scholarly journals Negotiations of Socio-Spatial Coexistence through Everyday Encounters in Central Athens, Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 150-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva (Evangelia) Papatzani ◽  
Lena Knappers
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Settlement Dynamics ◽  
The City

Over the past decades, Athens has emerged as both a destination and gateway city for diverse migrant populations. Athenian urban development interrelated with migrants’ settlement dynamics has resulted in a super-diverse and mixed urban environment. This article focuses on the western part of Omonia, in central Athens, Greece, and investigates sociospatial trajectories of migrants’ habitation, entrepreneurship, and appropriation of (semi-)public spaces. It draws on scholarship about everyday encounters where negotiations of difference and interethnic coexistence take place at the very local level. It explores encounters between migrants, as well as between migrants and locals, that are created due to their everyday survival and social needs. The article argues that these ‘place-specific’ and ‘needs-specific’ encounters emerge as ‘micropublics’ that are open to negotiation, manage to disrupt pre-existing social boundaries, and epitomise processes of belonging in the city. The article draws from ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative semi-structured interviews carried out from 2013 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2019.

scholarly journals Recomposing the City: A Survey of Recent Sound Art in Belfast

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 47-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gascia Ouzounian
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Sonic Art ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The City ◽  
Radical Transformation

This article introduces examples of recent sound art in Belfast, a city that has undergone radical transformation over the past decade and is home to a burgeoning community of sound artists. The text investigates the ways in which sonic art can redraw boundaries in a city historically marked by myriad political, socioeconomic, religious and sectarian divisions. The article focuses on sound works that reimagine a “post-conflict” Belfast. These include site-specific sound installations in urban and public spaces, soundwalks, sculptures, locative and online works, and experimental sonic performances that draw upon traditional Irish song and music.

scholarly journals Actually existing silk roads

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Zhejiang Province ◽  
Global Distribution ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Trading Posts ◽  
The World ◽  
Trade And Exchange ◽  
The City

This article explores the relevance of the concept of Silk Road for understanding the patterns of trade and exchange between China, Eurasia and the Middle East. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, in China's Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is a node in the global distribution of Chinese ‘small commodities’ and home to merchants and traders from across Asia and beyond. The article explores the role played by traders from Afghanistan in connecting the city of Yiwu to markets and trading posts in the world beyond. It seeks to bring attention to the diverse types of networks involved in such forms of trade, as well as their emergence and development over the past thirty years.

scholarly journals Effects and Challenges of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Beach Economy: The Case of the Tents Business in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-286
Author(s):  
Julia Valentin Laurindo Santos ◽  
João Vitor Prudente ◽  
Letícia Parente-Ribeiro ◽  
Flavia Lins-de-Barros
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Traditional Sector ◽  
The City

In 2020, the rapid spread of Covid-19, a disease caused by a highly contagious virus, led many governments to adopt measures of social distancing, including the suspension of activities considered non-essential and the closure of public spaces. In Brazil, a country that is distinguished by sun, sea and sand tourism (3s), the effects were immediate in the months of March, April, May and June: closed beaches and the suspension of all economic activities linked to it. This article seeks to understand the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on a traditional sector of the beach economy in Rio de Janeiro, the “tent business”. For that, we analyzed: 1) the organization of this sector in the pre-pandemic period; 2) the legal measures adopted to contain the spread of the new coronavirus and which affected the uses of beaches; 3) the effects of the pandemic on the daily lives of beach workers 4) the challenges for the resumption of activities in the post-pandemic period. The data used in this research are the result of surveys and fieldwork carried out in the period before the pandemic and the application, during quarantine, of semi-structured interviews, via social networks, with owners and employees of tents on the beaches of the city’s waterfront. For this study, the normative measures that affected the beaches of the city of Rio de Janeiro during the pandemic were also analyzed. As main results, we highlight, first, the importance of the “tent business” in the economic circuits associated with Rio beaches, as well as the role that tents play as poles of concentration of bathers in the sand strip. Regarding governmental measures of social distance, we noticed that the beaches were one of the areas affected for the longest time by the suspension of activities and that, until the total reopening occurred in October, the activities associated with the solarium, such as the “tent business”, were those that presented a more uncertain horizon of recovery. The impacts on the daily lives of the owners of the tents and their employees were enormous, with the vertiginous decrease of their incomes and the difficulties of finding alternative occupations. These effects were partially offset by the adoption of assistance measures by governments and the creation of support networks involving beachgoers, both Brazilian and foreigner, as a result of a relationship built over the years with stallholders and other beach workers. Finally, from a comparative exercise with other situations in the world, we highlight the challenges that are already being faced for the adoption of new ways of ordering the uses of beaches in the post-pandemic world. Keywords: Coastal management, social distancing, beach workers, beachfront, solarium.

