(Dis)Enchanting the City: Charles de Lint’s Urban Fantasy Fiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-412
Author(s):  
Weronika Łaszkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Fantasy Fiction ◽  
Urban Fantasy ◽  
The City

Abstract The aim of this article is to investigate the works of Charles de Lint in order to evaluate their position within the genre of urban fantasy. The theoretical framework is adopted from Stefan Ekman’s article “Urban Fantasy: A Literature of the Unseen” (2016) which investigates the genre’s development and formulates a list of its most distinctive features. While this article uses Ekman’s study to examine de Lint’s fictional cities, it also indicates how de Lint’s works challenge Ekman’s analysis. Moreover, the article demonstrates how de Lint’s concern with problems of urban communities transforms his works into narratives of social inclusion, which are particularly significant in the age of the Anthropocene.

TRANSIT AFFINITIES

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn Y. Purifoye ◽  
Derrick R. Brooms
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Mobile Systems ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Intraracial Relationships ◽  
The City

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.

scholarly journals Urban Commons and the Right to the City

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
City Space ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Right ◽  
Urban Commons ◽  
The City

In the increasing cosmopolitan condition of our cities inclusionary urban commons are becoming more and more relevant as civic institutions for encounter, dialogue and collaboration. Their non-commodifiable asset experiences increasing issues of social inclusion, participation, privatisation and universal access. The papers included in this issue of The Journal of Public Space are focused on the development of the commons’ capacity firstly to contingently relate and articulate heterogeneous values and paradigms, personalities, spheres of thought and material and intangible elements; secondly to sustain equity, diversity, belonging by transforming conflicts in productive associations that counter conditions of antagonism to set up critically engaged agonistic ones (Connolly, 1995; Mouffe, 1999, 2008). They include analytical studies, critical appraisals and creative propositions—part of which documenting the City Space Architecture’s event at Freespace, the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale—which address the power of the inclusionary urban commons to support the constitution of free, open and participatory networks that enhance social, cultural and material production of urban communities by reclaiming, defending, maintaining, and taking care of the “coming together of strangers who work collaboratively […] despite their differences” (Williams, 2018: 17).

scholarly journals GOVERNANÇA DEMOCRÁTICA E TERCEIRO SETOR: possibilidades e dificuldades em duas ONGs na cidade de Porto Alegre

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 467
Author(s):  
Fabiano Santana dos Santos ◽  
Luciano Mendes ◽  
Judith Elba Merlo Férran
Keyword(s):  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Sector ◽  
The City

Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho foi investigar em que medida as ONGs estão contribuindo para instaurar um regime de governança democrática, particularmente nas ações desenvolvidas por duas ONGs situadas na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS. Para tanto, no referencial teórico, discute, inicialmente, o conceito de democracia – na concepção habermasiana – e de governança – na visão de Kazancigil. Sendo assim, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida com os diversos atores que fazem parte do cotidiano das ONGs: membros da comunidade, funcionários e diretoria. A parte dos resultados e discussão foi dividida em três etapas. A primeira de apresentação das ONGs. E as duas últimas vinculadas aos dois pressupostos da governança democrática: a democracia local e a participação nas instâncias de decisões.Verificou, por fim, as possibilidades e dificuldades na ampla constatação da governança democrática na promoção da transparência pública e na inclusão social das ações das ONGs. Palavras-chave: Governança democrática, Terceiro Setor, ONG’s, DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND THE THIRD SECTOR: possibilities and difficulties in two NGOs in the city of Porto AlegreAbstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which NGOs are helping to establish a system of democratic governance, particularly in actions developed by two NGOs located in Porto Alegre-RS. To this end, the theoretical framework, it was necessary to discuss, first, the concept of democracy - in Habermasian conception – and of governance - in the vision of Kazancigil. Thus, the research was developed with the various actors who are part of everyday NGOs: community members, staff and board. The part of the results and discussion was divided into three steps. The first, a presentation of NGOs and the last two linked to two assumptions related to democratic governance: local democracy and participation in decision instances. Thus, it was determinated the possibilities and difficulties in broad statement of democratic governance in the promotion of public transparency and social inclusion of the actions of NGOs.Key words: Democratic governance, Third Sector, NGO’s.

