The Visual Poetics of Play: Childhood in Three Canadian Graphic Novels

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-301
Author(s):  
Cheryl Cowdy

This article explores the ideological work of play as it is represented in three contemporary graphic narratives – Kean Soo's Jellaby and Jellaby: monster in the city, and Mariko & Jillian Tamaki's Skim, analyzing the relationship these texts create between urban spaces and the ‘innovative’ spaces of the panel and page. The author is interested in the various ways the graphic novel can be read as a ‘leisure genre’ (to borrow a term coined by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner) that creates a dynamic, interactive ecology, encouraging protagonists and readers to participate in a ludic, pediarchic poetics of play. The content and the formal properties of these texts posit ‘play’ dynamically in relationship to ‘flow’ as a subject of the texts' critique, but also as an activity occurring in the liminal spaces in and between panels. The novels address readers as clever, sophisticated accomplices in the meaning-making process. Play is represented as subversive of adult authoritarianism and narrative domination, thwarting the co-optation and commodification of play in the cultures of young people.

Author(s):  
Nadja Monnet ◽  
Mouloud Boukala ◽  
Aaron Marchand

Research Framework:Many authors prefer to focus on the acrimonious relationship that exists between children and the city. This narrative is given as a story of eviction, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, and the ubiquitous arrival of motorized traffic ; a phenomenon that has only accelerated over time. It is a radical separation between a before, which represents a golden age for children where the city revolved around them, and an after were children are represented as being shut in at home, forbidden from playing in the street and connected to the world via their smartphones and tablets. Despite this alarmist discourse, it is important to remember that children and teenagers continue to explore and socialize within their cities regardless of whether they are not (or are no longer) in the majority.Objectives : This introductory article to “Exploring the City : Children and Teenagers’ Relationship with Public Spaces” is designed to present the state of research as well as paths of reflection and innovative actions on how children and teenagers experience the city, the way they act and how they are influenced by contemporary spaces.Methodology :The introductory article is based on a review of work done in the fields of anthropology, history, geography, architecture and urban studies, all of which discuss the relationship between urban spaces and children and teenagers. This analysis is juxtaposed by ongoing projects that ask the opinions of youths to establish a consensus-building approach to urbanism and urban redevelopment in cities, metropolises and megacities.Results :By including all age groups (children and teenagers) as well as the types of spaces that are generally kept separate, the articles presented herein ask us to consider several important aspects including : the presence of youths in urban spaces, the standardization, regulation and gamification of certain public spaces ; the appeal of closed spaces (interiors, shopping centres) and their appropriation ; the practise of physical activities ; autonomous mobility ; the interest in digital media and familial injunctions to assess the influence of parents and siblings on the relationships that young people have with the city.Conclusions :This article focuses on the necessity of taking an intersectional approach that considers a broad range of variables including gender, age and socio-geographical origin, race in particular, to analyze the relationships between children and teenagers and public spaces. Here we reveal the importance of the passage between interior spaces (homes, schools, youth homes, recreational centres, etc.) and exterior spaces, whether the exploration of streets, parks, gardens and shopping malls remains possible as well studying the relations and tension that exist between families and children, between youths and the managers of these spaces, between youths with and without adult supervision and between youths and adult users of public spaces as both actors and witnesses.Contribution:This article takes a look at the societal and anthropological issues that affect the relationship between public spaces and children and teens in over a dozen cities located in Europe, North America, Northern Africa and the Middle East. It identifies paths of exploration and paths of implementation on this topic.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Crush ◽  
Ndeyapo Nickanor ◽  
Lawrence Kazembe

Informal settlements in rapidly-growing African cities are urban and peri-urban spaces with high rates of formal unemployment, poverty, poor health outcomes, limited service provision, and chronic food insecurity. Traditional concepts of food deserts developed to describe North American and European cities do not accurately capture the realities of food inaccessibility in Africa’s urban informal food deserts. This paper focuses on a case study of informal settlements in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, to shed further light on the relationship between informality and food deserts in African cities. The data for the paper was collected in a 2016 survey and uses a sub-sample of households living in shack housing in three informal settlements in the city. Using various standard measures, the paper reveals that the informal settlements are spaces of extremely high food insecurity. They are not, however, food deprived. The proximity of supermarkets and open markets, and a vibrant informal food sector, all make food available. The problem is one of accessibility. Households are unable to access food in sufficient quantity, quality, variety, and with sufficient regularity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-165
Author(s):  
Duygu Turgut Turgut

While the squares have been in the network of relations with the political, social and religious structure of the society since the early days of history, today, they have been associated with the cars, speed and technology in the process formed with the modernization movement. In some squares, there are tramways, public transportation routes and stops, and there are also motor vehicles. The squares have turned into places where there is a continuous flow with fast traffic except for waiting at the bus stops and railway station. With this change, our needs also changed, and with the introduction of motor vehicles in our lives, the squares remained as neglected urban spaces in an effort to create a transportation network. The use of the squares belongs to the period in which people have habit of being together, but now squares use belongs to a period in which we are not together even if we are side by side. Within the scope of this study, nowadays, approaches and practices for the squares that is an urban space in the world have been investigated. According to the results of sections, the criteria for evaluating the completeness of the city-square relationship in today’s conditions are set out in a table. The selected from the Trafalgar Square, Bryant Park and Taksim Square samples consecutively examined in the context of these criteria.