scholarly journals SOCIO-CULTURAL PHENOMENON OF HISTORICAL TERRITORIES. WOODEN FORTRESS OF SAMARA

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-132
Author(s):  
Svetlana G. MALYSHEVA ◽  
Elena V. SHLIENKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Spatial Expansion ◽  
Urban Center ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The City

The architectural and planning features of wooden fortresses of the city of Samara, built next to each other with a time interval of 120 years, are considered. The origins of one of the unique spatial characteristics of Samara, a special historical code of development of its territory, are analyzed, when at each new stage of development in the city a new center was formed with a consistent movement higher and higher along the watershed from the arrow of the Volga and Samara rivers. The emergence of this spatial expansion is justifi ed by the construction of a second wooden fortress as a new urban center, but not in the place of the burnt fi rst fortress, but in the neighboring territory after 200 m. Since at the moment both fortresses have not survived, with the exception of basement fragments , the authors analyze the possibilities of a new reading of the “memory of the place” and the restoration of the cultural and genetic code of the city that was lost in due time. The article proposes an algorithm for the development and subsequent comprehensive implementation of the historical and cultural strategy of urban development, based on the creation of unique models of public spaces that can connect the past and the present in a new spatial paradigm. The concept of an interactive platform is considered with the aim of promoting a sociocultural project and drawing public att ention to the problem of the irretrievable loss of the historical and cultural heritage.

scholarly journals Neglect as effacement: the multiple lives of the Jardin Ralaimongo, Mahajanga, Madagascar

Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 352-384
Author(s):  
Tasha Rijke-Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Port City ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Multiple Lives

AbstractBy considering the lifespan of a garden, this article investigates the myriad spatial practices of forgetting and remembering the colonial and postcolonial pasts that people apply to their urban surroundings in Mahajanga, Madagascar. In the heart of an ancient residential and commercial neighbourhood in this multi-ethnic Indian Ocean port city sits the Jardin Ralaimongo. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I explore the trajectory of the garden to elucidate the ways in which different socio-political groups have drawn on this site to negotiate differences, frame collective memories, and stake their claims to the urban landscape. I show how, as city inhabitants have reworked the spaces of the garden, so too has the park itself – its layout, material artefacts and location within the city – constrained the possibilities of what can be remembered and silenced, and who can be bound to one another, in contemporary times. Over its hundred-year history, this site has been founded, forgotten and reincarnated as a memorial to a succession of revered leaders, thus serving as a kind of spatial register of the historical socio-political changes that have given rise to the city. This article suggests that the deterioration of colonial-era architectural forms through long-standing neglect and abandonment may be understood as an active spatial practice of effacing some dimensions of the past, while the subsequent recuperation of deserted public spaces by certain groups is an effort to position themselves as legitimate residents and express their attachment to the city.

The Grid Cities

2018 ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotondo
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The South ◽  
Central Places ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adriatic Coast ◽  
The City

The pattern of the grid city now seems dated and far from the metropolisation phenomena that characterize contemporary cities. In fact, as already happened in the past, the grid cities manage to evolve favoring the needs of its contemporary inhabitants. In this chapter, the authors try to understand some phenomena that characterize the transformation of the urban form of the grid city, highlighting its own ability to evolve between tradition and innovation. During these 200 years, the grid city, its buildings, and its public spaces were created, lived, and processed in multiple ways: built, replaced, drawn, renovated, restored. Here, the authors do not want to describe these planning and building tools, but they want to discuss the possible implications of the different transformation modes used in the grid city can have on urban and architectural perception of the physical space, the quality of life, and viability of these central places for the city's identity. The city of Bari, on the Adriatic Coast, in the South of Italy, is used as a case of study to represent concepts developed in the chapter.

scholarly journals Zlín: Public Art and the City

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
Jana Snedarova
Keyword(s):  
Public Art ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modernist Architecture ◽  
A Site ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
The City