СТРУКТУРА, МОДЕЛИ И СТРАТЕГИИ УЧАСТИЯ ГОРОДСКИХ СООБЩЕСТВ В КОНФЛИКТАХ

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
А. И. Кольба ◽  
Н. В. Кольба
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
City Government ◽  
Expert Interviews ◽  
Competitive Strategies ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
The City

The article describes the structural characteristics of the urban communities of the city of Krasnodar and the related features that impact their participation in urban conflicts. This issue is considered in a number of scientific publications, but there is a need to expand the empirical base of such studies. On the base of expert interviews conducted with both city activists, their counterparty (representatives of the municipal government) and external observers (journalists), the parameters of urban communities functioning in the process of their interaction with other conflict actors are revealed. The communities characteristics such as the predominantly territorial principle of formation, the overlap of online and offline communications in their activities, the presence of a “core” with a relatively low number of permanent participants and others are determined. Their activities are dominated by neighborly and civilian models of participation in conflicts. The possibilities of realizing one’s own interests through political interactions (participation in elections, the activities of representative bodies of power, political parties) are not yet sufficiently understood. Urban communities, as a rule, operate within the framework of conventional forms of participation in solving urgent problems, although in some cases it is possible to use confrontational methods, in particular, protest ones. In this regard, the most often used compromise, with the desire for cooperation, a strategy of behavior in interaction with opponents. The limited activating role of conflicts in the activities of communities has been established. The weak manifestation of the civil and especially political component in their activities determines the preservation of a low level of political subjectivity. This factor restrains the growth of urban communities resources and the possibility of applying competitive strategies in interaction with city government and business.

Harry Beck's London Underground Map

Transfers ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Schwetman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Transit Networks ◽  
The World ◽  
London Underground ◽  
Societal Structure ◽  
The City

After Harry Beck designed his map of the London Underground, it became an icon of the city and a model for maps in other large transit networks around the world. The map allowed its readers to see themselves as components of the large, organized structure of the metropolis but also confronted them with the possibility of losing themselves to that structure. An analysis of the post-Beck subway map tradition shows it to be a battleground between the zeal for order and the latent chaos at the heart of the urban communities that the map represents and also situates this conflict in a larger context of the emergence of a global societal structure bound together by the control of capital and of the information that enables such control.

A theoretical framework of the governance institutions of low-income housing in China

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (9) ◽  
pp. 1967-1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Deng
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Rental Housing ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Public Rental Housing ◽  
Governmental Intervention ◽  
Governance Institutions ◽  
The City ◽  
Important Form ◽  
Low Income Housing

This paper develops a theoretical framework for institutional analysis of the governance of low-income housing in the city. I focus on the provision of local public goods as a central issue for low-income housing. Factors that affect the governance structure from the efficiency perspective and the equity perspective, respectively, are explored. I argue that over-subsidisation is an important problem for income-redistribution institutions and, hence, public housing or social housing becomes an important form of governmental intervention in low-income housing. The framework is then applied to low-income housing in China. In particular, I analyse the governance structures of several major types of low-income housing including public rental housing, private low-income housing, work-unit compound and urban village.

scholarly journals Identity, race and faith: The role of faith in post-Apartheid South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Klaasen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Overwhelming Majority ◽  
Correlational Approach ◽  
Complex Phenomena ◽  
The Church

South Africa has experienced an unprecedented influx of migrants in the 21st century. Immigration and race have contributed to the raising of important questions of identity and social inclusion. Immigration and race are two crucial phenomena for the church in South Africa because the overwhelming majority of immigrants to South Africa are affiliated to Christianity and active participants in worshipping communities.This article is an attempt to critically engage with the complex phenomena of immigration and race for the role of Christianity in identity. I will attempt to show how mainstream Christianity as an open-ended narrative and can provide the space for creative tension between the ‘host’ and ‘stranger’ for identity formation. I will use the theoretical framework of Don Browning’s correlational approach to demonstrate how the experience of immigrants and minority race groups creates identity of self and the constructive other.

scholarly journals City Literature in Abdu al-Aziz al-Makkali’s Poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Mujahid Ahmed Mohammed Alwaqaa
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Beautiful Woman ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
Poetic Work ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Historical Theory ◽  
City Literature