Author(s):  
Carmen María López-López

El propósito de este artículo es analizar la escritura de Lara Moreno en el marco de la narrativa neorrural. Nuevas tendencias literarias como el ruralismo o el giro hacia el campo suponen una reacción contra el poder hegemónico de las ciudades que emergió en el siglo XX. La ficción española ofrece en muchos casos un camino narrativo para explorar las representaciones literarias del ruralismo en el siglo XXI. Desde esta perspectiva, se propone profundizar en Por si se va la luz, una novela escrita por Lara Moreno en la que Nadia y Martín abandonan la ciudad para ir a vivir al campo ante el ascenso de la crisis económica. Este acontecimiento supone una grieta o un corte desde una perspectiva simbólica, de acuerdo con los diferentes ejes en que la novela se estructura: la tensión entre los espacios rural y urbano, los cruces entre los instintos animales, la sexualidad y la racionalidad, así como la relación que los personajes establecen con el lenguaje y el silencio para verbalizar la distopía desde un escenario rural. The aim of this article is to analyze the writing of Lara Moreno in the frame of neorrural narrative. New literary tendencies such as ruralism or the turn to the countryside suposes a reaction against the hegemonic power of cities which rise on twenty centuries. Spanish fiction offers in many ways a narrative camine to explore literary representations of ruralism in XXI century. From this perspective, it is proposed to delve into Por si se va la luz (2013) a novel written by Lara Moreno, in which Nadia and Martín leave the city to go to live to the countryside considering the rise of economic crisis. This event suposes a crack or cut on a simbolic way, according to the different axis in which the novel is structured: the tension between rural and urban spaces, the between animal instints, sexuality and rationality, so as to the relationship which character stablish with language and silence in order to verbalize the dystopia from the rural scenery.


2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-147
Author(s):  
Claire Cochrane

In NTQ61, Deborah Saivetz described the attempts over the past decade of the Italian director Pino DiBuduo to create ‘invisible cities’ – performances intended to restore the relationship between urban spaces and their inhabitants, through exploring the actual and spiritual histories of both. Earlier in the present issue, Baz Kershaw suggests some broader analogies between the theatre and its macrocosmic environment. Here, Claire Cochrane, who teaches at University College, Worcester, narrows the focus to a particular British city and the role over time of a specific theatre in relation to its urban setting. Her subject is the history and development of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in relation to the city – of which its founder, Barry Jackson, was a lifelong resident – as an outcome of the city's growth in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, which made it distinctive in terms of its manufactures, the workers and entrepreneurs who produced them, and a civic consciousness that was disputed yet also shared. She traces, too, the transition between old and new theatre buildings and spaces which continued to reflect shifting class and cultural relationships as the city, its politicians, and its planners adapted to the second half of the twentieth century.


Author(s):  
Rosario Sommella

The article, based on the scientific results of the last phase of the project “Retail, Consumption, and the City: Practices, Planning and Governance for Urban Inclusion, Resilience and Sustainability”, proposes further reflections on the changing urban landscapes of retail and consumption through studies on Italy and Catalonia. This stage of the research project has been aimed at investigating – through specific in-depth studies (thematic or related to case studies) – aspects not adequately dealt with in the published volumes of the seven research units, or even to take inspiration from themes and cases already dealt with to advance in a reflection that could contribute to build a further piece of a new research agenda on retail, consumption, and the city. By cross-referencing descriptive evidence and theoretical reflections, the article traces the main themes of this special issue, with regard to the evolutionary and, in some cases, analytical trajectories starting as from the different case studies analyzed, all aimed at reflecting on the relationship between consumption, retail and urban spaces in Italy and Catalonia at different scales.


