyadi is one of the works that are now widely known by the whole people of Indonesia. The process of creating a puppet Unyil done with simple materials and formation of character especially adapted to the realities of the existing rural region. Through this process, this research leads to the design process is fundamentally educational puppet inspired by the creation of Si Unyil puppet. The difference is the inspiring character created in this study is on the characters that exist in urban life, especially the city of Jakarta. Thus the results of this study are the pattern of how to shape the design of products through the creation of the puppet with the approach of urban culture.


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