World literature teems with the portrayal of famous cities throughout the world. This kind of literature is unanimously known as city literature. It does not merely describe and portray places, objects, and landscapes for their own sake, it, however, gives readers a revisionist perspective to look afresh and introspectively into self, history, and culture. This paper aims to shed light on a city that witnessed great changes throughout its history. It is called Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, and it is one of such world-famous and ancient cities about which interesting and rich literature has been written. Sana’a has been immortalized in the prose and poetry of local and international prolific and intelligent writers such as Abdu al-Aziz al-Makkali, a famous contemporary Yemeni poet. Sana’a is magnificently portrayed in different exotic images in al-Makkali’s collection of poetry entitled Book of Sana’a. The poet engages in a kind of dialogue with the city in a personal experience and unique particularity, but in the process, this particularity becomes cosmopolitan. Each poem is located in a particular space which gives the poet and reader alike a sense of the place, history, and culture, and an intense feeling of wider identification and empathy. Sana’a is anthropomorphically portrayed as a beautiful woman, sad woman, beloved lady, spirit, and city of heaven. It is fantastically depicted as a unique piece of artifact molded and designed by the hands of God. So, this piece of research attempts to analyze social and political imports and the different images of the city employed by al-Makkali in his poetic work: Book of Sana’a. As a theoretical framework, the paper adopts both historical theory of criticism as well as the formalist theory, so the analysis is focused on both context and text of the selected poems.

scholarly journals O Papel da Recreação e do Lazer na Inclusão Social de Adolescentes

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
Virgilio Abrahão Junior ◽  
Julia Alejandra Pezuk
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Program ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Marginalized Youth ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

Resumo Atualmente no Brasil é possível observar uma parcela da população jovens, principalmente nas classes sociais mais baixas, sujeitos a situações que acarretam maior susceptibilidade para se envolver com drogas, prostituição, crimes, gravidez e doenças sexualmente transmissíveis. Diversos fatores psicossociais são necessários para que os adolescentes passem pela adolescência sem a necessidade deste tipo de envolvimentos. A recreação e o lazer podem ser usados como instrumento para facilitar a inclusão social e ao mercado de trabalho de jovens marginalizados. O impacto emocional positivo do uso da recreação e do lazer favorece o bem-estar e auxilia na inclusão social de adolescentes, e possibilitam o uso dessas ferramentas para serem explorados em eventos e atividades recreativas. Nesse contexto, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo mostrar a importância do desenvolvimento de projetos sobre recreação e o lazer para a inclusão social de jovens. Para isso é relatada a experiência com o Programa Social realizado na cidade de Guarulhos/SP intitulado Programa Oportunidade ao Jovem, que busca a qualificação profissional dos jovens da cidade que se encontram em situação de risco e pobreza, e que estão em geral excluídos da sociedade. Mostramos aqui que a inclusão social por meio de programas sociais usando atividades recreativas facilita a inserção social de jovens marginalizados e devem ser consideradas nas políticas públicas. Pois ainda permitem que adolescentes em situação econômica precária tenham a possibilidade de exercer uma profissão na área de recreação ao término dos cursos dos programas, impactando significativamente na vida desses jovens.   Palavras-chave: Programa Social. Agente de Recreação. Políticas Públicas.   Abstract In Brazil it is possible to observe a portion of the young population, mainly in the lower social classes, who are subject to situations that cause greater susceptibility to get involved with drugs, prostitution, crimes, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Several psychosocial factors are necessary for adolescents to go through adolescence without the need for this type of involvement. Recreation can be used as an instrument to facilitate social inclusion and the labor market for marginalized youth. The positive emotional impact of recreation favors well-being and assists in the social inclusion of adolescents and enables the use of these tools to be explored in events and recreational activities. In this context, this paper aims to show the importance of developing projects on recreation for the social inclusion of young people. For this, the experience with the Social Program carried out in the city of Guarulhos / SP entitled Programa Oportunidade ao Jovem, which seeks the professional qualification of young people in the city who are at risk and poverty, and who are in general excluded from society, is reported. We show here that social inclusion through social programs using recreational activities facilitates the social insertion of marginalized youth and should be considered in public policies. Because they still allow adolescents in a precarious economic situation to have the possibility of exercising a profession in the area of recreation at the end of the program courses, significantly impacting the lives of these young people   Keywords: Social Program. Recreation Agent. Public Policy.

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