In this article, the topic of public art in an urban environment of the post-industrial city is viewed in the context of one place – Zlín. Contemporary artworks integrated into the city spaces show the city as a site, in the context of its Modernist architecture and urbanism. They reflect both the past and the present-day changes in society and the way how we see and experience the world. Public art in Zlín has become part of the transformation and regeneration of public spaces fostering the enhancement of the quality of lives of local urban residents. It is evident from the research that Zlín can be perceived as a place with great potential for new art projects and for the public’s participation and engagement.

scholarly journals Can development axes be identified by socio-economic variables? The case of Czechia

Geografie ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiří Blažek ◽  
Pavlína Netrdová
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
The Past ◽  
Socio Economic Variables ◽  
Regional Analyses ◽  
The City ◽  
Growth Centres ◽  
Autocorrelation Method

This article aims to contribute to existing analyses of regional development in the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by conducting a detailed regional analysis at the municipal (LAU II) level in Czechia. The focus on such a detailed regional level allows for the testing of several hypotheses, for which traditional regional analyses based on NUTS II – NUTS III data were insufficient. First, we investigate whether development axes, as used in planning documents, manifest themselves at a higher level of socioeconomic development. Second, we expect the formation of clusters, exhibiting a higher level of socioeconomic development, around strong growth centres, such as the city of Mladá Boleslav. Third, we explore whether increasing differentiation has shifted from the regional level to the microregional/local level during the past 15 years of the post-socialist transformation. To address these hypotheses, we analyze a set of socioeconomic variables with the help of the spatial autocorrelation method, which allows us to generalize the inevitably, highly fragmented patterns found at the local level.

scholarly journals How People Reclaimed Public Spaces in Beirut during the 2019 Lebanese Uprising

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-218
Author(s):  
Wael Sinno
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Structural Damage ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lebanese Civil War ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Green Zone ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The City

Over the past years, popular uprisings across the Middle East continue to grow. Throughout these movements, public spaces have played a crucial role in allowing citizens to express their demands. Public spaces have brought people together, providing the space for citizens to assert their rights to freedom of speech and demanding basic rights. Since 17 October 2019, Lebanon has been experiencing a similar civic movement. Expressions and manifestations of this movement have used underutilized public spaces across the country. For instance, in Beirut, the retrieve of public spaces has taken place on three levels: - Multi-purpose public spaces: where the protestors are reshaping the wide formal streets of Beirut Central District to active and lively urban spaces. - Open public spaces: such as Samir Kassir garden, which was once a meditative space, is now a vibrant social place. - Public urban facilities: such as the abandoned Egg [1] and the deteriorated Grand Theatre are being brought to life by becoming respectively a community centre and an observatory. To date, the act of placemaking and the reclamation of public spaces has been observed throughout the 2019 Lebanese Uprising. It has reconfigured public spaces into ones of unity, thereby reuniting citizens of all ages, religions, gender and walks of life. Some see the uprising as a genuine end to the 1975 Civil War – a war that gave birth to religious, political, and social boundaries – by organically bringing together the country as one, demonstrating under one flag, the Lebanese flag. [1] The Egg, an unfinished cinema built in the 1960s, is a landmark urban facility that was closed to the public for a long time. The Egg is located in the heart of the city near the former Civil War green zone line. Designed by Architect Joseph Philippe Karam, work on this unfinished structure started in the 1960s, interrupted by the Lebanese Civil War during which the building was abandoned and suffered major structural damage.

scholarly journals Landscape in Historical Urban Textures: “Walled City Nicosia From the Past To The Present”

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Esra Köksald ◽  
Zihni Turkan ◽  
Buket Asilsoy
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Republic Of Cyprus ◽  
The City ◽  
Historical Periods

Historical urban textures are the whole of the open and closed public spaces with the buildings and transportation axis, shaped by the cultural heritages of cities. One of the most important elements in historical urban textures, bringing dwellers with nature, and giving life to the city, are landscape spaces.  The capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, also has a very rich historical texture. Within this context, the aim of this study is to examine the landscape of the historical urban texture of Nicosia from the past to the present, within the whole of various cultural periods including the present day status.  Therefore, the development of Nicosia through the historical process is given right after the introduction.  After the introduction, landscape of walled city of Nicosia was examined through the historical periods: Lusignan Period, Venetian Period, Ottoman Period, British Period, Republic of Cyprus Period, and the present day period, TRNC Period.

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