scholarly journals The Syrian diaspora in London through the transnational lens: a distinctive contribution to contemporary public space and citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Space Compression ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Migratory Experience

Despite cyclical attempts to depict migratory flows as extraordinary, migration has always had a place in human history. Considering the magnitude of human mobility across borders, the management of migrant citizens adopted by affluent Western economies appears both inappropriate and fuelled by panic. Assuming the contemporary time-space compression, the re-articulation of orientalism and neocolonial enterprises and the increasing popular discontent towards renewed exclusionary logic, the Syrian diaspora proves to be a crucial interlocutor to understand patterns of transformation and anticipate new spaces of citizenship. Through Syrians’ first-hand experience we will try to analyze the Syrian diaspora in the UK beyond the lexicon of humanitarian assistance. A transnational approach and a qualitative, intersectional methodology have been employed to gather relevant information in regard to Syrians’ migratory experience, with a focus on their activities in the public space. Ultimately Syrians’ accounts will provide a rich, indispensable viewpoint to all-encompassing issues such as human mobility, aesthetics, public space and citizenship.

UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTIONS OF CHANGE: A PATHWAYS CONTRIBUTION TO COMMUNITY CONSULTATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION-MAKING

2004 ◽  
Vol 06 (02) ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK LEMON ◽  
PAUL JEFFREY ◽  
BRIAN S. MCINTOSH ◽  
TIM OXLEY
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Community Consultation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Environmental Decision Making ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Uk

Participation has become part of the language of environmental management. While this move is positive there remains a danger that overly formalised and restricted participatory procedures, in terms of the information sought, may constrain and hinder dialogue and learning between the public and management agencies. Responses to specific issues are often sought from members of the public without a clear understanding about whether those issues are salient to them, where they are salient or how they fit into multiple and dynamic interpretations of environmental change. This paper uses case study material from the UK to demonstrate a novel Pathways Approach to the recording and analysis of individual perceptions about environmental change. The approach seeks to concentrate on experience and interpretation and is based on the conceptualisation of perceived cause–effect relationships and the pathways that support them. The links between time, space and community are considered within this analysis, as is the potential for improved participation through the provision of policy relevant information to planners and environmental managers operating in complex, multi-perspective situations.

Yelling ‘Fire’ in a Crowded Occupation: Cynical Fire Hazard Claims and the Technocratic Containment of Dissent

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-573
Author(s):  
Honor Brabazon
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Fire Hazard ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Uk

While the privatisation of public space has been the subject of considerable research, literature exploring the shifting boundaries between public and private law, and the role of those shifts in the expansion of neo-liberal social relations, has been slower to develop. This article explores the use of fire safety regulations to evict political occupations in the context of these shifts. Two examples from the UK student occupation movement and two from the US Occupy movement demonstrate how discourses and logics of both private and public law are mobilised through fire hazard claims to create the potent image of a neutral containment of dissent on technical grounds in the public interest – an image that proves difficult to contest. However, the recourse to the public interest and to expert opinion that underpins fire hazard claims is inconsistent with principles governing the limited neo-liberal political sphere, which underscores the pragmatic and continually negotiated implementation of neo-liberal ideas. The article sheds light on the complexity of the extending reach of private law, on the resilience of the public sphere and on the significance of occupations as a battleground on which struggles over neo-liberal social relations and subjectivities play out.

scholarly journals Public interest in immunity: justification for intervention in the early stages of COVID-19 (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunna Kwan ◽  
Jinhee Lee ◽  
Jun Young Lee ◽  
Keum Hwa Lee ◽  
Sung Hwi Hong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Google Search

UNSTRUCTURED Our study aimed to identify the interest and correlation between the proliferation of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19), interest in immunity and products that have been discussed to confer an enhancement of immunity, while suggesting the measures of intervention to be undertaken from a health and medical point of view. To assess the level of public interest in infectious disease during the initial days of the outbreak of COVID-19, we extracted Google search data from the past year based on the date of 15th of March 2020, which is approximately two months after the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to determine whether the public became interested in the immune system, we selected ‘coronavirus’, ‘immune’, ‘vitamin’ as our final search term. The increase in cumulative confirmed cases of coronavirus after January 20 had a strong positive correlation with search volumes for the terms ‘coronavirus’ (R = 0.786, P < .0001), ‘immune’ (R = 0.745, P < .0001) and ‘vitamin’ (R = 0.778, P < .0001), and the variables were all mutually statistically significant. Moreover, these correlations were confirmed on a country-basis when we restricted analyses to the US, the UK, Italy, and Korea. Our findings revealed that increases in search volumes for ‘coronavirus’ and ‘immune’ preceded the actual occurrences of confirmed cases. Our study implicates that during the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis, the public’s desire and actions to strengthen their own immune systems were enhanced. Further, in the early stage of a pandemic there is a high potential of social media to inform the public about potentially helpful measures to prevent the spread of an infectious disease and provide relevant information about immunity and thereby increase the knowledge.