2021 ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
David De la Osada Saurí ◽  
María Dolores Pitarch-Garrido

Resumen: Las ciudades experimentan cambios rápidos. Uno de estos tiene como elemento disruptivo el crecimiento del turismo, es decir, de la atractividad de determinados espacios urbanos que ha dado lugar a un aumento de la oferta para los visitantes, tanto de recursos como, sobre todo, de alojamiento. Un elemento clave para explicar este aumento de la oferta es el alquiler turístico o alquiler de corta duración a través de plataformas digitales, entre las que destaca Airbnb. En la ciudad de Valencia, este fenómeno ha experimentado un crecimiento espectacular durante el segundo decenio del presente siglo. A partir de un análisis detallado de la oferta turística en los barrios de Valencia, se detecta una concentración en aquellos espacios con cierto atractivo turístico. En la presente investigación se realiza una aproximación a la relación existente entre el proceso de turistificación, medido a través de la oferta presente en la plataforma digital Airbnb en la ciudad de Valencia, y otros fenómenos como el aumento del precio del alquiler en algunos barrios, el impacto de los proyectos urbanísticos y de protección del patrimonio, etc. En conclusión, parece demostrado que Airbnb ha encontrado acomodo aumentando la presión turística en los barrios centrales y el frente marítimo, sin embargo, aún no se ha llegado a los límites de saturación que existen en otras ciudades, al menos así se desprende del análisis de la opinión de los residentes. El parón turístico originado por la pandemia del Covid-19 puede ser una oportunidad para replantear el modelo turístico de la ciudad.   Palabras clave: Turistificación; Valencia; Airbnb; alquiler vacacional.   Abstract: Cities are undergoing rapid change. One of these transformations has as its disruptive element the growth of tourism, that is, the attractiveness of certain urban spaces which has led to an increase in the supply for visitors, both of resources and, above all, of accommodation. A key element in explaining this increase in short-term rental flats through platforms, among which Airbnb stands out.  In the city of Valencia, this phenomenon has experienced spectacular growth during the second decade of this century. Based on a detailed analysis of the tourist offer in the neighbourhoods of Valencia, a concentration has been detected in those areas with a certain tourist attraction. This research do an approximation to the relationship between the process of tourism, measured through the offer in the Airbnb platform in the city of Valencia and other phenomena such as the increase in rent in some neighbourhoods, the impact of urban planning and heritage protection projects, etc. In conclusion, it seems to be demonstrated that Airbnb has found accommodation by increasing the tourist pressure in the central districts and the waterfront, however, the saturation limits which exist in other cities have not yet been reached, at least this is clear from the analysis of the residents' opinion. The tourist stoppage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic may be an opportunity to rethink the city's tourism model.   Key words: Tourist Board; Valencia; Airbnb; holiday rental.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Pantaleo

The overarching purpose of the classroom-based research featured in this article was to explore the development of middle-year students’ visual meaning-making skills and competencies. The research was informed by multimodality and social semiotics, and embraced a sociocultural perspective of literacy and a transactional theory of literature. Over a period of several weeks, Grade 7 students had opportunities to learn about a selection of elements of visual art and design, and some conventions of graphic novels, including paneling. In addition to reading, responding in writing to, and discussing a selection of picturebooks, graphic novels and magazine issues, the students composed their own texts using the medium of comics. In this article I focus on the paneling in the graphic narratives created by seven student participants. The content analysis of the students’ graphic narratives revealed the intentionality of their panel meaning-making, and the semantic and syntactic qualities embodied in their paneling. Excerpts from the students’ interviews revealed how learning about the what, why and how of paneling affected the composing of their work. I conclude the article with a consideration of some pedagogical issues associated with the teaching of paneling and other conventions in the medium of comics.


ALQALAM ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
M. Alie Humaedi

The making image of cultural pradices of santri in the City of Kudus is very unique; it is a mixture of the modern consumtive culture and traditional productive culture. The accommodative form of both cultures has influenced the. symbols of traditional city, considered as the saint city, which has many religious meanings. Mall Kudus means not only as the centre of consumptive economy, but also as the cultural centre that tries to meet traditional and modern elements in their covers. Santri, then, becotnes a groupf of people who enjoy best this condition. This article tries to answer the main question about the position of Mall Kudus in the process of the formation of comsumtive culutre of Santri. After collecting data by using interoiews, observation, and documentation, and analyzing by using qualitative explanatory method, this research shows the relationship between the maagement of urban space and the formation of cousumtive culture of santri. This conclusion is based on the aspect of the management of urban spaces, especially the building of Mall, which exspressively creates the consumtive culture of the santri; even the traditional santri. Key Words: Consumptive Culture, City Symbol, Mal Kudus, Santri


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-602
Author(s):  
Nadia Charalambous

The rationale behind this article is an identified need for enhancing research on the relationship between the physical and the social aspects of the city of Nicosia through the lens of spatial history. Building on Baker’s categorizations of approaches to space in historical research and a syntactical, morphological approach to historical subjects, this article proposes an integrated methodology for researching historical space that may prove important to inform forms of urban segregation patterns. The article maintains that the analysis of the relationship between the physical, material form of a city and social processes at distinct historical periods may be key to understanding patterns of socio-spatial phenomena as well as for interpreting historical data of how people were distributed in cities and what they actually did in urban spaces at particular points in time.


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