Join the queue: Including women’s toilet needs in public space

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 908-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Greed
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Gender Recognition ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Public ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Gender Neutral ◽  
The Uk

The trend towards desegregated women’s and men’s toilets, including installing Gender Neutral Toilets (GNTs), and the implications of revisions to the Gender Recognition Act for women-only spaces, have brought into focus the pre-existing lack of female toilet provision in the UK. Looking at the problem from a town planning perspective, I argue that austerity-driven cuts are coming together with GNT provision to reshape the public toilet landscape in ways that continue to be detrimental to women. Typically women are only provided with half as many facilities as men, resulting in queues for the Ladies, and GNT provision based on relabelling rather than redesigned or additional provision can, in fact, increase competition for the cubicles in the Ladies. The historical, legislative and cultural reasons for this inequality are explored, along with the different types of public toilet and the different requirements of male and female users. The article draws on previous research project findings, many of which foreshadow the problems currently coming to the fore as a result of toilet desegregation. In conclusion, recommendations are made as to how to deal with the conundrum of providing adequate facilities for all women and men, whilst providing all sorts of individuals with choice and privacy to create inclusive, accessible cities for all.

scholarly journals Enacting property: Making space for the public in the municipal library

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M Freeman ◽  
Nick Blomley
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Property ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
Social Service Provider ◽  
The Uk

The space of the municipal library is changing. Libraries are no longer the traditional haven for quiet contemplation. In many cities across North America and the UK, municipal libraries have become a central social hub, a social service provider and a place of shelter for the marginal. In combination with technological advances and the hovering threat of budget cuts, the space of the library and the multiple publics it serves has becoming increasingly debated. We argue that the library and its changing mandate can be usefully understood through a property lens. The library is not only public space, we argue, but also public property. The manner in which the library, as public property, is enacted, is complicated most immediately by the competing conceptions of the ‘public’ that the library is to serve, but also by the ambivalent relationship between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’, and by the spatiality of the library itself. We demonstrate these complications in the context of changes to the sleeping policy in the Edmonton Public Library in Alberta, Canada (2014–2015).

scholarly journals Slow Rise of Trade Politicisation in the UK and Brexit

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 348-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
María García
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Moderate Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Transatlantic Trade ◽  
Slow Rise ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Trade And Investment ◽  
The Eu

Since the Brexit referendum, the UK government has deployed a vision of ‘Global Britain’ revolving around trade agreements, yet, this was not a key issue in the referendum. Drawing on politicisation literature, we explore the absence of visible activism around future trade policy, in contrast to moderate activity around the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). We identify actors in UK TTIP mobilisation and trace their actions post-referendum, revealing politicisation as campaigners participate in channels for attempting to influence future UK trade policy. In the presence of these channels and lack of full clarity on future policy, to date, recourse to visible mobilisation in the public space has not yet occurred. Tracing this dynamic process, intertwining Brexit and trade policy, enables us to understand how politicisation of one process affects another. Crucially, given the context of re-nationalisation of trade policy, it allows us to explore how politicisation is operationalised in the absence of one of the key conditions for politicisation suggested in the literature: the transfer of authority to a more remote level of governance.

“Open to the public”

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-266
Author(s):  
Laurence Kimmel ◽  
Mike Barnard ◽  
Aysu Kuru
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Security Design ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Concert Halls ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
The Uk

PurposeThe cultural imperative for public buildings in countries like Australia to maintain their intrinsic “openness” – physically and symbolically – faces particular challenges in the context of current global terrorism concerns. Building regulations and counter-terrorism guidelines coexist uneasily, with implications for both public amenity and safety. This is particularly evident in the context of current approaches to hostile vehicle (HV) mitigation.Design/methodology/approachBased on a review of comparative literature, this multidisciplinary project assimilates design aesthetics and security expertise to assess the advantages and limitations of current counter-terrorism design approaches in Australia, the UK and the USA. The research focusses on public buildings of high cultural symbolic value (e.g. concert halls) in the context of HV mitigation.FindingsTwo key recommendations emerge. The first presents the benefits of adopting a layered security strategy tailored to a building's security and symbolic profile mix. The second proposes enhancements to the existing counter-terrorism guidelines based on a model that accounts for both symbolic value and openness.Originality/valueThe research presents new strategies for urban design and security stakeholders to balance openness and security in the design of publicly accessible buildings. While existing research addresses the challenges of terrorism in the design of public space, a literature (and practice) gap exists in Australia, the UK and the USA regarding current approaches to the design of public buildings. Using Australia as a case study, the findings will inform government and industry practitioners seeking more complementary approaches to public amenity and safety in comparable counter-security design contexts globally.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

Public space of the trustworthiness of sociological knowledge: The case of electoral research

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
OLEKSANDR STEGNII
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
Sociological Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Approval Ratings ◽  
The Impact

The paper analyses specific features of sociological data circulation in a public space during an election campaign. The basic components of this kind of space with regard to sociological research are political actors (who put themselves up for the election), voters and agents. The latter refer to professional groups whose corporate interests are directly related to the impact on the election process. Sociologists can also be seen as agents of the electoral process when experts in the field of electoral sociology are becoming intermingled with manipulators without a proper professional background and publications in this field. In a public space where an electoral race is unfolding, empirical sociological research becomes the main form of obtaining sociological knowledge, and it is primarily conducted to measure approval ratings. Electoral research serves as an example of combining the theoretical and empirical components of sociological knowledge, as well as its professional and public dimensions. Provided that sociologists meet all the professional requirements, electoral research can be used as a good tool for evaluating the trustworthiness of results reflecting the people’s expression of will. Being producers of sociological knowledge, sociologists act in two different capacities during an election campaign: as analysts and as pollsters. Therefore, it is essential that the duties and areas of responsibility for professional sociologists should be separated from those of pollsters. Another thing that needs to be noted is the negative influence that political strategists exert on the trustworthiness of survey findings which are going to be released to the public. Using the case of approval ratings as an illustration, the author analyses the most common techniques aimed at misrepresenting and distorting sociological data in the public space. Particular attention is given to the markers that can detect bogus polling companies, systemic violations during the research process and data falsification.

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